I've been lurking for a few days and finally got brave enough to post.

D-day for me was this past Wednesday on the 6th of April (though I had been suspecting a few things for a while beforehand). Well he is not at the point of breaking of contact with "her" and I have been trying to implement Plan A since finding this site on the day after D-day.

Things were going pretty good today. I'd kept up a positive mood. We went and walked at the park and out to dinner and had some conversation (though he was mopey a good bit of the time).

But when we returned home, he went upstairs to play the online game Worlds of Warcraft and "she" logged in and they began doing some quests together.

Well I obviously had a problem with it and made that clear. Not angrily, but stayed in the room until he logged off. Then he was angry at me. I tried responding in compassionate ways, but it only seemed to make him more angry.

After he went back and logged into the game a few minutes later, I went up said something like though I didn't condone what he was doing, if I'd hurt him or treated him in any way less than respectfully, then I am sorry and I apologize for that.

Well he responded that it was too late for him to have fun (probably because "she" was no longer online) and he continued to be angry. So I just left him be at that point and went and did my own thing. I don't know if "she" eventually logged back on or not.

My question is that since he is not willing to break contact with her, how should I deal with this situation in the future? Should I just ignore them both being in the game and hope he comes around by piling on more Plan A, or should I continue to express my disapproval in some way when it happens?

Boy. Right now I am NOT the person to be answering this one, but I DO believe in the tenets of this site.

The intent of Plan A is to make yourself the "better" choice. It is not fair. It is not right. It sucks. But if your goal is to save the marriage, you must start with Plan A. Which essentially says, "Hey, I am the better choice." That means no angry outburst, no disrespectful judgements. You become "superwife." And that also means no expectations.

If all goes well, your WS will realize all this, go through his withdrawal, and begin to work on the marriage. That is the template. Is it easy? No. Does it always work? No. But it is DEFINATELY the best chance for success. There are too many recovered marriages on this board for that not to be true.

HOWEVER. Not every WS will cooperate. There are some things that are "on them" as well. One of them is NO CONTACT. Which is absolutely NO CONTACT. But you starting Plan A and him agreeing to no contact do not necessarily coincide, happen at the same time.

Is plan A a carte blanche for the wayward spouse to do what they want? SOME BS feel that way. SOME do not. Circumstances usually dicatate this. You need to figure out how badly you want this to work. That will dictate to what extent you can "Plan A." Keeping in mind that the better and longer you do this, the greater your chance (not guarantee, but chance) for success.

So what if it doesn't work? It doesn't work when you can't take it anymore. THEN you Plan B. That is when you cut HIM loose and have NO CONTACT with him. It is a last ditch effort to save your marriage. Kind of like a "so, let's just see how well you do without me" but it is not so spiteful in it's intent. The intent is to actually protect YOU. To get YOU off the rollercoaster.

Lots of people have links to Plan A/Plan B in their signature lines. You need to understand them for the greatest chances of success.

My parting comment is this: If you don't approach this thinking that it is all about YOU, come back when you can. Only YOU are in YOUR control. You must be the best person (including wife) you can be. That means owning YOUR mistakes. Regardless of what your WH does. This site is about fixing your marriage, but the undertone is even more important. It is about being a better person. Be honest, own your mistakes, and you will have the BEST chance for success.

NCWalker

Welcome to MB. I know that this place was a sanctuary for me in the months after D-Day and I hope you find some peace here too.

Plan A can be difficult to navigate when you start it. For me, one of the difficult parts to 'get' was that while the angry outbursts and disrespectful judgements had to go, that in no way meant I could not place and enforce boundaries.

That is exactly what I think is at issue here. My suggestion would be to sit down with WH at a peaceful time and let him know that communicating with OW in YOUR HOME is disrespectful to you. Isn't that almost funny...having to point that out to someone in an affair?

But I believe you are completely justified and still implementing a perfect Plan A by telling him it is simply not acceptable to continue the contact at home, especially with you there!

Now, don't threaten "if you do I'll do this or that". Just tell him simply, Please do not have contact with her even on line in OUR home. This is disrespectful and something I can not tolerate."

Will he stop? Probably not. At that point, when you see him doing it, remind him of the conversation and have some fun with reverse babbling him. (see Orchid's thread if you haven't already read it).

My STBXH had been talking with OW in our home and I came here one day writing of how hard it is to stay in Plan A and deal with it.

I believe it was WAT and Pep who laid out the facts.... boundaries are not only OKAY but NECCESARY!! Do it in a loving way.

Don't apologize for it though. Don't LB when you do it and stand firm in the rightness of your request. Plan A does assume the affair is still active or there is at least contact. You don't have a responsibility to enable it by allowing him to use your electricity and electronic equipment though.

There was more than one time when STBXH would be communicating with her at our home, I would ask him to stop, he wouldn't, I'd reverse babble. Then, at a point I deemed to be advantageous for me.... I'd go put on some cute heels, spritz some perfume and flip my hair as I walked out the door saying "Well, I'm going to go out for some fresh air. See ya later."

The coffee shop down the street got to know me really well last summer. That was my way of coping. Set the boundary, enforce it as far as I was able and then remove myself in a sweet and flirty fashion from his cruel behaviour.

Don't feel you have to let him act however he wants just because you are in Plan A. SEt your boundaries, dear. You've probably got a long road ahead of you.

OK, a subject I know well. I think that ALL online games need to have an additional warning label..."WARNING: This game may be hazardous to your relationships!"!!

My wife's EA was due to online gaming. It sounds like your husband may be in the same kind of boat.

Is this A an EA (Emotional Affair) or a PA (Physical Affair)?? Have they met in real life, or just in game? I know it sounds silly...someone falling in love for someone else in a game. But you would be amazed...I know of no less than seven marriages right now that have been damaged or destroyed by exactly this...and at this point, out of all those marriages, I'm in the only one that seems to have withstood the damage...tho' I know of one or two others that look as though they'll make it.

If they've not met in person, it's both easier and harder. Easier, because you're not dealing with the physical aspects of it...harder, because you're REALLY fighting a fantasy. It's sooo easy to romanticize someone online...because they only show what they want you to see that way.

So here's my thoughts...have you exposed the affair? His family, his friends...even his online friends! Especially if you game too, and they know you! Because it helps to make the whole thing come 'back to reality', and it begins to force them to deal with the real life consequences of their actions. You really HAVE to do this, because getting the affair out in the open is often a deathblow to it.

Personally, if that doesn't help your situation, I'd seriously consider 'accidentally' spilling a glass of water on the cable modem...LOL!!

Keep posting here friend. Take a look at my story, here on this site, and over on loveshack.org. I post there under 'owl'. Read through the posts here by Cardsonly, and 2Bnormal. They've both been involved in EA's that started online...it might give you some insight.

Hang in there, and good luck!

Thanks so much for the replies! Just lurking around this site and forum has been so very helpful to me. Also, the reverse babble tactic sounds to be a very good one. So far, he hasn't really said too many negative things to me, just mostly just sits and doesn't say anything at all unless he's acting "normal." Going to study it though as I'm sure there will be times when I will need it.

No, the affair didn't start online. We actually met this woman at a tabletop D&D game another friend was running. At the time she was the long-term girlfriend of one of the other players. They had always had difficulties with one another and broke up last year. Supposedly the boyfriend kicked her out of the house and she went and bought and new house and moved out. However, they still have contact with each other regularly at D&D (which I and my husband had long since stopped going to for other reasons) and movies and such.

However, she had started talking to my husband about her relationship with this boyfriend and I guess getting support from him about it. At the time I didn't think anything of it because I have had plenty of male and female friends (both online and off) in my time and have never even been tempted. They had started having lunch together from time to time which he told me about, but I grew more and more uncomfortable about it and finally told him I was uncomfortable and asked him to stop meeting her for lunch. I don't really know whether or not he stopped that. Probably not, but who knows?

Then Worlds of Warcraft came out and they all started playing. I had had plans to play Everquest 2 and so my husband was playing both games, but didn't really get too involved with EQ2, though to be fair he didn't spend a ton of time in WoW either. However, when he did play WoW, he was playing with her and/or the others.

He also chats with her from time to time on Yahoo and email, which was finally the catalyst for him finally admitting something was going on and that he had "strong feelings" for her. I came into the room and he screenlocked a conversation they were apparantly having and I got upset and finally it came out.

Now he's in a "I don't know what to do" state. His feelings for me "aren't the same as they were" and he "doesn't know why" and he "really likes being around her" and "finds her exciting." Note that we've been together for 15 years and married for about six. He *says* they haven't done anything physical *yet* but that he wants to and when I mention that he really shouldn't do that, he doesn't really understand why I would think that.

Pointing out many things rationally don't help in this state of course. THe woman has already had one bad marriage, then this bad boyfriend relationship (she was apparantly unwilling to marry him for whatever reason), she flirts and chats online with many other guys (no idea if she does the same offline as I don't have much contact with her personally and I have no idea what other past relationships she's had), and if I question my husband about if he really thinks she would commit to him, love him, etc. he says he "doesn't know." Actually "I don't know" is usually his answer to just about everything and that he needs to "think and figure things out" and that he's been "agonizing over this for weeks."

I haven't yet done any exposing as I'm not sure whether or not exposing them to these other friends (mostly his friends really) would really help or it would just drive the two of them together more due to possible mutual enemies. (And that's only if the friends actually disapprove. They aren't really *that* great of friends so they may not care.) Exposing to the former boyfriend *might* be helpful but then again it might just drive her even closer to my husband.

I do have serious doubts that she would ever be able to totally commit herself to him due to all the mess she's been in in the past and I've even told my husband that he would be hurting *her* as much as anyone else by dragging *her* through all this and that unless he is willing to be rid of me entirely, he would not be willing to commit himself entirely to her which wouldn't be fair to her either. I'd suggested he should just let her go for those reasons and not make things worse than they already are for everyone.

I was weepy and emotional the first couple days or so, but I've gotten a good bit of control of myself since then. This whole thing now just seems utterly ridiculous to me and I'm not just going to sit around worrying about things all day every day no matter how much it otherwise hurts me.

However, I do love him and very much want him back in mind, body, and spirit and so am going to do whatever I possibly can to help him through this illness. He is my best friend as well as my husband and a best friend doesn't just sit and let their friends destroy themselves.

One thing that did put me into a bit of a panic is that I haven't really had any "real" jobs since getting married and getting out of school and so I've been focusing more on house and family (no children though) and only dabbling in other things. So my husband has been supporting me in this and I have no idea what to do financially if the worst happened. I still don't really, but I've decided not to worry about it. I'm thinking of possibly seeing a career counselor though at some point in the future. We also only have one car, so a lot of the places we go, we've always gone there together.

He *is* willing to see a counselor and was actually the one who initially suggested it back during D-day, but I'm so afraid of getting a bad one. He wants to go to one supported by his work's insurance and is supposed to be checking into that but hasn't yet. (Well unless he has been working on it today.) I don't think his procrastination is due to not wanting to see one though, he just naturally tends to procrastinate stuff like this. I'm going to ask him to give me a few names when he does find out something and then call them up myself and ask questions like in the article found over on Save Your Marriage Central.

He still hugged me on the way out to work today so things are still pretty cordial between us at least. It's just so very frustrating though.

Okay, I have made us an appointment with who I think may be a good marriage counselor in our area. Appointment is this Tuesday afternoon and my husband is fully cooperative about going.

However, with the good comes the bad. Tonight he has possible plans of going over to "her" house to watch a DVD series they had been watching each week (previously over at our house when they were "just friends" *sighs*) I tried to rationalize him out of it but he'll probably end up going there anyway. (This was over the phone with him earlier today when I called him at work to tell him about the appointment.)

Anyway, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately (obviously) about lots of stuff and though I sincerely hope we can get to making things better, things could very easily get worse. I have been financially dependant on him and even though I see something like divorce as being a last possible option after everything else has been tried, should I go ahead and contact a lawyer to find out what I might need to do to protect myself if worst comes to worst?

If so, how in the world do I do that? I always hear people saying "contact your lawyer," etc. but I've never before had any need for a lawyer and the phone book lists about 29837493873987 different lawyers. How do I go about finding one? What are generally the costs involved for mere information rather than actually starting up a legal process? I don't really know anyone who could refer me to anyone either as I haven't been very socially active lately and the few friends we have are mostly his friends.

Any advice out there on these things? In any case, I plan to be doing Plan A for quite some time yet.