Just pulled this out from Winterkisses' thread.

Mellow said:



and Mimi said:



Can we discuss this, please? Is a year REALLY no time in the context of MB?

It's been a little over a year since STBXH left (and I think the A was going on then - or at least he was on his way to complete something he'd already started), almost six months since I went into Plan B, and I received D papers a couple of weeks ago. I know that choosing to wait or not is very much up to me, but I'm wondering whether a year is no time when you've been served D papers, your WH has NEVER shown any interest in either reconciliation, and has never even shown any vascillation in his choice to leave his wife and children and take on an OW and her children instead. (He chose to leave from one day to the next, and that was it: decision made. He later said to me that he "considered out marriage over the moment he walked out the door".) It's not just that a year feels like forever (well... sometimes it does, and sometimes it feels just like yesterday that we were happy together), it's what he's been like since he left. His heart has become like a stone, and he has been absolutely immoveable in his decision. He has shown no romantic cake-eating or fence-sitting like some other WSs here.

So I'm wondering. Again!

I dunno RiverTam. I'm not much of a 100% MB proponent.

One yr is enough for me. My WH has also not shown any form of cake-eating and has been resolute since the he decided to leave which was 3 days after D-Day. He even nearly wanted to file a suit that I keep away from him and OW, as if I was acting like some raving mad woman, which I had not. I have not acted out of line and am a v calm practical person.

So one yr of practical non-contact is enough. For me.

I am legally separated. Once I've taken my name out of any joint holdings with him, I will be filing for a divorce.

I've also been wondering certain things about myself, for my own growth. For one thing, I don't miss him as much as I thought I would. We don't have kids so it's so much easier to walk away from each other. And I'm beginning to like the idea of doing my own thing without having to constantly negotiate/compromise with another person. *shrug*

~A

Well....it's been 2 and a half for me.....and although the D will be final July 21st.....yesterday she called and wants to come over and get some things tonight and asked if I'd be working....."cause it's just too hard to see you right now".

But she's still headed full steam ahead to end our marriage.....go figure?

I guess...only you know how long you can go? Best of luck...

Hi RT.

My situation is so simliar to yours, and the mindset of my STBX practically identical. He left in April '05 and has shown no remorse or regret whatsoever, not so much as a backward glance in my direction.


I wonder about this a lot. I don't know if my STBX was ever unfaithful to me before (I suspect yes, but I guess I'll never know). However, I know he wasn't a SA or serial cheater. He was 'basically' monogamous. Before he left, he would shake his head at friends or aquaintences who had affairs, or left their wives, calling them sad guys with bad attitudes towards women and an unhealthy way of dealing with their MLCs! Now here he is, one of those sad men.

Of course, he thinks it's different for him, he and OW are 'soulmates'. I think the coldness, the lack of cake-eating, is his warped attempt at decency. He doesn't want to give me false hope. He doesn't want to be 'unfaithful' to OW in any way with me. Of course, he's angry at me as well, because of the exposure I've done. Doubtless the very strong-willed OW has him on a very short leash, and he isn't allowed to be near me without her (she came up to the ward with him when I was in hospital last month and the children were visiting me, probably to make sure he didn't come in to see me!). <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

Affairs last about two years, but I think this one is a lifer. Why? Because I know that STBX and I were happy before the A, our family was happy, we got on well with our ILs, and our children were 100% certain that mummy and daddy would be together forever. I don't think that STBX will ever be able to admit he's made a horrendous mistake. So he'll stick it out, no matter how miserable he is.

A year is half the time for the average affair. Is that all affairs, or do affairs when one partner leaves for the OP have a different time frame? I've always wondered about this.

Alph.

Hi

Most situations don't turn nasty as quickly as both yours did. in RECOVERY a year isn't that long to expect all hurt to dissipate and all new relationship tools to work properly.

In your cases I can see how it seems you have spent exactly long enough in h3ll.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

All blessings

In my instance, MB's two years of insanity was right on the money. At two years she came to me wanting to stop the divorce and try again. I said sure....under my terms.

Plan B has worked to perfection for me.It preserved enough love at two years to consider reconciliation......but gave me the strength to walk away if my terms were not met.

Alphin, I am SURE this is the case with my STBXH.


I don't know that the A in our case is a lifer, but even if it ends I don't know that it'll mean anything for us for those exact reasons you mention. Admitting he's made a horrendous mistake would be beyond him, I think.


Hey Bob, just to clarify: who do you mean by "both" (there's four of us above your post <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />)? Although it's true, my WH got nasty straight away. The way someone here explained it to me, "the weirder they're acting, the weirder they have to be", and from what I can tell, his behavior is right on cue for a PA personality. But in truth, I have no idea. Someone once told me that the Harleys advice giving Plan B about 18 months total (which allows for six months of the A going on pre-discovery), but I'm wondering whether this is a blanket suggestion, or whether it's a suggestion given certain behavior on the WS's part.

Hi RT

I meant you and Ashley - your first respondent.

Also I didn't mean nastiness, but marriage-supporting behaviour.

There's a large gulf between what WS say and what they do.

When I helped end their affair by exposing to OM GF and threatening OM Squid could not be with OM as she wished, so despite being olympic medal-winning nasty, she didn't leave me physically. Had she been of a mind she could have left and gone somewhere else, no OM, but her instinct , deep under the fog, was either to not abandon her kids OR to not risk her own comfort for no reason. Either way I had more to work with from early on than you did.

We're coming up to two year spast d-day now and thing shave improved immeasurably, but we still have stuff to work on. From my situation I can see that 2 years is only an average, not a max time.

Regarding the maximimum time for plan B, I can't recall that from SAA, as I never had to go to plan B, thank God. I have seen from my studies on these boards however that plan B has its hardest impact within days or weeks of implementation. I'm not sure how effective 18 months of Plan B would be.

Plan A becomes counter productive if its used for longer than 2-3 months, after which plan B can help prevent BS love dwindling to nothing.

Speaking personally I would only have run plan B for six months then filed. That plus plan A is enough investment in somebody who doesn't care enough to respond positively in that time IMO. Like CPR, at some time you have decide when the patient's not coming round and call the death.

All blessings.

I was pretty sure even the end of my plan A that WH wouldn't be coming home. I never even went to plan B proper, although I have removed myself from his life, and avoid contact as much as possible. Certainly he knows now that we are never going to be the great 'buddies' that he foresaw before he left - with me going round for paella with him and OW. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

I know that almost all WS kick strongly against the ending of contact initially, and try to break NC - even though I'm not in plan B I stated to him quite clearly that I didn't want to see or speak to him for my own emotional protection. He just shrugged, said OK, and we haven't spoken since. Frankly, he couldn't have cared less.

When a few weeks went by, and he didn't try to make contact, I knew I was beating a dead horse and filed.

Alph.

Ah - OK, gotcha. Yep, it's true. I have had nothing to work with. He left, and that was it. Lately I've been thinking that maybe this is his version of being "honorable". See, his dad was a serial cheater, and he has spent a lifetime trying not to turn out like his folks. I've been wondering whether on some level he thinks he's done the honorable thing by leaving to pursue his A rather than cheating on me at home.


It was on one of my threads, but can't remember where. I don't know how effective 18 months of Plan B wuld be either, but don't know that it'd have the hardest impact within days or weeks. Otherwise why all the urging for people here to stick with it past the initial days and weeks? Plus, I don't think days or weeks is long enough for the reality of "life without the BS" to sink in. I imagine at first it'd feel fine, what with the flush of being to pursue the A freely, and it'd take a while for those unmet needs to make themselves known.


I do wish I'd known this. At the time, because I didn't know about MB, and I didn't know about the A, all I was doing was trying to June Cleaver through it. Unconditional love and support and he would STILL attack unprovoked and dammit - it's done considerable damage, both to me and to the love I had for him. I definitely think I stuck that first phase out too long.


[/quote]
Speaking personally I would only have run plan B for six months then filed. That plus plan A is enough investment in somebody who doesn't care enough to respond positively in that time IMO. Like CPR, at some time you have decide when the patient's not coming round and call the death.

All blessings. [/quote]

I don't know any more. Prior to this, I would NEVER have expected myself to put up with so much crud. I had very firm ideas about what a spouse should or shouldn't put up with, and often found myself parroting what my mother used to say when she heard of some terrible husband doing something cruel to his wife: "My husband would only be able to do that to me ONCE."

I understand what you mean about "calling the death", but I don't know what the alternative is for me right now. I mean... I think I'm doing all I can do to move forward (I HATE the term "move on"). I'm taking care of me, of the children, I'm making plans and implementing them, and in short I'm living my life. I'm remaining in Plan B not because of MB principles (OK - a bit! I admit I have a spark of hope there) but because this man I used to me married to is someone I DON'T want to know while he is involved with this woman. The only thing I'm not doing is going out and looking for someone else. Not just because I still love my H, but because I'm just not a looker and never have been. If I am honest with myself, I want to have what I lost restored to me. But if not... I am thinking that remaining in Plan B will help me anyway.

It sounds as though it probably suited him.

I have to clarify though: STBXH DID try to break NC (and still tries on occasion) but not to any lovey-dovey end. He just wants the contact. Whether it is to get a "fix", or try to control the situation, or whatever, I don't know, but he does try. I think it's finally sunk in though. The last thing I let him know is that he is NOT to send me messages or reading material through the children (which is how he was getting around the NC issue), and he's complied. Funny though - he sent me S16's school report the other day. The first time he's sent one through in the ten months S16 has been living with him. He sent it with S11, and he must have said something to S11 about it, because when he handed it over, he said, "Dad sent you S16's report. That's all right, isn't it?"

I've been at Plan B for 3 years now. I LOVE it. Divorce should be final soon, and I will stick to Plan B the rest of my life. Of course, all our kids are grown.

Well, despite having a young (11 y.o.) child, I don't know how I could do this without Plan B. He's NOT interested in being co-parent (in fact, he's become the most deadbeat of deadbeat dads), and my sheer proximity provides him with what he most appears to want: a whipping girl for his inherent misery and depression.

I'm surprised that not more long-term MBers have replied to this. Don't any of you who have been applying MB principles for longer than a year have anything to add?

Same thing in my case. I knew it was a no-go when it seemed v easy for him to cease communication and walk out without much of a turn of the head.

I knew that if there was some form of fence-sitting, there might have been some hope as it shows that he still wanted something here. But since the lure of the A and OW is so strong to him, I felt there wasn't much of a fight left. And I had to save myself first.

~A

I'm wondering though... surely if they find it really easy to walk out and immediately cease communications, isn't that the kind of sitch that is the most unrealistic for them and therefore the one most likely to come to a crashing end?

We are about to confront the two year mark, from DDay/A#1. I thought the tide was turning, but recently discovered that WH and OW (A#2) are still entangled in their deceitful web. And now OW seems to be experiencing some of the pain that I did. I wish I could be more sympathetic, but I'm not. At any rate, it has been a solid two years of non-recovery. Oddly, WH said he thought we were "making progress." The only thing that has apparently been making progress is the pain that WH is now causing OW. I do suspect that WH may be thinking hard about his choices at the two year mark, but I need to get out from under this. If only I could figure out how . . .

What's happened, Stung? Why is the OW feeling "pain"? And what's the progress, according to him?

If I remember correctly, SH gives 6 months for Plan A and 18 Months for Plan B. A total of 2 years.

Each of us has to tailor that timeline to suit their own needs and situations.

I my situation was before MB, but I did not last 6 months nor 18 months. When she wanted to return abter a few years, I said, "No way!" Of course, that was after 19.5 years of a very bad marriage.

Yep RAG, that's what I was told. Thanks for backing that up, I was beginning to think I'd imagined it!

And you're right: we all need to look at that timeframe in a flexible way.