Ok...so found out this morning that MP broke NC after nearly a month and contacted OM. I was (obviously) not happy about that, but we did talk through some things.

I'm beginning to think that either I've got the whole Plan A concept wrong, or I'm just amazingly incapable of doing it right for any significant period of time.

MP told me that I need to back off. Everyone (friends, family, her) can see that I'm trying very hard, and they can also see that I'm still expecting, on some level, to make some single unforgiveable mistake that will sink this ship once and for all. (If everyone can see this, then why don't they tell me?!? Ok..a few have made reference to pushing her away, but no one seems to want to tell me any specifics).

She's afraid to give me negative feedback because I seem more emotionally fragile right now than she has ever seen me (well, duh!). I told her that negative feedback isn't bad in and of itself - it depends on how its phrased. But without feedback, I'm left feeling like I'm in a vaccum and therefore I resort to the shotgun effect - do everything I can think of and hope some of it is the right stuff.

I understand that Plan A is about meeting the needs of the WS when they'll let you - but what happens when you can't tell what the needs are, and what they want? Or when they won't let you meet any, except for when they want you to? Yes, I realize that I've failed to learn my wife as well as I should have in the last 4-1/2 years, but now it's like trying to read the pages of a novel while in its in the display window of currently closed bookstore.

I also understand that Plan A is about making you the best you can be. I'm trying to do that, but a huge part of my life is missing right now. I still believe we can recover, but if not I don't see much point in making myself a great husband (or great husband material), as I'm pretty much "one and done" in this arena. I will make myself the best father, friend, brother, employee etc I can be, but other than that I don't see much purpose in fixing my marital persona up if MP is no longer my spouse. I do not believe that I will ever open up to another woman at that level again. Just call me Monk BB <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Maybe I'm expecting too much, too soon. But I just don't get how someone can say "I'm open to having a great marriage, but I'm not sure I want it, or I'm not sure it can happen." That's like stepping up to the free-throw line and saying "Well, I'm open to making this free-throw, but I don't know if I want it or not" and then getting upset when you brick....

This is more of a vent than anything. How long do I struggle on? Even with the help of God, I don't think I can do this forever. But I'd hate to give up when I'm on the verge of turning the corner...

BP,

Well, I should just call a spade a shovel right off of the top. If you don't see any reason to make yourself a better H, person, etc, then you really do need a cranial transplant.

Let's review what you have said.


Well, this has a double edge sword associated with it. First, you do need to be the best H you can, and you should try and meet the needs she will allow. Next, you can expect that the WS will feel smothered by these efforts. So what does YOUR feedback loop tell you? Are you pushing too hard? Do you feel like you are having to PUSH to do things? Or are these things coming naturally and easily for you?

HER friends are going to hear HER side of things and reflect that. Your friends are probably feeling that you should not only back off, you should dump her. ONLY YOU and your awareness of how you think, feel, and want to be can give you decent feedback. Yes, yes, I know the people here can as well, but we don't know you, your W. We do know these situations. They do have patterns.

Just remember it is not YOUR job to save this marriage. It is YOUR job to give this marriage the best chance it can have. YOU BOTH have to save this marriage and ultimately if your W does not sign on, it will NOT be saved. So are you giving it the best chance? Think about this abit.

Then you say
Well, alot of this is WS "fog". Further, she recontacted the OM, so you KNOW she is in the fog. It is HER job to be honest with you, and tell you what is going on. What you and she need to agree on is that there is RADICAL honesty, and there is BRUTAL honesty. Let her know you are asking for "radical" honesty. And yes you are emotionally fragil, as you said "DUH". She just doesn't want to face what she has done so she is blame shifting here.

Now about your "shotgun" approach. Stop that. Stop and think and PLAN. Your efforts should be focus and with a purpose. Your efforts should reflect your well thought out feelings, goals, and targets. Don't shot gun this.

You then ask
You do know your W better than you realize. IF you cannot identify a need, then you are not watching and listening to her conversations very well. I'll bet one need she has is for you to be the best father you can be (I do recall correctly that you have children, right?). Another, would be that your home be calm and tranquil. Another would be that you smile and get on with your life, while being friendly with her. Another would be that you recognize you don't understand her thinking and allow her time to get it straight (she doesn't understand it either if the truth be told).

Do those things BB. Treat her like you would like a friend to treat you. SHe is NOT your W yet. She has not gone through withdrawal successfully yet. You are NOT in recovery yet. At best she is your friend. Don't expect much, and don't go too far out on the limb for her either. She has not earned that yet.


You then state
BB, your W is NOT responsible for your happiness. Yes, she can bring sadness to your life, but it is your job to make yourself happy. She is NOT a huge part of you, but she has been for a mere 4.5 years a huge part of your life. All things considered if she left tomorrow, will be a very small part of your total life. Say, 4.5 years out of 80-90 years.

So this statement is a poor excuse for you not to plan A IF you want to plan A at all. This depends on your goals.



Here is where you need a cranial transplant. You MUST become a better husband. You must become a better person. Whether your W stays or goes, there will be other women in your life and YOUR happiness depends on what you have learned from this school of hard knocks. To NOT learn and become better is to mean that you have wasted a painful, hard lesson, and YOU WILL GET TO REPEAT IT IN THE FUTURE. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

As the tee shirt says "The beatings will continue until moral improves." You are taking a beating now, improve and it will stop. If you don't you can expect more.


And now you know why coaches have grey hair, or no hair at all. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Think about how many kids have that attitude about practice, studying, about commitment to their goals. What do coaches do?? They hang in there with their kids KNOWING that eventually MOST of them will get it, but it may take losing a few games or a season or two. Your W can and probably will grow up, but she is a child right now. Are you going to show her how to be an adult? That is what plan A is about. Well, coach are you quiting on the team or not?



And a mighty fine vent it is. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> BB set your goals, expect just what you are getting and have the patience of any good coach with a young and slightly unmotivated team. Consistency, patience, time, and an eye for the future are what you need.

God Bless,

JL

Hmm Bird,

Totally agree with JL.

But remember the purpose of Plan A is to break up an ongoing affair which is what you have.

Magpie WON'T let you meet her EN's because she is still in a fog and is still in her affair. In Plan A, your objective is to show her that IF she ends her affair you just MIGHT be capable of meeting th eneeds currently being met by the OM, piece of [censored] that he is. That's it.

And as JL so eloquently said, if you can't see wht you need to become a better bird, well you need a hit over the head with a 2 X 4.

I said to you once that your situation makes everything even more difficult and certainly Magpie is as full of entitlement as any WS I have ever seen on these boards. You need patience, consistency, and a miracle.

Hi JL -


Do you mean do I feel like I'm having to push myself to meet her needs? Good question. It is starting to feel that way - though I usually get that feeling when she doesn't respond to my efforts, or at least doesn't respond in a manner that I recognize or want. It seems to get harder and harder the longer this goes on to meet her needs.

Recent example (which, in retrospect, I blew). I brough flowers home last Friday, and put them on the dresser (I got home about 30 minutes before she did). She didn't say anything about them all night (previously she'd always made a comment when I brought flowers). Finally before bed I asked her about them - if she had noticed them. She had (in fact, she saw them in the window when she was coming home and smiled). I shouldn't have asked about it...I know that. Even if that wasn't my intent, my asking tells her that I got them for her because I wanted something.


I think one of my problems is that I over-analyze things. MP can say Hi with a smile, and if I don't make a conscious effort not to, I can spend hours analyzing that 10 second exchange. The end result of my over-analysis is that I tend to be unable to make a decision. Of course, that's got to be very unattractive to a spouse, especially a WS.

So if I understand you correctly, I need to spend more time reflecting on me (my thoughts, feelings and desires) and less time trying to figure out what's going on in MP's head? In other words, keep working on fixing me, and let MP and God fix her? I can tell you upfront that has to be the single hardest thing for me to do.

My concern, valid or not, is that by focusing on me and fixing me, I'll simply reaffirm old patterns of behavior in me (withdrawing from her, not meeting her needs, etc.). Or is there a balance somewhere that I'm still not finding?


Yeah....that I know. MP asked me yesterday if I had ever seen someone pursuing another person, but going about it all the wrong way and pushing that person away. Yes, I have...I think everyone has. We can all see that the pursuer is doing everything wrong, but he can't see it. I think that's the pattern that I keep falling into. For me, it goes back to what I said above...feeling like I'm in a vaccum - the feeling of no control over the situation.


Yes, we have two kids. And being a better father (more willingly involved) is one of her needs. And it is one that I think I've made good strides in. Keeping home calm and tranquil is a little more difficult, but I've always been the primary house cleaner (surface cleaning - MP can kick my butt in deep cleaning). I do need to pay more attention to repairs and organization though.

How do I get on with my life? Do you mean I leave her out of my life? Or that I continue to do things that are of interest to me? Another one of MP's complaints is that I hardly ever go out with my male friends. My best friend lives 3 miles away and I hardly see him.

After the A was revealed, I did a pendulum swing on her - I went from being grudglingly involved with the family and self-obsessed to being hyper-focused on her and the family to the exclusion of everything else but my job. She wants me to be well-rounded, balanced between family and myself. Of course (and here's a great insight into the way my mind works), part of me hears that and wonders if she just wants me to leave her alone she can continue her affair or whatever.


I want more than a friend from her, but that's obvious <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> What do you mean by going too far out on the limb for her? What would constitute going out on a limb?


Yes, I realize that I am responsible for my own happiness - I apologize if I indicated a belief to the contrary. I do want to Plan A, because I do want to win her back, even though there are times when I ask myself why I'm even trying.


Well, I still don't envision ever having another woman in my life, but I do understand what you're saying. Not working to make me the best me I can be is rather immature...it was more an expression of frustration than anything else.



Not yet. At times it's very tempting, but not yet. I just wish I could figure out the winning strategy. Then again, maybe it's just what you said above (and others have told me)...it takes time.


I have yet to fully define my goals in any coherent manner, I think. My overall goal is like most everybody else here - to recover our marriage. In the interim, goals to support that would be:

- Fixing the problems I contributed to our marriage.
- Meeting MP's needs to the best of my abilities as she lets me.
- Set my boundaries and stick to them, regardless of how much I don't want to follow through with consequences.
- Expect nothing from my wife (would the corollary to that be "Be thankful for what I do get?").

Is this the right direction? By backing-off (even more than I already have), does that mean to meet her needs as she lets me, with no expectation of reciprocation or acknowledgement? Just be me, keep moving forward, keep improving, and let her decide what she wants to do?

Thanks for the input, JL. You gave me many things to think on. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Ok...I gave this some thought last night, and decided that I really needed to write down my plan (and then stick to it).

Here's what I came up with:

DO
- Focus on the kids. This means more than helping out with them or paying attention to them when they ask. It means actively looking for ways to interact with them and the activities they enjoy, not just the activities I enjoy.

- Work on me. Fix the problems that I've or others have identified, or continue to fix them. Make me the best man I can be. The husband, father and man that God calls me to be.

- Work on the house. We live in chaos. Our garage is full of junk and unpacked boxes. MP and I both would like to clean out the garage, get it organized, and partition part of it as a retreat for us (the parents) to use - singly and together. There are numerous minor repairs that need to be attended to, as well as lots of household improvement projects that we keep talking about but never get around to doing.

- Meet MP's needs as she lets me. Look for opportunities to meet her needs and work on creative ways to meet them - ways that are uniquely me, but at the same time fulfill her wants and desires.

- Learn to read MP. Get to know my wife the way I should have over the last 4-1/2 years. Learn her body language. Listen to what she says, and how she says it. Understand what she's telling me, and learn to anticipate her requests.

DON'T
- Talk about our relationship. She's not ready yet, and it makes her feel pressured. Let her bring it up.

- Shotgun or push. Actions speak louder than words, but "shoving" my actions in her face, with an implied expectation of reaction from her, cheapens the actions and leaves my motives open to question.

- Don't expect anything. MP has a lot to sort out in her mind right now. Expecting things from her only leaves me open to dissapointment and the resultant anger and bitterness.

- Don't mope. Be happy. I have lots to be happy about it. A good job. A house. Two wonderful kids who need a functional dad. A wife who is still living under the same roof as me. Friends and family, who are standing beside us in our time of trouble. If I have to mope, I can go out to do that.

- Don't hover and don't smother. Don't stand around like an eager young kid pining after his first crush. Don't force myself into the center of her world - let her decide to make me the center of her world by showing her who I am and who I can be, on my own 2 legs without needing someone else to prop me up.

I own my mistakes. I own my actions. I own my happiness. I own my emotions. MP will do as she chooses. How I react to that is my responsibility. I know what my long-term goal is. MP is still undecided as to what hers is.

Well...I think this is a start. Thoughts, anyone?

Forgot to add...

MP wants a separation to sort things out and get to know the "new" me.

I understand where she's coming from (I think). However, as I've told her, I'm fundamentally opposed to separations. I know one couple who separated and it saved their marriage, but that's the exception, not the rule.

The impression I'm getting is that she wants others to make the decision for her (either OM kick her to the curb or me). Well, I've made my decision. I'm in this for the long haul. I will not force her to stay or force her to commit, but I will do everything I can to give her positive, permanent, and real reasons to commit and stay. The decision to end the marriage will have to be made by her, for I've made my decision, and that is not to end the marriage.

Hence my written Plan A (or draft Plan A).

BB,

I like your plan, particularly with regards to your children. YOu have NO IDEA how big this investement will be in the future. I think you are getting it. You cannot make your W do or decide anything. But, you can make your home a place YOU enjoy and find comfort in. That means happy children, an organized house, and getting all of those things that have been bugging YOU done around the house.

Focus on this, and if you pass some place selling flowers, buy a few to put around the house because YOU like them. You just might be surprised how MP will see things in the future.

If as you are doing all of this she decides to separate, well what can you do. But YOU will have a nice environment to come home to, your children will LOOK FORWARD to your presence in their lives, and yes your life will become better with or without your W.

Make your decisions and let her make HER decisions.

God Bless,

JL

PS: Really focus on your plan. It is a good one.

BB - Looks like a good plan. I had to do a similar thing for myself.

My two minor additions would be

1) Keep in mind this plan is about making you better and happy. Its just a little mind shift, but its important don't view this as my plan to get WS back. Its a plan with a primary benefit of making you better and happy. Its auxilary benefit is that it may attract the WS back to the M.

2) I would set little goals for yourself to keep you motivated. Some small things that you would like to achieve. I just say this because it can be a long road and it helps to have milestones that let you know you've accomplished something.