Hiker - are you aware that an unrestrained taker cannot Plan A?

Are you aware of how much your taker is posting here?

You WON'T Plan A further because your taker wants HIS needs met - and you can't recover your marriage if you can't put the taker at ease for a while and get some deferred gratification attitude going.

You have a four year old son and your taker is taking his future; not to the degree that your WW's taker is, but none-the-less; you have the power to at least make every effort to save that little boy's family. Your taker is robbing this chance from HIS future.

Study up a little bit more - you have some of the academics, as you are guiding blindsided - but you lack the "application" portion and you're about to go off pre-maturely.

Read WAT's responses to you again!

Hiker, I agree with KaylaAndy.

I know I shouldn't be giving any advice but I feel like you are giving up to easy.

I understand the implications here. I've been in Plan A for three months. The idea of Plan B is to save yourself from your Taker before you decide that you no longer want to save the marriage.

My concern frankly is that you haven't mastered your taker enough to leave your WW with the good impression you need to. And frankly, I don't believe Harley wrote the Giver Taker concepts so that we could have an excuse to bail on the important things, just because our taker is going to come out and be a monster! He taught us those principles so that we could consciously make choices to defer the taker's urges, to improve the probability that we can recover our marriages.

Frankly, you can do this your way - and lose your marriage the way everyone else out there loses their marriages through legal separation, or you can do this the Harley way.

Have you put through a call to Steve Harley or Jennifer yet?

You seem to be taking the "chicken's way" out, and not the marriage builder way out. Read up on Mortarman or Dazed's sitch. Dazed actually became stronger as he plan a'd for 9 months. Now, his wife knows fully what she's leaving and he's about to enter plan b; she will not be able to survive that - one way or the other, she knows the better man is her husband. That's what you need to do for your son!

Takers should never be parents!

But Kayla is right - you can't Plan A with a taker's attitude. And you can't Plan B without first Plan A'ing. So you can't get to where you want to be inside these principles.

Three months is almost nothing in Plan A space.

You can do any dern thing you want. Just don't claim to be following these principles at some other poster's expense.

WAT

I appreciate that you are trying to help.

I am not Plan A'ing with a Taker's attutude, I am moving to Plan B before the Taker inevitably gains the upper hand.

That is what Plan B is for; allowing you to preserve your love when the resentment and anger begin to overpower your affection for your spouse.

Anyway, you might read some of the posts by folks who have been Plan A'ing for up to a year only to find themselves tired and no longer willing to work on their marriage.

Let me give you an example of how I am trying to avoid lovebusters.

Every morning I dress my son and get his breakfast. My wife brings his clothes down. Today my son was actually already wearing clean shorts so I just put the new shirt on him. My wife came in and said "those clothes don't match."

The shirt was red with a very dark navy blue strip at the neck; the shorts were black. I said, "Well the shorts are clean and I thought I save you the extra dirty laundry."

Her response, spoken with indignation, "I want these gray shorts on him. That's why I put these outfits together. I don't care about how much laundry it makes, I want his clothes to match."

So I said, "Okay" and changed his shorts.

This is what I see almost everyday. I am living with someone who really wants to be with another man and resents that fact. That resentment comes through in many little ways, such as moving farther away from me when I sit on the same couch, etc.

Anyway, you get the picture. I walk on eggshells to avoid conflict and frankly it is getting old.

I got your picture quite some time ago.

Since you have all your answers, I'll spend time with less confident posters.

Good luck.

WAT

Well, that's okay. I don't have all the answers, but I am doing what I can.

A little indignant, aren't you?

Pot - meet kettle?

Are you coachable? If so, don't take my word for it, or WATs word for it. Go to Steve! Then tell us if legal separation is a marriage recovery and building plan for you.

Hiker, you're getting solid advice from some people who have already been where you are just beginning. I think you would be well advised to follow that advice...follow MB principles...and do a gang-busters exposure and then Plan A. Instead, you constantly set your day-to-day experiences over the suggestions from people who already have made it through this and who have assisted hundreds get through it also.

Friend, believing you know better than they do is a sad mistake I've seen scores of new posters make. Generally, they disappear after a while, only to come back a couple of months later, lamenting the fact they didn't pay attention and they tell us, “now it's too late.” I urge you to lay aside your confidence in your own knowledge and abilities for a while and let folks like Melody and WAT help you get your marriage back on track.

If you won't, I hope you have the luck to salvage your marriage using your current haphazard approach. The chances aren't good, but I don't wish you any ill will. Peace be with you.

Plan B is a marriage recovery tool. That is why it is explained in such detail on this website and in the Harley books.

For some reason you think Plan A should run indefinitely and that the affair will end under those conditions. Maybe it will and maybe it won't, but Plan B helps ensure that the BS doesn't lose what love he still feels for his spouse when the affair continues despite his efforts to stop it.

Some people can't Plan A at all. I managed up until now but I am losing my feelings for my wife. I want to save my marriage but it won't happen if I lose the desire to do so.

Longhorn,

What is it that you think I have failed to do?

I appreciate what some of you are trying to tell me and I have carefully considered all that's been said.

I have exposed the affair. I have done a pretty good job of Plan A for three months. My wife's summer vacation will give her numerous opportunities to see the OM and I can't stop it.

To my way of thinking, I am left only with a passive response, hoping the affair will burn out with the added opportunities for my wife and the OM to be together. They are definitely not compatible; I know this.

But let me hear your take.

Pardner, have you exposed to absolutely everyone who can put pressure on the adultery? Are you doing a Plan A where you are improving your image in her eyes? Have you set your boundaries and refuse to accept her disrespect? Are you doing the things in Plan A she will miss in Plan B? Are you applying the techniques in Pepperband’s “Carrot And Stick of Plan A?” Are you staying away from talks about “relationship” and concentrating on making the home an attractive place for your wayward wife.

Have you begun to workout in the gym regularly to improve your self-image and confidence? For instance, have you signed up for a class in whatever subject has intrigued you for (insert time period)…read that classic you know will capture you…started that woodworking project you’ve always meant to? Are you spending quality time with your son, taking pictures chronicling his growth and making those all-important memories you and he’ll treasure later? If you are doing these kind of things, tell us.

I hope you have and just haven’t told us. But, regretfully, what I see is Melody, WAT and others entreating you follow the program set up by Dr. Harley and you finding reasons not to. It’s one program, sir, and the whole is greater than that well-known sum of its parts. If you pick and choose, if you (for instance) don’t do full exposure because you feel it’s a love buster, you handicap yourself in a situation where there is only a narrow window of opportunity to save the marriage to begin with.

I hope I have misinterpreted your posts. I hope you have been doing a sterling Plan A and now it’s time to close up shop after three months. The problem is, nothing of your wife’s actions or words are unique. They occur in almost every thread to one degree or another. You’re not facing anything new. If you can tough it out for a couple/three more months, you would be better served. Plan A exists to set up Plan B. If you don’t do a great Plan A, the basis for Plan B is severely undercut and its chances for success are less.

In the end, your marital recovery is in your hands and only you can make the final decisions. It's all up to you and we can only advise from out here. I want you to make sure you make the best, most informed decision you can. If nothing else, just take my post as a check to help you make sure you really are at the point you believe yourself to be and disregard anything else you see in my words, okay?

Hang in there.

You are outlining everything I have done for the past three months with one exception; one very influential person in my wife's life is her grandmother. Unfortunately the grandfather is in the hospital suffering from congestive heart disease and the grandmother is under a tremendous strain. I haven't exposed my wife to her because of this.

I have followed Carrot and the Stick diligently.

Let me add that it was Dr. Harley himself (on the radio show) that explained to me that Plan B is PRIMARILY designed to protect the BS from the constant effects of facing the affair and thus save the love from turning into resentment and anger, both of which I feel have been growing recently.

Could I go a few more months? Maybe, but she has the summer off and it will create countless opportunties to see the OM which I can do nothing to stop.

She has a calendar which basically lists all the visits to his area 2 1/2 hours north of here. No one has been able to stop her and she has disowned her best friend over this issue.

Then may God's peace be with you.

Thanks. It will be some time before I find peace again.