First time poster..... here is my story.

I have been married 11 years, have 3 daughters 6,8,10. My wife and i met and married in 3 weeks (she was 20 I was 25) both in the military. I have had issue with viewing porn and flirting with people from the beginning. Thought it was harmless. We have had communication problems for the past 11 years, she restarted a relationship with a former boyfriend 6 years ago, that ended. I slept with a prostitute 5 years ago and again 2.5 years ago. Justifying it by saying I didn't want a EA just wanted some affection. So she has been unahppy for a long while but I have tried to make her happy, she has a problem with forgiving and she continually brings up the past. Now 6 months ago she asked for separation, found out she met a guy and was talking to him, so she was really negative and nasty to me, until I foun out why and I started working really hard to win her back, I started to change my attitude towars our marriage and really trying to love her.

Now, March 30 we moved her parents down to our home, she had been distant and starting to get angry with me again, so I asked are you talking to someone again, and she said yes, so I asked are you going to "see" him she said yes. I said I couldn't stand for that and wouldn't stay if she did. So when we got her folks moved in I moved out. She saw the guy they next day. She spent almost 3000 minutes on the cell phone in march talking to him. She has now know him for 6 weeks, he says he loves her. I know his cousin and she says he is a player and wont go the distance he is after sex and a goodtime. My W is addicted to his attention and funness.
So I have been out of the house for almost month giving her time and space which she asked for, she has been seeing him while he has been in town but no sex, he was out of town for 2 weeks but back now and I worried he is going to put the pressure on to have sex, even though she says she wont until she decides, I don't know if she has actually decide but wont tell me.

We have a huge house and land and I have gotten her everything she has ever desired, I have been trying Plan A for a week now before that I was doing NC.

We have started MC but I am not sure where that will go, she hasn't given up the OM yet. How do I ask her to do that without making her mad?

I am thinking I give here a few more weeks and then move back into the hosue - we have an apartment that I can say in so I can take care of the kids and be with them. Also so I can impliment more plan A. This will most certainly freak her out.

We can't afford separation with me staying with a friend even that rent will hurt us right now.

Help!!!!

Never and I mean never move out of the house. Legally that can be construed as abandonment. Move back into your home today. She is seeing the OM. If she wants to move out then she may do so. By moving out of the house all you do is give her the freedom to see and be with the OM without guilt.
By the way, I would not so sure they have not had sex. If she is thinking about leaving her marriage and family and going off with him then it is almost a certainty that she has been intimate. It is doubtful a person would destroy a marriage and family without making sure she was sexually compatible with the person.

The bottom line is get back in the house. You have given her all of the cards and all of her freedom to act as a single person. What is wrong with this picture? I would also advise you to contact an attorney to understand the various financial possibilities that may ensue. You need as much information as possible. I wish you luck.

Welcome to MarriageBuilders. I think this is going to be an excellent place for you to try and meet your goal to save your marriage. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I remember your threads from LS. And I still don't think you're going to be able to take a hard-nosed approach with your wife.

You're coming from the position of FWH (former wayward husband) and approaching a BS who has given up and moved on.

Your Plan A is going to have to be a SERIOUSLY attractive one. What exactly are you doing in your Plan A, btw? Are you seeing the kids everyday?

I gave you some advice on those other threads, and one thing I mentioned to you was that you read Surviving an Affair. Did you do that yet? I really do think it will help you.

It seems to me that you've got a demonstrated tendancy toward taking a reactive stance. Leaving the home, going NC, calling the cops because the OM's car was parked at your house....these are ALL reactive to NOT getting what you want. I don't think that's going to wash at this point.

You've got to be calm and measured in your response. It's not as if you haven't given your wife a REASON to divorce you. As I told you before....one incident with a prostitute would have sealed your fate if I were in her shoes. She's got a case here for not wanting you back.

Your carrot needs to be bigger than your stick, IMHO.

Try these links to help with your sitch.

A special thanks to Suzet*

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...;page=0#2685515

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...rue#Post2686307

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...rue#Post2686307

Ladeyjane could you give me that advice again.

I just got done talking to my wife for 45 minutes, it started as me asking to move back in to use chatting about life and the kids and other things, tried to keep it very positive.

She says that he OM is hitting on her but she is not taking a bite, he is more and more looking like a friend. I see that she might have been attracted to him at first but I think she wants to have time and space to think about our marriage.

She said something that hurt today like, she is happy now that I am gone she can think clearly. She says she hasn't decide what she wants but wont do anything to jepordize her morales until she is sure.

I haven't put a strong A plan together since I just found out about it. I would love to have some more examples of it.

Another thing is how long is long? I don't want her to string me along how do I tell?

We have bills and we cant afford the separation too long, after making the first mistake of asking/demanding to come home I said that one of the things she needed to think about if she decides to try with our marriage is to let me move into our apartment above the gargage so I can live their - I told her I would respect any boundaries that she would put up.

Viking,

I'm no expert, but I'll share my experience. I'm not going to put my whole story in your thread, but I'm a FWH dealing with a WW. Hurtful things get said, i.e.


If you take all of this personally, it'll wear you down. At least, it has me. Just don't respond in kind. That's a staple in my Plan A. Now, I simply refuse to get goaded. If she pulls out the guns, don't give her a target.


From what I've read here, long is however long you can stand to deal with it before your love for your W turns into hate.

Best of luck.

There's nothing that can guarantee your marriage will be saved. But I think your best chance will be in using the marriagebuilding principles outlined in the Basic Concepts section.

You'll want to read every bit of that repeatedly until you're familiar with it. And more importantly....start using it in your interactions with your wife.

You'll need to read the information in the HT Survive Infidelity Section, paying special attention to Plan A / Plan B.

In order to implement your Plan A to it's fullest advantage, try taking the Emotional Needs Questionairre. You can print off a copy for your wife, and if she won't take it with you...try filling one out the way you believe she would.

You'll want to read Surviving An Affair of course, but also try a copy of His Needs / Her Needs. This will also help you to identify your wife's ENs. If you can't afford to purchase the books...get them from the library.

I think you've got a long row to hoe in regaining your wife's trust. Did you ever seek counseling on your previous infidelity? How will your wife know for sure that you'll never do it again? Your track record is against you in this. You'll need to offer her some kind of proof that you've conquered the process of rationalizations and justifications that allowed you to seek outside the marriage before.

I'm reprinting my earlier advice to you from the other thread, so as not to have to type it all out again. This was in reference to your question about going NC....


Again, I would encourage you to seek out IC if at all possible. You might call your health insurance plan to see if there are benefits available. And you can get a phone conference with the Harley's here at MB. I think the fee is under $200.00, but I'm not sure.

As you can see, you've got ALOT to do! You're not at all helpless in your situation. You have the option to study all this information and to implement it in the acquisition of your goals. You know, you can't make other people's choices for them....but you sure as heck can make your own!

So...choose to learn, and choose to control your tendancy toward reactiveness lest it defeat you. There's no guarantee that you'll be successful, but you can certainly set the parameters which will allow for it.

Okay its the weekend now I screwed up again and pushed her farther away.... I taped a phone conversation with her and the other man and confronted her about it and now she is freaked out about my actions and is even more furious with me than before......

but I feel better, after some reflection.

I now realize I was doing it all for the wrong reasons's, I was doing it all the wrong ways.... I am a former marine 250lbs 6ft 2 and I cry like a baby, and I have done that in the past in front of my wife.

But through reading on MB and from support of friends I am convienced now that I need to tighten ship and fly right with a solid plan A

So as I posted before I am currently out of the house - thought I was doing the right thing when she asked for time and space... see it as part of her A.

So I am going to think very carefully about how I speak to her. I am going to be polite and not get into LB'n

I also think that the A is more about her than about the A.
She finds the guys company reassuring but she doesn't spend a lot of time anymore with him or on the phone.... since her schedule is swamped with the kids and new job. So I need to stop talking about the A and what the OM is doing.

He is a carpenter and we need one at our house right now, if he is truely just a friend to her right now would it be wrong to engage him to help me repair stuff around the house, on the other had he is very slick and is trying his best to bed my W, I don't think he has long term intentions with her, even though in 3 weeks of knowing each other he has asked to marry her.

So when I get a chance I want to do nice things for her

a)like change her cars oil
b)fill it up
c)leave little treats in her car after her work - its near where I am staying now
d) do things around the house to help her - laundry
e) try taking more time with the kids.

but how do I do this without providing her time with the OM. If I say I will take the kids for the weekend that gives her time with him?

My earlier thought for you was that you should incorporate a daily routine with your kids. That might be simple as tucking them in at night, or having dinner, or even just a daily playtime after work.

If you're at the home daily, helping with homework or pitching a baseball....there's opportunities available every day to meet some of your wife's ENs. You insinuate yourself into daily family life, and before you know it...she's relying on you to be there.

But you know, you're not going to fool her with some kind of ACT. She needs to see real and lasting changes in you. You're going to have to prove yourself to her. And that's going to take TIME.

Just a one little coin everyday going into the love bank will hopefully chip away at the emotional distance. But you need to also be seeking out an understanding of her boundaries. What would it take for her to trust you again?

Viking, this was not a mistake. You are SUPPOSED to firmly confront her with evidence. It is your job to do everything in your power to cuase conflict in the affair. That means you should be snooping, confronting and most of all EXPOSING. Plan A does not stand for APPEASEMENT.


Hopefully you understand what a HUGE MISTAKE this is and will go HOME NOW. You cannot work on your marriage if you ARE NOT THERE. Moving out just facilitated her affair. That is against your bst interest.


You should NOT, under any circumstances, PROMOTE OR FACILITATE her affair. If you want to save your marriage, you will not do it this way. The OW SHOULD NEVER EVER BE IN YOUR HOME OR AROUND YOUR CHILDREN. This is some SCUMBAG your W met online and your children should not be dragged into her sleazy affair or exposed to scummy characters. This is how little children end up molested.

As their father, you SHOULD BE HOME with them. You should not abandon them in their time of need. You are the only sane parent they have right now and you have abandoned them. They need you very much.

You cannot work on your marriage if you ARE NOT HOME. So this has to be the first step.

GO HOME NOW!

NO! You should not be acting like a divorced person or she will view you as one. You should be acting like a MARRIED MAN. GO HOME and act like a married man. If you don't act like one, why in the world should she VIEW you as one?? All you have done is moved out to facilitate her affair. Does that look like someone who is fighting for his marriage? HE11 no!

You just rolled over and allowed some other man - some scumbag she met on the internet - to move in and take your place. Time to MAN UP and start fighting for your marriage, my friend!

Viking, a PROPER Plan A includes a BALANCE of both the carrot and the stick. You cannot neglect one part and expect to have any success, especially a failure to protect your children frm the affair:

The Carrot and the Stick of Plan A by Pepperband

The carrot of Plan A


Meeting your wandering spouse's emotional needs.

Making "home" a warm and inviting place to be.

Placing emphasis on what has worked in the marriage.

Showing consistent self improvement in areas where previously lacking.

Stop lovebusting behaviors.

Communicating with a calm reassuring voice and relaxed body language, even in the center of a verbal storm created by the infidel.

Becoming the person any reasonable spouse would want to come home to.

Remaining open to the possibility of recovery.

Offering forgiveness and understanding.



The stick of Plan A


Exposing adultery where it matters most. Exposure that takes the form of a swift and sudden unexpected tsunami of truth.

Not appologizing for exposure or speaking the truth in a kind yet direct way.

Directly communicating the hurt and devastation that the affair has caused.

Not accepting blame for the infidel's choice to become adulterous.

Let the consequences of adultery and infidelity fall freely upon the heads of the adulterous.

Establishing boundaries that disallow the affair to effect children of the marriage, financal security of the marriage, and otherwise ruin innocent bystanders.

Standing up to infidelity as a beast that must be slayed for the good of the family.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Plan A is both a *carrot* and a *stick*.

I made the mistake of trying to capture in her affair and she found out and now I am really low, she says their is no chance and their is no us and that she is going to be very short with me.... Now I have read how this is going to be the action of the day until I can start depositing love units, but its really hard.

I started paperwork to put our lovely house on the market.

I asked her to open her own checking account.

I have told her that I will provide her some money for the kids and stuff, but since she is living in the house and has all our luxuries around her that she can pay for the rest of her stuff.

She got her first paycheck from her new job and its was a LOT less that she expected..... I keep telling her I would love to be able to support her in her dream job, she comes back with she guess she has to quite because she can't afford it.

I have been offered by my boss to leave town for a few weeks, to work in Boston vs North Carolina. Would that be a good idea, give her time to think and see if the grass is greener on the other side....

The OM calls her late at night - he is a night owl and a goes out a lot, so she is use to sleeping 9-10 hours a night but she hasn't been getting that lately and starting to see the effect, I am not sure our kids have made it ontime to school this week.

What can I do?

I have been offered by my boss to leave town for a few weeks, to work in Boston vs North Carolina. Would that be a good idea, give her time to think and see if the grass is greener on the other side....

why are you considering abandoning your children..leaving them with a fogged up mom who is selfishly seeking only to appease herself...


already her night life is interfering with the children's stability...

how would leaving town and leaving your children to her be a good thing...

how about YOU move home...
and if she chooses she can leave
THAT is good marriagebuilders believe it not...

ARK

You can go home and ACT LIKE A MARRIED MAN! Did you want to read any of the posts I wrote to you? We are telling you what to do and you aren't listening.

My problem is that in North Carolina because I left... I abandonded the family, and she can force me to leave by law. So I have to work from the outside in.

I am trying to take away those things that make her life so easy, the bankcard and make her pay for her own gas.

I have realized that I have some real insecurities which its making it difficult for me to let go and let her have sometime.

A friend of ours is a police officer and has advised me of my rights to return so I just can't do that. My wife is paranoid now that I am stalking around the house at night, which I did a couple of times and is really warned down from my LB's.

So I on a new plan A for carroting, I am trying to be with the kids as much as possible - with out enabling her to see the OM.

Since she is still on my cell phone plan I see her hourly useage, I see the text pages he sends her, and I also can track her location on her phone..... so I can find out where she is at night and day.

I almost feel that I have to get her out of the house and get her on her own to realize what she was giving up.

So should I take thing away from her, while at the same time doing things for her?

ok, the answer is not to CONTINUE to abandon your family but to GO HOME. Of course you can go to your own home, YOU LIVE THERE! You have as much right to live there as she does.

You don't need to "give her time" you need to GO HOME! And take care of your CHILDREN.

viking, all you have to do is go to your house and move back in. The police are not going to remove a man from his own home unless he is breaking the law. You have every right to be in your own home.

I don't think he can just move back in, ML. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />
I found the following information on Divorcenet.com


I have no idea if that's still current law, but I think you'd would be wise, Viking, to check with an attorney before you try to move back into the home.

Regarding your earlier question as to if you should go to Boston or not.... I think the question you have to ask yourself is "How is my Plan A best served?"

It's hard to do a good Plan A when you're hundreds of miles away. But on the other hand if going would significantly contribute to the general financial security of your family, it might be the thing to do.

What you don't want to do is to 'think with your feet'. I'm wondering if that's a problem for you at this point. I remember posting to you on the other site the day before you moved out of the home, and asking you if you'd separated yet. At that time, I advised you to 'work from the inside'.

I'll be honest, it's hard to prove yourself as a consistant partner when your tendancy is to act first and think it all out later. If that's at all descriptive of you....you might want to sort that out here pretty quickly.

I know your money situation is tight, but is there any way you can get a consult from Steve Harley? I really do think you could benefit from some specific guidance. Maybe you could even call in to the radio show. There's a link on the header that will give you more information on that.

While it's true that you can't save the marriage without busting up the affair, I'm really worried that if you push your WW too hard...she's going to divorce you out-of-hand due to that business with the prostitute. And while we can all agree there's NO EXCUSE for infidelity on anyone's part, the sad fact is that she's probably feeling a bit 'entitled' right now. That makes your battle an uphill one against some serious stinkin' thinkin'. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

I think you need to stretch for TIME in order for her to observe attractive and consistant changes in you. You need TIME for that Plan A to work.

As I told you before, it doesn't really improve your chances of reconciliation to go to Plan B if she's not going to miss you. Plan A helps her notice that you're a great guy still, and maybe she doesn't really want to lose you after all.

The sad fact is...that there's nothing you can really do to enforce your wife's behavior. Although, you can certainly set up parameters to make it easier for her to choose YOU by utilizing your Plan A. And...as the children's father, you can certainly insist on appropriate behavior being demonstrated in front of the kids.

But this is ALL so much easier to accomplish if you can get her to negotiate reasonably rather than having to force her through the court system. The latter is an alternative that is always available to you, but if you can accomplish some of your goals without having to resort to it...so much the better.

In answer to your question about making things tough for her financially... Again, it's better to negotiate when you can. Otherwise, you might inadvertantly encourage her to haul YOU into court. So, think about these decisions in terms of what's most fair to both of you, and what's going to be in keeping with your Plan A.

Personally, if it were me...I'd pay her gas card, because it supports the kids. And I'd cut off her cell phone, because it supports her affair. And I'd be real sweet about it too when I explained to her why I cut the phone off. You're just a guy doing what he needs to do to put his family back together, afterall. That's a whole different thing than acting out of spite.

I'm curious. Are her parents still living in the home with her? And if so, what do they think about all this? Do they know what's going on? Is there any way that they can help or support you in your efforts?

Her parents finally moved out last weekend and it has put a strain on her because her mom was doing everything around the house and now she has too.

There are issues with her family that pre-date the marriage and I think her mom was really strict when my W was younger and now she is enabling her to be happy at any cost.

here dad thinks the guy is scum and is bottom feeding.

My head is getting a lot better at controlling my heart and mouth.

I am flying back tonight from a 1 day trip to NY and a bought the girls a I Love NY shirt and I bought my wife something too. She will dismiss it out of hand but that is fine.

The other thing that keeps bothering me is that she for the whole 11 years has always exclaimed mine as the possesive for everything we own, its been my house, my kids, my vacations, my life from her. Even through my infidelity I was always about the family. I supported them and her very well, I cared for them very well. I didn't do a good job about balancing work and life that well.

Now what really kills me is that I had been doing a Plan A for a while with her, before i knew what it was. I did more demostic support, I did more kid time, I did more family time I even tried to do more W time, but all that has been revised in her history of what I have been doing.

I guess I have to wait and see, I told her I am going to wait until June 1 to talk about us and give her sometime without me getting in her face.

I am wondering if because i was doing a Plan A before the separation and will do it for another month, if that plan A isn't making a dent in her.

So the finances are going to be hard, she doesn't make much and I now have to pay rent.

I already sent her and email saying that we wont be able to send the girls to any camps this summer.

Is it right to make a statement like this, "because of our situation and your decsision to leave me, we can't afford the things we wanted for our girls this year, I hope they understand."

Is that a carrot and stick approach?

thanks