I found out wife was talking to guy on April 2nd, after a few months of seeing a M/C, and thinking there was more, I got more, sex in a public place 1st/only time she was alone with him, please see my post Cheating wife Humiliated me........ on Just Found Out. Anyway, I moved out for a few days, then back (did not know about sex at that point, She moved out, back and then out then back, we are in family home now and I am sick of trying to get over this. I have a few OK days, then I have more really nasty days, the littlest thing can set me off. I have a home I just bought ready to move in to, less a bed and a few other things, I do not know if I should move out, try plan (b) or just stay here and be sick of this mess 75% of the time. Any advise would really help, Allovercarolina.

AOC,

Having read your thread on JFO, I can tell you that only you can decide if you want to recover your marriage, but YOU have to decide that is what you want and be willing to do what it will take to heal your relationship with your wife. If you cannot get past what she did, you will never be able to forgive and move forward with her.

The fact that you have good days and bad is not something that is unique to you or your situation. Recovery from adultery, of any duration and in any place has been described as a roller coaster. Emotions change from minute to minute.

Plan B is only effective following a good Plan A and Plan A is designed to win back a wayward spouse. If your wife is home and has said she is committed to recovery of your relationship you are miles ahead of people who have been here for months now.

Today you are sick 75% of the time. In a month it might be more like 65 or 70%. A year from now you might find yourself going a whole day without thinking about it...

You have to ask yourself if you WANT to recover your marriage. If the answer is "No" then go for Plan D (Divorce). If the answer is "Yes" then you need to learn how to go about it and enact a specific plan of attack to save, recover and restore your marriage. It can even be better than it was, but it didn't get "broken" in a few days or even weeks and isn't going to be "fixed" in a short period of time either. Only you can decide if you are going to put in the effort.

Have you read the Basic Concepts yet?

Have you read the Infidelity Q & A columns?

Have you read Surviving An Affair by Dr Harley?

Do you know what it is YOU want as the ENDS RESULT?
(Keep in mind that you aren't going to wake up one day and find that it was only a dream. This ain't television and you aren't in Dallas.)

Do you have a counselor you can meet with? (not marriage but individual)

For you to have any chance of recovering your marriage you have to have control of YOUR SELF. You aren't going to change what happened and you aren't going to have a great marriage until you can do what it takes to move beyond the shock and immediate pain of the betrayal and do the things it will take to fix it for the future. It is simply too late to prevent it from happening since you can't change the past.

Mark

allovercarolina,

Your wife has emailed me a few times - please send me an email - address in my profile or from your wife. I'd love to try and help you.

How long have you worked at Plan A?

I read somewhere here that a BH needs to stay in Plan A for 6 months with a WW.

You are experiencing a lot of ambivalence, which is normal, but in order to pull this off you will need to make a decision and stick to a plan of action based on that decision. No matter what you decide, to just stay together and wait to see what happens, to Plan A, to move out, to Plan B, to divorce... you will have to make a decision and then follow through.

If/when you do decide to separate or divorce, you will feel less ambivalence if you know you did an adequate plan A (both long enough and good enough). If you don't do the Plan A properly you will have trouble sticking to Plan B because you will worry that you could have done a better Plan A. This could sabotage your Plan B efforts as you will be more tempted to end Plan B prematurely. If you think the roller coaster you're on now is painful, you do NOT want to go there!

Both you and your wife are on roller coasters of indecision already. You may find yourselves reacting to each other in a downward spiral. Somebody has to be the saner one who stops the destructive spiral and restores some sense of stability and sanity. That would be you, both because you aren't the addict and you are the man.

You have to make a choice of whether or not to stand for your marriage. And then you need to act consistently with that choice, regardless of your feelings du jour.

More than ever your WW needs to see a clear example of what love and committment really are: something more than just feelings, desires, fantasy... Show her that you can and will be strong enough to see your marriage through this. Some part of her ambivalence has to do with whether or not she believes your marriage can survive this. It may not seem possible but many marrriages do survive adultery. But the choice is yours and you definitely have to have a plan and the strength to stick to it.

So, think about your Plan A: How long have you done Plan A? How good of a job have you done at working to meet her EN's? How successful have you been at avoiding LB's? And maybe most importantly in your case, how consistent and confident has your Plan A looked from her persepctive?