RT - as I understand, Plan B does not start until your H knows it's started. A letter is required. Don't consider yourself in PB until the letter is sent and you know you're there.

For the weeked I would say do what you need to do to protect yourself. If you feel that answering the phone or going to church would be harder than not then there's your answer.

Take care of yourself this weekend. Do something for yourself. Something fun. Or something fulfilling. Until you have a plan you need to survive. Bringing WH into the picture probably won't do anything for your right now other than destroy.

RT:

I am being brief because I don't have much time tonight.

You are not in PLAN B at all.

You are still in PLAN A so that is where you need to stay.

Your WH is following the standard script. He wants you to make this easy for him.

You didn't blow it. Simply get back up there on the horse.

Let him know that you changed your mind about NO CONTACT with him..that you want to continue to work on your marriage and in order to do that you want to spend time with him.

When you do go into PLAN B, as the other poster said, it needs to be done with a letter AND at a GOOD POINT in PLAN A.

One of the purposes of PLAN B is for him to MISS you.

I would say..stay in PLAN A for as long as you can..until you feel YOUR LOVE BANK running low..when you begin to lose your love for your H....

It's either PLAN A or PLAN B..not one or the other...

Get yourself a copy of SURVIVING AN AFFAIR if you don't have one so that you can better understand PLAN B..because you will probably need to get ready for it..

Later...

mimi,

Call him and tell him I want to see him? Ugghhh. It would give him all the cards. I would feel like I was crawling back to him. The past few times we spent together, he was so cool, so distant. I just felt like he didn't want to be around me, so that's why I said maybe we shouldn't spend time together. He agreed, no hesitation. So what do I say? I changed my mind?

I don't want to contradict Mimi - a vet - but it looks like she may be gone for the night.

It's important that you are CLEAR about what you are doing before you do it. Have you read every article on this site? Have you searched for Plan A threads and read them? Have you read Peperband's "Carrot and Stick"?

Don't react. Act. And act from knowledge. Not fear. Put WH on ice this weekend and learn. Go to the library/bookstore and get a copy of Surviving an Affair. Read Not Just Friends. Knowledge is power. Educate yourself. You don't have to decide what you're going to do right now. Decide that you're going to make no decision until Monday. If WH's not in the house then you don't need to deal with him, right? Prepare yourself for battle. This is war. And you're the good guys.

Way to take control of your situation and call the Harleys, by the way. So many BSs don't do it.

MDC, thank you for responding. I've read up a lot on this website. Plan A is really tricky to me. I haven't read carrot and stick. Where do I find it.

My gut tells me the same, don't talk to him this weekend and see how it goes. I just don't want to look wishy washy all over again.

You have the luxury of not living with WH right now so use the weekend to get your head together. Collect yourself.

Some good links:

Being effective and operating from strength

How the wayward get wayward, and why they sound so dumb...

15 Steps of Unfaithfulness

Bob's Newly Betrayed Spouse MB Toolkit

plan a tips and musings...get grounded here

The Carrot and the Stick of Plan A Renters vs. Buyers and other good stuff

Happy reading! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Actually, telling him that you want NO CONTACT is actually giving him the cards. He doesn't want to feel responsible for the wrongdoing in the marriage. By agreeing to NO CONTACT, you are in fact ENABLING HIM in his affair. Put the onus all him. Let him see that he is the one who is making the decision not to work on your marriage. You don't want to agree to him abandoning you for the OW. You want to show HIM and HER that you will FIGHT for him. Fighting for him right now means MAINTAINING CONTACT.

Yes, call him back. It is not wishy-washy. It is part of the FIGHT.



Distance, coldness...part of the WS script. He wants to rationalize his affair so he wants you to reject him..so he can say to himself that you don't want him anyways..He thinks: it's the OW who really wants me..all the while, he has set this whole scenario up...DON'T ALLOW HIM TO PLAY THIS STANDARD WS GAME WITH YOU...

Of course, he agreed to NO CONTACT with you. He wants to carry on his affair...with your blessing..

Do you see what you are doing? This is not the time to back off...

I read mimi's post last night. I called H around 10pm, just to see how he was doing. Well, he was sleeping. I woke him up. He was grouchy. He told me, in a rather sharp tone, that I should have the kids call him,like it was my responsibility to do so. Then an uncomfortable silence following by his famous sigh. Then he said roughly, "Okay, Jules." I said, okay. Then we hung up. Miserable.

He has a golf tournament all day today so he won't be around.

The kid thing; two out of three of my children won't talk to him. They are boys, 17 and 15. They saw the whole ugly scenario unfold, and believe me, it was ugly. H lied about going on a trip to FL by himself, four days later OW's H calls me at 11 o clock at night. He'd just found out. Anyway, kids hate him. So it's hard to do the plan A, make him feel at home thing. The truth is, when he walks through the door, only my daughter greets him. My 15 year old might say, Hey, but that's about it. And my 17 year old won't be in the same room with him. Makes Plan A difficult.

Standard WS Stuff...

Do your PLAN A reading today...

mimi,

okay, H came over tonight to pick up some papers. We hung out, had dinner, watched television. I tried to keep things very light. I did mention that I thought not seeing each other was a bad idea. He said he thought it was good for him. I didn't want to argue (tried to avoid LB's), so I let it go, tried to enjoy the evening. Just before he left, I told him to call or come by anytime. He said thanks.

Did I do the right thing?

Thanks.

Great!

For a WS, ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN HIS WORDS!!!

Like I said, H said he thought this was good for us. I didn't want to argue. So do I call him, bug him? Or not. I'm so confused.

Maybe I'm really stupid or something, but I don't think he's still having the affair. He spends a lot of time at his apartment playing his guitar, writing Christian songs, reading the Bible. I dunno. Am I dumb or something? I just can't imagine him doing all this and still carrying on. Two weeks ago, he'd gone to church alone, and came to my house an utter wreck, cryng, "I'm a sinner, I'm an adulterer!" He cried all day, feeling the weight of everything he'd done. He wanted to come home at that point, saying he didn't want to be in the cold anymore. About four days later, he did a 180,again, for the second time. Today he's cold as ice.

RT - don't call him to talk about the M. If you have some other reason and you can pull it off the call him - "Did you see the reviews so-and-so movie got?" Lite and quick. Throw something in there like - "May not seem like it now but I know this marriage can be recovered and grow into something beautiful. I'm participating in a help group where I see it happen every day. Are the Cubs playing tonight?" THAT should be the extent of your relationship talk. State your truth and then quickly move on.

Your WH doesn't see hope in the future of your marriage. You do. Share this hope with him. But use only ONE or TWO sentences and move on quickly to something else. Work these truths into conversation every other day. Write out the statements before hand. Share your hope with him.

DO NOT FOR A SECOND believe that WH is done with the A until you know for a FACT that it's over. I make this mistake several times - dropped my guard, stopped snooping - only to find out that there was a lull or they had just gotten sneakier.

Your H is not above suspicion until we say he is, OK? You're a long way off from that day. Trust US. Not him.

MDC,

I tried to do this last night and it was soooo hard. It's heartbreaking, really. I just kept things light and when he left, he hesitated even giving me a hug. I'm broken inside. He didn't want to go to church with me, went by himself this morning. I don't know how he thinks this can be a good thing.

What is the status to the OW? Do you know all about her? Where she lives? Her whereabouts?

I agree with everything MDC has said. Assume that the A is continuing unless you have evidence otherwise...

Don't call him to talk about the R as MDC has said.

The way it's going, he will probably contact you, Right?

If the A is still ongoing, I have no proof. His cell phone is from work and I can't get records. He lives in an apartment ten minutes away. Yes, I have driven by occassionally at night to see if he's home. I know she drives a blue Ford Explorer, so I look for that. But it's all hit and miss, you know? And that could get exhausting. I know where she lives, yes. So what do I do, stake out her apartment? She has a husband, and he knows all about the A, so I assume he's keeping a good watch on her. I do have her cell phone number, and her husband's cell phone number. But if I call husband of OW, and H finds out, that would be the end of it. I talked to OWH through the A, and H was furious.

So, how do I know? I just can't see myself resorting to recorders and GPS devices. It all seems so insane, like, what's the point if things have gotten this low? He swears to me on a bible, NC. But I don't know. He's acting so weird. But he went to church today. I don't understand, how a man could go to church and then carry on an affair? Who's made that way?

Anyway, I assume he will get in touch with me, at some point. In the meantime, I'm slowly dying.

Do I continue to ask him to reassure me of NC? Or do I shut up about that, too?

Change your thread name to something like HELP ME WITH EXPOSURE...

I think you need to expose..catch him...since he's so prone to feel guilty...

But I'm not good with exposure...

RL:

I know this is all so hard to believe but your WH sounds no different than others here. My H was a leader in our church for a long period of time while his A was ongoing..He eventually stopped attending...

I think EXPOSURE is especially essential in your case because of the GUILT factor..your H desire to DO GOOD...

Bringing the A out into the light of day makes its UGLINESS stand out...



So what if your H is furious? Whose in the right here? You are doing what you have to do to SAVE your marriage. He may not like you at that point but he will definitely RESPECT you. I learned that the more my H respected me, the more attractive I was to him. It was like: Hey, I might be losing someone who thinks she is a value and will stand up for what she believes in and what she knows is right.

How did you discover the A? Did you catch them together?

This is how it went down, mimi--after much writing on the wall which I refused to see, he decided he needed to take a trip to FL to "Find himself." For the previous six months, unbeknownst to me, he was having an A with a woman he met over the internet. In the time he told me he was considering leaving the marriage, I did everything I could to make him happy. (Maybe I was in Plan A, and just didn't know it). Anyway, we went to counseling. We did lists for each other of things we liked. He brought me flowers, took me out, wined me and dined me. LIttle did I know he was doing the same with OW. (How could he DO that?) Anyway, he just sort of turned, decided to go to FL. I agreed. He kissed me goodbye, said he loved, then went to pick of the OW. I didn't know. I thought he was going alone. Four days later, I got a phone call from OWH saying he'd found my number on HER email. They had been emailing and she was too stupid to erase the archives. That's how I found out, at 11pm on a Sunday night while I was reading The Power of a Praying Wife. I fell apart, in front of my kids. Neighbors, mom came over. I ended up in the hospital three days later. When I talked to H on the phone, he said he was in love with OW. They stayed down there for three weeks, going to Disneyworld, and all of the places OUR family goes to every year. Sacred stomping grounds. Unbelieveable.

When he came back, I thought we were getting a divorce. But I did enough research, told him he either drops OW and tries to work out M, or it's goodbye. In the end, he couldn't say goodbye to me. So, he broke it off with her that night, and we have been trying ever since.

The first month was wonderful. He repented, apologized, told me he loved me over and over, cried alot, told me I would never be made to feel like second place again. Told me he was in it 100%. Then about three weeks ago, he does a 180, says he still has feeling for OW and doesn't know how to deal with them. A week after that, he tells me he wants a D. Four days later, on a Sunday, comes to my house CRYING, said he couldn't stay through the whole church service. He was listening to Corinthians on tape, came in the house crying how he's a sinner, he's an adulterer--that he loves me in his heart, it's his head that's all screwed up. We get BACK together. AGAIN,four days later ... he doesn't know what he wants. Acting cold and distant again. Shows no affection. Now, likes the limited contact idea. I think he's crazy, mimi. And I really do feel like giving up sometimes.

All this is why I think I may be ready for Plan B.
What do you think?