So I've got a little time to figure this all out. On Friday at our MC session, I will confront my husband on his affair with a co-worker. I'm trying to do my research, but am having some trouble figuring out how it all fits together.

How do I "do" Plan A, but still fit in the "demand" of no contact with the OW?

When do I get to the point where I expose him and the OW to their employer, to my husband's family, to others? I've already exposed him to my family (needed people to talk to).

When I do confront him, along with everything else, wouldn't it be normal to think that his initial reaction will be to run into the OW's arms no matter how loving and thoughtful I come across when I confront him?

What is a good time line for waiting to move into plan B?

I guess I'm just really confused, I think maybe I'm on info overload - I need some guidance...HELP!
STINA <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

Dear husband...

for any and all hope of you and I reconciling you must end total contact with the OW...
We can not thrive and focus on eachother in our marriage if there are third parties taking up energy and time...

Dear husband...
each contact you make with her is like a small dagger in to my heart....it is like you are choosing to hurt me purposefully.

you speak your pain and the futility of contact in small spurts....

exposure is recomended to others at the same time as to your husband...

is the OW married

how do you think your husband is going to react going on past behavior

I offer caution with exposure to his family at first..

employer...fair game.
her husband if she has one...most fair

you are a long time from Plan B....no need to worry about it...

what do you believe he will uses as his reasons that he had the affair....(still his choice)....but where will he blame shift...and where can you address and or difuse...

I can bump up my plan a tips and musings post if you like.

ARK

please bump then Ark!

Good luck Stina - it is awful isn't it <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> I wish you the very best at MC this Friday.

Ark - I am thinking I should sms your 2nd 'dear husband' to my WH. If you see my post i just wrote, he dropped the kids an I home and then off he went - back to her, where he's living. And you know - your sentence just nails it on the head. Each time he heads back there, each night he spends in HER bed is like a small dagger in my heart. And I dont know how many more daggers it can take <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

stina - don't try to do this picking up the process piece by piece from this forum. Get Surviving An Affair beore you do anything else. After absorbing that, THEN this forum can help you with all the subtleties.

But I have a tough question for you: Married one year, you have no children with him, and you're only 29. Why do you want to attempt to salvage this? Don't give me the "we've been together 7 years" answer. Why did he marry you at all if being married has no meaning to him??

Think long and hard about this.

Being ADAMANT that he cut off contact IS part of Plan A. Plan A is the negotiation of the END of the affair.


Expose the affair if he won't send the letter and end contact.


Sometimes and sometimes not. Usually not, though. It's not like you have an alternative, though.

I would go see if you can find the book Surviving an Affair by Willard Harley in the bookstore TODAY and read it. If not, see if you can order it to be overnighted from this website.

Tina, like the others have told you, get the book Surviving An Affair by Dr. Willard Harley and study it...don't just read it...study it well. It will give you all the answers to your questions.

You'll find in that book that you need to set up a coherent plan to attack the adultery and rescue your marriage. A couple of days ago, I threw together a sample of what one might look like for the poster "Larry_Daniels" in his thread "He's Only a Friend." If you'll look for my post in his thread, I think it's a decent summary of a marital recovery plan. No one has blasted me for it yet anyway.

Dr. Harley's book has chapter and verse on what to do but you might look at that post and then start reading about exposure, Plans A & B, etc., in the "Most Popular Links" on the top right of every page on this site. When you're ready, we can show you detailed threads written by people who write from their personal perspective as they implemented their plan.

Hang in there because your marriage can be salvaged if you want it. Best wishes.

I agree with the others.

Be sure to check out the emotional needs questionnaire, and see if there are any of his that weren't being met.

Usually SF and admiration are near the top for men.

All,

First, thanks for all advice and support.

Second, I will try to answer all of your questions as briefly as possible, in order to get more information.

1) Based on past reactions, I would say when confronted with undeniable proof that he will first be shocked that I “figured it out”. The possibility exists that he will deny it, however in the past if I have proven my point on other topics, he has always been willing to admit he was wrong. My thought would be that he will “own up” to what he has done, however, none of this is characteristic of my husband, so how I think he’ll react may not be valid.

2) OW is not married.

3) Reasons for affair? I’m sure he will bring Recreational Companionship. In the past I was greatly involved, last year I was very sick for the better part of the year and not really up to being involved. At the time I thought he was understanding of that and that he understood I planned to be involved again once I was better (that’s what he said so why would I question it?). Now that I’m better and ready/able to be involved, he’s involved with the OW.

Also, it may be Sexual Fulfillment. WH has recently said that I don’t, didn’t, haven’t initiated sex enough, though again, he always told me how great our sex life was and never told me that he felt this way until now. I didn’t realize anything was missing from our sex life because he always told me he was very happy with it and I was perfectly happy with it so I never thought otherwise. My guess is that the OW is more than happy to spice things up for him. Now that I know about the A, I’m not sure how I can fulfill these needs for him. Right now I’m disgusted by the idea that he’s been with her, so the thought of trying to fill this need for him to bring him back to the marriage is a hard thing to stomach.

And it’s quite possible that I have been as good about showing him how much I admire him. I know I’m guilty as charged on that one. I think/thought that he is/was wonderful and very much respected and admired him for his contributions to our home and family, but I know I didn’t tell him enough. I’m sure she lets him know how great she thinks he is and she’d be right. He is a wonderful man, with the exception of this. I’ve always thought so and if I don’t look at the A, I still think so.

4) Why did we get married? Honestly, I believe his marriage vows did mean something to him. I believe him to be (even in light of this A) basically a good man. At the time we married, I have no doubts that it is what he wanted and I know I wanted the marriage. We were not only lovers, but we were best friends. I've never doubted his committment to me, up until now - shouldn't matter whether we've been married 1 year, 7 years or 50 years - doesn't change my desire to make my marriage work with someone I still love.

I should have Dr. Harley’s “Surviving an Affair” tomorrow. I ordered it on Friday.

Longhorn,
I'm trying to find the post you told me about, but I must be missing it - help me out?

Thanks,
STINA

Here it is, Stina -

Larry, you need an operational plan and you need to set it up quickly. An outline might go like this:

Step 1. Gather enough evidence to convince yourself your wife is committing adultery. (Done. The emails are all you need. You're not going to trial with rules of evidence; that doesn't apply.) If you want to surprise her in that parking lot some afternoon for dramatic effect, that's okay but don't expect it to make the adultery any clearer to your WW. There are threads out here recounting betrayed spouses who have caught their wayward spouse in bed with the other person and the wayward one stridently denied anything was going on. DO NOT EVEN CONSIDER SURPRISING YOUR WW IN THAT PARKING LOT IF YOU DON'T HAVE AN IRON GRIP ON YOUR TEMPER!

If you need more information, consider reviewing cell phone records, IM history, place a digital recorder in her car and/or near home phones, etc. If you feel you need more and you can afford it, it sounds like a private investigator could gather a lot of irrefutable proof in a short period. Your WW isn't being very discrete.

Step 1b. Confront your WW with the knowledge you have she's engaged in sexual and emotional adultery with that man and ask her to stop. She will deny it out of hand. Generally, you don't tell her HOW you know. If you know of dates and times where they've met, confront her with that information. If you can imply you know that because she was seen, rather than reveal you read it in her emails, that's better. If you show her the emails, you've just educated her on one breach in her adultery's security. She'll learn and be able to hide it that much better.

Homework. Get Dr. Willard Harley's book Surviving An Affair and study it from cover to cover.

Step 2. Make a list of people and organizations who can influence your WW to end her adultery. This may include the hospital administrator, WW's parents, your family, your children (yes, Dr. Harley recommends the truth not be hidden from them), the various professional organizations your WW belongs to, your pastor or priest, friends, HIS family (wife, parents, etc.) and anyone else who can reasonably be expected to exert pressure on the adulterous affair. The hospital administrators may be enormously helpful in your situation. There are surely ethical guidelines prohibiting this obscenity.

Step 3. Take a deep breath and EXPOSE the obscenity of this adultery to everyone on the list. Don't tell your WW what you're going to do in advance; just do it.

Note: She will be absolutely furious. She will shriek imprecations at you, swear she was going to work on the marriage but now...oh, boy...now she wouldn't have anything to do with you if you were the last male on the face of the planet, etc., etc. It's all bluster, noise, and theatrics. It means nothing except that she’s pissed off you’ve wrecked her little fantasy world.

Step 4. Implement Plan A (from links here on the website and the book, SAA). Understand everything you can about Plan A. Know about the carrot and stick application of the Plan, read up on Love Busters, study how you don’t become a doormat while in the plan, and learn how you work on yourself in the plan. Determine how long you will work on Plan A. Typically, Dr. Harley recommends six months for a man to work on this Plan.

Step 5. If Plan A doesn’t bring your WW out of the fog, be ready to implement Plan B. Plan B, may require a legal separation or the equivalent in your state. By this point, if you have not already, you need to separate your finances from your WW’s. Protect your checking and savings accounts, get credit cards in your name only, make sure your assets cannot be looted by a wayward spouse still in the fog. Plan B may last as long as another eighteen months.

Note: There are no guarantees. Dr. Harley’s plan works if applied in that narrow window of opportunity you have to break up the affair and win your wife back but some wayward spouses never come out of the fog. If, by the end of the second year after exposure and confrontation, your WW hasn’t come home and agreed to work on the marriage, you may have to implement Plan D. Sometimes, regretfully, you have to cut your losses, protect yourself and your children, and file for divorce. All of us out here sincerely hope it won’t come to this, but it does happen. If it does though, you will have the comfort of knowing you did everything humanly possible to salvage your marriage. You will be able to hold your head high.

Okay, Larry. You CAN recoup your marriage. It has been done before. It takes work and sacrifice but it is possible. Are you strong enough to do it? Then get to work. The pros here on MB are here for no other reason than to help you through this. They’ve gone through what you are just starting and come out the other side whole and better than they were before. You’ll have their help as a support group and I advise you to take advantage of their expertise. Hang in there, pardner. The road’s going to get bumpy.