This is a question that I have for FWS's that have decided to go back to their marriage and make it work.

Can you tell me how the process went on you making that decision? Was it a gradual thing that happened over several months or was it quite quick and happened within a week or so? Was it a couple of "Aha" moments that turned you around? Was there any one moment that triggered the event of you making that decision to go back?

I appreciate any input.

Thanks TR

Hi, i am a FWW, this is a very tough question to answer. Looking back on it, trying to figure out what exactly "turned me around". It was not a single moment, it was more or less the realisation over time, that what i was searching for was not to be found with the OP or anywhere else. I realised over time that i was not happy with the situation i was in, and that i started appreciating what i had in my marriage, it was a process that went on for months.

The actual "happiness" i felt with OP didnt even last long to be honest even though i hung on to OP for about a year and a half. During that time, i would say especially the last 6-8 months i separated myself from OP and when i dropped all contact to OP i didnt miss him anymore, as i had done the separation process over time already. I was surprised to find out that i didnt miss him, and that i had no feelings for him at all. There was no love... no hate... nothing. He is a stranger just like anyone else on earth that i dont know.

I know this is probably not the answer you were hoping for, but this is how it was with me, i cant talk for others of course and it might have been different for others.

Hi TR,

For me there were numerous "a-ha" moments, but, like Daggi, it's hard to pinpoint what exactly turned me around.

I was an emotional wreck when I started my A with OM. Within a month of our relationship, I thought I had found my "soulmate" and was ready to leave my H. When I told OM, he said he would never leave his W (although he said I was also his "soulmate" and he couldn't wait until we started a family together. Later on I found out I was his fourth OW. Up until OM, I had only had SF with my H so I especially thought our relationship was "cosmic". <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> )

After that confession, I realized I had made a HUGE mistake and told H I wanted to go to MC in order to fix our M (although I continued my A during counseling and never told my H... I thought they were completely seperate from one another! It's amazing what people tell themselves in order to feel "okay".)

During my A my self-esteem and self-respect were in the toilet. I loved both OM and H. I didn't want to give either up for a long time, although I broke it off with OM countless times during the A because I knew it was a mistake, I didn't want to be with him, I had real love with H, I wanted to fix what was broken in the M as well as in myself.

Like Daggi, I had severed ties with OM before I confessed to H. OM kept coming around though, and I still cared for him so I kept talking to him when he found me. I was at the point of suicide because all I wanted was my M, but I couldn't seem to emotionally detach myself from OM. I was tired of being a liar and a soul sick person. I was tired of not being able to make a real choice. The final straw came when OM's father was suddenly diagnosed with terminal cancer and OM tried to use this tragedy to keep me in his life. His W would be driving his dad to cancer treatments while he was stalking me in my work parking lot telling me how he couldn't live without me. I had had it.

Like Daggi, I'm not sure if that's the answer you were looking for but this was my experience. Blessings to you today...

I feel weird writing this, but I honestly did not want to leave my marriage. I just didn't feel like I had a choice. My BH knew that I was in an EA with an old boyfriend and he seemed completely indifferent. I was the one that left, but I felt as if I had just been totally discarded. Maybe that is fog remnants or something, but it is how I felt. My BH never said, please don't do this, I love you-never, not once.

So I was gone for over two years. I was with OM for most of that time. OM was accepted into the family, BH and OM got along great. BH was dating and had a one year romance with a lady. What I needed was to see a door open, to feel like BH did in fact care for me. His accomodating of my affair sent me the message that he was glad to be rid of me.

OM and I were having troubles, due alot in part to my feelings for BH. OM ended up spending more time out of state than he was here. BH and his girl friend split up and BH and I ended up spending alot of time together. When he would pick up the girls after work, he would hang out, then started eating dinner with us. For the last six months or so, we were spending more time together living apart than we ever did when we lived together.

So there was never an AHA moment and it wasn't a gradual anything. I never wanted to leave and I was just accepting the fact that BH didn't care one way or the other. At the end of the separation, OM had been gone a month, I had gone through the withdrawals and the time I needed to mentally get squared away. I asked BH to have dinner alone with me, I asked for forgiveness and reconciliation and he was on board with that.

I say I was always just looking for a opening and people think I am justifying. But BH did tell me after the reconciliation (and after D-day for his affair) that he actually liked who I was better when I was with OM. It appears that he doesn't like who I am when I am his wife. I hope to be able to get the scoop on that from him one day, but he is still gone.

I doubt my answer helps much. I say I needed to see an opening, and MB principles say that plan B is usually needed to affect the WS.

So I am no help <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Daggie, Katie Mae and Jean36,

You have actually given me the answer I was looking for. Although there is no real answer and silver bullet so to speak. What I was looking for was the time line.

In all your cases there was no magic week or day that defined your decision to return to your marraige and BS. It does seem that it was a gradual decision. And in reaching that decision there were probably a couple steps to go through. There is also a gradual process in seperating yourself from the OP. This seems to have a direct relation in starting the process of coming back so to speak.

What I was also interested in was how long were you with the OP before things started to change. Daggi, you said you held on to the OP for a year and a half. Katie Mae, you said you had found your "soulmate". This sounds all to familiar. Jean, it was 2 years for you.

I've heard that affairs similar to my WW's usually last 1-3 years with the average at about 1 1/2 years. Then it hits the burn out phase.

The other thing that I have noticed with all of your situations is that your BS never really implemented a solid plan B. Is this correct? This tells me a lot. Maybe the WS needs to know that the door is still open?

Thanks TR.

Hey TB,

My H didn't have to do Plan B because when I confessed, I had already decided I wanted NC with OM and to work on my M...

I did continue to have sporatic contact with OM after DDay because I felt "bad" and was still emotionally attached to him, eventhough I really didn't want him in my life anymore. H caught me twice and gave me an ultimatum. I know an ultimatum is not a MB principle, but this worked for me at the stage I was at. I really wanted to be committed to the M, and I needed H to be stern with me.

That being said, if I couldn't give up OM, I would have fully needed Plan B to fix my sorry @#$ (and to save my H's sanity.) I'm speaking in hindsight here, but if H went into Plan B and I was still actively involved with OM, I would want him to tell me I could come back ONLY if I was fully committed to NC and our M. Waywards are horribly selfish people. They need to unlearn what they have learned, and this takes discipline on the part of both spouses. I would have needed to know exactly what I was coming home to and what my expectations were. This is only my perspective though, and it would probably be better if someone who was "Plan B'd" could answer!

Hope that helps a little.

my Husband never did a Plan B either, as a matter of fact he contacted me daily and i was 100% i would never loose him, even though he was 1000's of miles away and with another woman. Even when he stopped telling me that he loves me, he always said we will be friends, he has never stopped supporting me financially. In the beginning of me EA he did make me cut off all contact to OM, that went on for 3 months, i was devastated, cried a lot and my Husband comforted me even though i was the one that hurt HIM beyond believe. I only saw my pain and expected my Husband to be there and comfort me, after all he was the one at fault for me feeling this way... This is how twisted my thinking was back then!!!! He stayed around for as long as he could, then left for Kuwait, but kept contact every day. I was never faced with loosing the marriage or loosing my financial support or loosing him. He always told me he would always be there for me. So it was easy for me to keep doing what i was doing, there were no consequences. After the 3 months of NC to OM back then, i blackmailed my Husband and letting me have contact again. I told my Husband i would leave him if i wasnt allowed contact again. I too would have needed a stern husband, but he was so hurt and he loved me so much he let me have contact again. He didnt know that i wouldnt have left him, as a matter of fact he tried kicking me out a few months later, and i refused to go. So a few months after that he left for Kuwait.

Many BS's i think hold the cards in their hands and dont even realize it because they are afraid. I am not saying that this is the case with all of them, but i do believe in many cases this is true. My husband had all the cards in his hand and he didnt know. When i blackmailed my husband, i acted out of desperation, it was the only thing that i could think of anymore, because all my begging and pleading before hadnt worked. Had he said, ok... then leave me... there is the door... i would have just sat there.. i would have been defeated.

If I am reading everything right, it does seem that for we three FWW, there was no plan B. And it also appears that our A's were pretty long. Long term A has a different meaning for me now that I am on the BS side.

I guess we will never know if a plan B would have shortened the 3 affairs we are talking about here. I think it would have for me, but it might have strengthened my feelings of being discarded.

In my situation, I was cake eating all over the place. BH was so nice and accomodating, he was meeting my EN's for friendship, social acceptance, some financial support. He gave me everything during the separation that he had given me in the marriage. The biggest thing I lost by leaving was my self respect and dignity.

His accomodation of my affair did not make me feel that he loved me or wanted me back. It made me feel like he was glad I was gone and wanted to make it easy on me so that I would stay gone. But I was also trying to make it very easy on him, being as much of a wife as I could. I essentially became his full time nanny housekeeper. I stayed in the house during the day, caring for the kids, cooking, doing his laundry...He came and went as he pleased and when he came home, I would leave for the night and go to the place I was sharing with OM.

At one point, BH and OM were working together. They came in very late and had a early morning scheduled. So BH put OM in the den for the night, woke me up from the couch and told me they were home and that I could sleep in the den instead of the couch <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

So I don't think my BH's level of accomodation was at all normal or healthy. I am afraid that it is indicative of his lack of any emotion for me, during the M, during my A, during our reconciliation, and now his A. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

So I don't know how to balance the door is open vs. I won't live with an WS. If my BH would have plan B'd me, I would have probably stayed gone. But his welcoming OM into the family didn't give me any warm fuzzies either.

Maybe that is one key thing. MB to save your own a$$, the WS can not be counted on to have a predicatable response to anything.

I hate this stuff <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

I had been able to count on my Husband for the whole time that i have known him, to me it was crystalclear that he would always be there for me no matter what, i took that for granted, had he turned around on me and said there is the door (which he did once when he was angry at me for talking to someone he didnt like - not FOM, but i refused to leave), look how the life is that you want, i would have literally freaked out. My Husband even offered me to pay the airline ticket and everything so i could be with FOM (my affair was an online-affair) I think he was trying to show me that once i would actually meet this guy that the bubble would just burst.

Jean, maybe your husband was trying to do the same thing, you were probably always able to count on him for everything in your marriage too, so he kept this up even during your affair. Maybe he too figured that the more he accepts your wishes to have that affair, the sooner it would burn off. I think it takes a lot for a man to put up with that, and even offer support in the affair even though they love their wife. I think i view it completely opposite from your view. In a way i expected my husband to always be there for me, but when he actually was and supported me even through all of this, it did surprise me, it showed me how much he cared about me, and how much he wanted me to be happy no matter what. And that from a man who had a lot of pride... saying had, because he himself told me a few weeks ago that he has no more pride. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

The affairs your and my Husbands are in, in my opinion show that they still have issues with the affairs that we had. I think they feel a lot of insecurities, and have lost quite a bit because of it. At least this is how i "feel" like it is. I know my Husband is not the same man he was before, i think he has to find himself and define himself again, as all of this was destroyed by my EA. Maybe you feel like the same is going on with your husband? Could be, since they both supported us so much during our affairs. Maybe they dont feel like the same men anymore, and look to find that feeling again with OW. Just my thoughts on this...

Thanks for your perspective Daggi. I will certaintly consider it as the alternative is that he never really gave a darn about me.

Trebor, the difference in how Daggi and I saw our BH's accomodation must be very confusing for you. I hope that it is somehow helpful, but it is all so insane.