Im two weeks in to knowledge about a PA - she kept it in for 6 months before coming clean. Initially claimed 'no attraction' for me for past 6 months (since PA occured supposedly 2 times only); now claims entire last year 'no attraction' and 'maybe longer'

Basically no regret at having unprotected sex and exposing me for 6 months to risk of an STD. Her rationale: nothing showed up on me so I knew you would be OK. Cant understand the lack of respect / regret here in particular.

Trying to do Plan A but getting torn up inside due to comments like the following:

1) Dont feel attracted to you physically
2) Still 'best friends' and still 'love you' but not in the same way (platonic)
3) Dont 'feel' anything even when kissed
4) Constant indirect jsutifications for WS PA which she says were 'obvious' last year but to me only obvious in hindsight.
5) Wants to 'work on things' but not with a 'we will find the love again' attitude but rather 'we put a lot in the marriage in the past, worth a go I guess'

For two weeks (despite anger inside and sadness) Ive tried working on LB's, little notice by WS. WS appears to have little to no emotional baggage about PA (comments like 'I guess our marriage was bad since I had the PA', 'I wouldnt have had the PA if things were good, so I guess subconsciously I let it happen') and seems to have little guilt (despite supposedly church upbringing!) about PA.

Assuming plan A works, what should I be ready for longer term? How long is it 'full fog', and is it worth doing couple things to try to repair the M or is it better to wait for some of the fog to lift. (For example have an 8k vacation planned for next month but not sure if I want to do this now given I planned this before all this can out; 10 year anniversary is in may also and was about to plan surprise party prior to learning all of this - again, better to assume the fog will still be there even then??)

The other big 'issue' for her is we had sex a few days ago after she 'seemed' to agree to work 100% on the marriage - she says she 'felt nothing' (despite it being great physically for her) for me during sex and that this sparked a worry in her that maybe we cant get the M back.

Is all of this typical? Should I not even expect 'progress signs' for months?? (Note: she has said she doesnt want a D and still best friends; just no physical attraction) Is it normal as a BS to feel a little love disappear for the WS every day in Plan A when they seem essentially disinterested / make little effort at saving the M, i.e. essentially sit on the fence since they also dont want a D??

I can say I experienced pretty much everything you have described and more. The thing you have to do is not listen to it. It is extremely important to think of your WW like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. They will say anything thing to provoke you. They speak lies and more lies. They often believe a lot of what they say. They have to reinvent history as a way to avoid guilt for adultery. Plan A is not easy and it does take time. I was in it for about 6 months before I saw any real change and about a year before we began making real progress.

Don't try to deny her allegations. That will only reinforce her. You have to give her time to put history back into place. Give yourself time for Plan A.

Gilbert, did you eventually get an apology or to make the M work do you have to assume they will never put the weight of what they did in proper perspective? I personally think it is related to exactly what you said: if they DID have a good marriage and had the A, what does that say about them as a person? Better to revise history and justify.

I am impressed you had the patience for plan A - I am not sure if I do right now!

Feeling remorse takes a long time. Is there any way that you can postpone your vacation? I know that I wouldn't want to take the vacation of a life time just after D-day.

LD,

I didn't have the patience either. I have gotten weak apologies. I can't say if that is because she is not all that sorry or because the guilt of what she has done makes it difficult to verbalize. Believer is right. True remorse could take some serious time. You have to be willing to forego that for the moment. IMO you can't place many expectations on Plan A. You can't say "I'll try as long as you are sorry". Well you can but probably won't get the result you want. Have you read SAA and do you know what Plan A is about? It took me a few months to really understand Plan A. I was practicing it without understanding it.

Somebody said history books are written by the winner. Imagine how 20th century history would look if Germany had won WWII. This isn't a question of who is right or wrong. It is a question of where you are going from here. You can Plan A or B all you want. You cannot force your WW back to the M. That will always be her choice. So, having said that, what do you want? Do you still want to see if you can have a marriage? If so, follow the Harley plan to the letter. It is no guarantee but IMVHO it is about your best chance of success. Just don't drink the kool-aid. They spike it.

Ah. That explains it.

Love Decline,
hang in there. your world has been upended.
take a minute to breath.

my WS said every one of those painful things to me as well, and you will see from reading other posts that this is typical fog behavior. I am about 3 mos in and the fog hasn't lifted yet. but you will get better at distinguishing fog talk from your old W talking. when my WS starts fogtalking, I separate from her. helps not to hear all the crap about "love but not in love" stuff. then when W appears I plan A her. I am in plan A and sometimes it feels like garbage. but sometimes I really connect with her.

as I said, I am a newbie, but others here will tell you this is a marathon, and you are fighting for your M. you are doing it alone though, she may not be participating any time soon, more likely working against you. don't forget, she doesn't know what she's saying.

stay strong, you can do this.

LoveDecline - your experience is typical. It takes TIME for the Love Bank deposits to reach the threshold of romantic love.

I had exactly the same response from my wife. But she did fall in love with me again.

It took 6 months before she really "got it" and was fully repentant. 6 months of NO CONTACT.

LD,

My story is long and sordid. It has even developed a new twist in the past few days. I won't bore you. Two weeks after my Dday, I didn't know up from down. I remember quite vividly what all I went through. It does get better but that unfortunately takes some time. I still ask you - do you want to try to save your M? Are you willing to do whatever it takes? If so, this is the place to be. There is hope. before anything positive can happen, the A has to die. It was only after about six months of NC that I saw a difference. The clock starts ticking at NC - not at Dday. If contact is established after NC, reset the clock.

Thanks for your replies Gilbert and bigkahana. I would definately like to save the marriage since at least until the PA we always seemed to have a great emotional / friendship bond. Few of my guy friends have this with their spouse, on the other hand, as far as I know their spouses are faithful. I think I am trying to decide if friendship + rebuilding trust over the long haul with her is better vs. cutting my losses and facing the fact that the person I thought I was married to never existed.

How do you get to where you need to be emotionally when the shock is mostly that the person you trusted 100% (and I gave her a LOT of rope compared to most husbands!) couldnt be trusted?

The weird thing is I think she actually is in a state right now where she things the PA wasnt a 'big deal' and that it 'wasnt to hurt me', yet doesnt want to leave the marriage. (However this I think is more do to her being 'used to it' and afraid of dramatic change vs staying in it for love)

Well LD,

You have to consider the source. Would you expect her to say "OH MY GOD!!! WHAT HAVE I DONE???" and then proceed to slit her wrists or try to bury the guilt any way she can? Humans are extremely well equipped with coping mechanisms. I wouldn't give any more thought to the "no big deal" issue than it took me to write that last sentence. Her ideas will change with time just as yours will. She may well eventually get to the OMG!!! stage. When she does, hide the razor.

One hard lesson you learn in all this is that your spouse never could be trusted. You just thought she could. Nobody should trust their spouse implicitly. An open and honest marriage is full of checking up on facts. That's not to say you shouldn't trust your spouse. You should - but only to a point.

If you still love your WW then do your best to destroy the A and try to save your M. It is a lot of hard work but may well be worth it. If you are successful, some day your WW may well thank you for standing by her and be begging your forgiveness. You never know.

My WW is fond of saying that you can never truly know what is in the heart of another. You say your W never existed? I doubt that. Has something happened to cause her to change? Most definitely. Is she happy with that change or does she want to go back to who she was before? I don't know. Do you?

I'm going to go back to the first post of this thread. You will get differing opinions on this so think it through. Personally I would downplay the 10th anniversary thing. My WW gave me a present for our anniversary after Dday and I said "What????". Basically I had no desire to celebrate or acknowledge the anniversary under those circumstances. I got her nothing. I gave her gift to me back and told her to get rid of it and I never wanted to see it again. While vacation time together may be a good thing, an extremely expensive vacation may not be. In my situation, I would tone things down a bit. I guess my litmus test and my advice to you is only do something that you are going to be comfortable with yourself. Don't do anything under the pretext that it might cause a significant change in WW's behavior. You will only set yourself up for disappointment. Take a vacation where, no matter what happens, you will come back having enjoyed yourself. If WW has a good time too, well, that's her business.

Glibert I am leaning towards your comment re: vacation. The irony is I traveled a lot last year for work (this is one 'reason' I am told my wife cheated) and have enough miles for first class tickets to Indian Ocean Islands or Asia and enough hotel points to stay free, with a lot left over. Id planned on the nice trip as a way of saying 'thanks' for putting up with the travel - now I know she didnt exactly put up with it after all. On the other hand R&R on a beach might still be nice regardless - I guess the real question is an ultra-romantic type location for a vacation with a WS just going to make things worse or could it help with recovery. (I am 99% sure there PA was a two time thing that occured last year, she seems to be in what people here are calling 'withdrawal')

Im not sure if this is typical, but the hardest thing she has said recently is 'I knew you wouldnt leave me when you found out'. That comment was almost enough to make me throw up my hands - on the other hand she also has said she is shocked I would give her 'another chance'. In fact it almost seems like she is throwing out as many hurtful / f'up comments as possible daily, with an occassional mix of the old W talking too.

Thanks for the comments, can you send me a link to your story / thread, Id be curious to learn more.

One last question for all. Should I contact the OM? I have met him a couple of times - he is a work associate of hers, more senior. Both times where drunken hook ups - he has a rep. for sleeping with married women and others too, not a looker at all but has the 'player' attitude about him. Wife is looking to change jobs ASAP but in the meantime is it good to let the OM know a husband is aware, something like 'stay away from my wife, we are working on our marriage now' or is it better just to ignore him completely since he will be out of her life very soon.

I guess I am old fashioned but I personally think men that go after married women should learn that the behavior isnt tolerated. (I dont want to confront him in person because I dont know what I would do in that case due to anger issues)

Okay I have always been firmly decided on this. IMO there is no benefit to contacting the OM. First, he already knows he had an A. You are not going to surprise him. Second, he has no motivation whatsoever to help you. If he is a player, he has no conscience. What would you try to appeal to? You are more likely to cause a stir which might eventually get violent. If they are work associates, expose to his boss or to HR at the company. Get his [censored] fired. Exposing the A is not an LB BTW. Your WW may scream and threaten but it is all smoke and mirrors.

I would guess that, in most cases, when a BH squares off with an OM, the BH comes away the loser. It is not that he is better than you in any way, shape or form. You are at a very unstable point in your life psychologically. He is in defensive mode. Mentally he is probably tougher than you right now. I would avoid him directly but I would make his life uncomfortable by all legal means to the point that he knows to stay away from your WW. If he's married, I would expose to his wife immediately. Hit him where it really hurts - the pocket book.

You need to expose to work to prevent them from hooking up again. As it has been explained here many times before, the A will never be over until there is NC with the OM. Until that happens the feelings are there, withdrawal will never happen, and she cannot transfer her feelings completely back to you. Her family should know about it as well. If she doesn't tell them, you need to. This will protect your M from further adultery as more eyes will be watching her. Is the OM married? If so, you definitely need to expose to OM's wife.

I personally think a vacation would be nice as long as you don't have high expectations and push too hard. Afterall, you need to entice your WW to work on the M and also get her mind of the OM while she is in withdrawal.

You need to make some changes in your life as well. Obviously the travel thing isn't going to work. I too traveled a lot for my job. For a year straight I was gone from Monday-Thursday with about 4 exceptions. Guess what else we have in common? Both of our W's cheated on us. I have transfered to a non-travelling job to show my WW that I will never neglect her again. I would suggest a similar gesture.

So sorry you are here, LoveDecline. But under the circumstances, you could not have chosen a better place for advice and support.

That being said - this is something that has been on my mind and I would like to throw this out here for the experts to ponder over. When talking with a WS about restoring the marriage, I am wondering that the constant use of the word - WORK - on the marriage is all that constructive ?? I am thinking that, maybe, the WS sees the actual word - work - as something that seems a chore, like putting a bad spin on it... Now, I may be and prolly am, off base on this... but it just keeps coming back to me.

Perhaps another word would register better in the crazy mind of a WS... the word - work on the marriage - may just seem like too much trouble for them... maybe a word like restore... or make our marriage better....

Ok, I feel better now... I have been dying to say this and wanted to know what y'all thought about the use of this word constantly involving repairing marriages...I just can't help but think that it MAY be scaring some WS into thinking that the task at hand is just too much trouble...that instead of using the word - work on the marriage - could be changed to something else that means entirely the same thing...

LoveDecline, there are many wise,wise people here to help you... sending my best regards

Carnation

Even marriages that don't have infidelity require work. Nothing comes naturally although my WW wishes it would.

No, I am not saying that marriages do not require work... of course they do.. constantly.... with or without affairs

I am just saying that when trying to draw a WS back into the marriage -- that the constant use of the WORD work may not be the best word to use... that is all that I am saying...

They (the WS) may hear the word WORK as something that does not appeal to them...

Perhaps another word - instead of Work - can be used... that is my point here.... hope I am not confusing anyone.. not my intention...

I know what you mean, Carnation2.

I've used the word "work" in many of our R talks, and I could see my FWW visibly cringe at the idea. I try not to use it now.

I did have a little internal chuckle though when Larry suggested to her on her thread that she might be too lazy to work on herself <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />.