Scott, based on your past two weeks behavior, do you really think you can follow up with your plan B?

Everyday that goes by makes me more confident that I can do a good PLAN B. My biggest concern is that she doesn't need me. So I guess this is about as good a time as ever. Her parents won't talk to me, and she is mad at me. I have been trying to talk to her parents and ask them for help/advice etc. but they never reply to my emails. I think that this might be the end of my relationship with this wonderful, woman, but the relationship as it is now, does nothing good for me. So if a PLAN B is the right thing to do? (I am not sure whet else I can do?) I will give it my very best shot.

Ryan.

How about:

"Honey, I'm just not comfortable talking about money right now. You made the decisions to pay off those cards and took me off them. I think the time for discussion was BEFORE you did all that, but I didn't have the chance.

"What I think all this says is that we don't do very well apart. You remember this email? Honey, I'll talk about us getting things back together any time you want, but I just can't deal with anything else right now..."

If you can possibly hold off on Plan B for a little while longer, it might be best. Come to think of it, I don't know how long you consider yourself to have been in Plan A. How long is it now?

BTW, if you have all that money left over at the end of the month, have you considered getting some personal (telephone) sessions with Steve Harley? He's an excellent counselor and could work with you to set up a personalized recovery program. Consider it, okay?

Longhorn,

My PLAN A, has been pretty sad. She won't allow me to see her, talk to her, meet any of her emotional needs. etc. I talk to her very briefly and it is usually about "business" but it turns into something else and we both get off the phone feeling bad. I will call Dr. Harley, I have stopped seeing my IC, because she was doing a very bad job, of helping me, she just wanted me to talk and never offered any advice/help. I will again try to be cordial and nice tonight at our meeting. I am really hoping that the exposure put the other guy on the ropes, but I don't think so. When we were talking last night, her other phone was ringing, she told me she needed to answer it, but she would call me back. She never called back. I am sure that it was him on the phone and he has talked her into not talking to me.

Ryan.

It SHOULD NOT ever be the same, BA. Their marriage has suffered a blow where from here forward, with Harley's principles and if recovered from adultery, will be different than their legacy marriage dynamics. A new marriage much improved with Harley's tools (principles).

Perhaps you should spend some time reading this site's articles by Harley and the stories on these boards so you can better understand the concepts.

Jo

Alright new twist. I just got of the phone with my wife. She is in the hospital, nothing life threatening, but she might be staying over night. Do I show up with flowers? Just show up and bring myself? Do I still bring the car titles to be signed, then just be the good guy?

Thanks,
Ryan.

Which choice will meet her emotional needs the best?

I would show up with something neutral. Find something useful to her, but not romantic.

Be available to cater to her if she would like you to pamper her, or sit with her, etc. But don't force it.

Have the car papers with you, or left in the car. If she brings them up, got get them, but don't ignite the issue, let her do that if she choses to.

I'd go see her, but I'd be cordial, rather than emotional...comforting rather than loving. I wouldn't talk love and marriage unless she broaches the topic. Typical Plan A stuff, see? Dress to impress, Scotty. Casual, but well-dressed. Let her see your best Plan A person.

Frankly, I don't think you should take the titles with you. I'd tell her she needs to get well first and then you can talk about such things. Then I'd call the people you sold the cars to and let them know your wife has been hospitalized and there might be a delay.

Tonight was nice, my wife seemed happy and glad to see me. The conversation was nice and light for most of the time. We had a little stumble when she mentioned she saw the letter I sent to the OM's wife. I honestly don't remember what I wrote, but it made her very angry. I quickly changed the subject and talked about her vacation and work, at first she didn't want to talk much, but it seemed like she opened up. I asked about her family and friends. I did ask how the OM was doing, she said she didn't know she hadn't talked to him in a couple of days, then we quickly moved on. I ended up taking her a nice live plant, and her favorite Hagen Das ice cream bars. She seemed to be doing well and wanted to plan a time tomorrow to sign the titles. Wow what a rollercoster!!

Ryan.

This is an old post of mine I cut and pasted from the Longhorn "For Newly Betrayed Spouses" thread on the Just Found Out board. It applies here as I would anticipate a pull back from her tomorrow....and want you to be ready for it and understand it's NOT a set back....just part of the ride.

So here it is -------------->

Some days your spouse will be kind to you and other days hostile. As you ATTEMPT to pull closer to them and reestablish intimacy they will no doubt respond by pulling away for fear of you interrupting their affair OR, if the affair is over, for fear of leading you on. If you pull away from them the Waywards may often pull you closer for fear of losing you, for fear of losing their options as they cake eat/ride the fence of indecision. However, if you pull away to hard you may run a huge risk that you will merely reinforce and legitimize their built up rationalizations and justifications. It's simply the roller coaster of infidelity and the more you recognize it for what it is the more POWER you have to control YOURSELF as you both progress through this mess.

The wayward emotional pull back is to be EXPECTED. Waywards almost always do this. They take a step towards you and you respond appreciatively...you acquire Hope and push for more, more, more. You hunger for HOPE and they fear it. WS's don't feel worthy of it and are holding on to so much of the rationalizations and justifications that they can't see straight YET...even if they HAVE recommitted to the relationship and gone to "NO CONTACT". They fear hurting you further, hurting their family further. They fear you are placing much more significance on each step forward than you should cause they legitimately and quite necessarily DON'T FEEL IT...YET. So they slap you down and retreat. They may even defend/insulate themselves from you by calling you NEEDY AND UNATTRACTIVE to get you to back off. Hence, the step backwards.

When you detach from the rollercoaster and allow him/her to proceed at his/her desired speed you can hopefully minimize the steps back. When YOU internalize and beleive yourself to be the obvious choice, acquire patience and the confidence that he/she would be a fool not to recomitt to you, then you become the confident, unpressing, spouse that swept them off their feet so many years ago. He/she can more easily recommit to the person they saw back at the beginnig of your relationship than they can to the devastated spouse they see before them now.

You are behooved to, for the most part, just let it go for now, OP's is soon to be or IS out of the picture...this is just you and your spouse now. Try to date them (alone time without KIDS is KEY...family time is NOT as effective). Movie dates suck cause you can't talk but those are the kind of dates you want now. Consider loud restaurants, clubs and bars. Activity based dates where you are not seated facing each other forced to have that “serious talk”. But if they won't date you go out yourself and either have fun or feign fun. They will eventually get suspicious or feel the need to take a break themselves and hopefully follow along.

In conclusion, you only control you. The more you understand the dynamics of infidelity the more prepared you will be to anticipate it and combat it. Your spouse, as expected is behaving like an idiot right now and "idiocy" will likely be the forecast for some time. YOU must be the leader of your family and the leader of your marriage and despite the crap you are putting up with BE the best person you can be....simply, ACT, DON'T REACT.

Good luck,

Mr. Wondering

OK...the list of Do's and Don'ts.

Do's
1. Act Happy
2. Get a life (new activities, etc.)
3. repeat over and over..."I will make it"
4. Actively LISTEN....keep conversations at "to the point...small talk" ...don't blow it up beyond the waywards current comfort zone
5. Tend to Agree (Thank you for your truthfulness, It seems that way, you have a point)
6. Expand your social relationships (Being especially aware of your own vulnerability and keeping sharing and time with opposite sex relationships to an absolute minimum)
7. Get sexy (gym, new clothes, etc)
8. Focus on your strengths and Positives...don't put yourself down verbally or constantly go over what you did wrong
9. Accept Uncertainty (Do your best today and let God take care of tommorrow)

DON'Ts

1. Repeatedly say "I love you"
2. Ask questions that don't have answers yet
3. Criticize, complain, whine or nag
4. Say, "I've changed"....allow the wayward spouse to simply judge your actions
5. Argue, Reason or Plead
6. Don't get family or friends overly involved in recovery (notice I said "in recovery", EXPOSURE to bust up an active affair IS ESSENTIAL and EXPOSURE to the OP's spouse is an absolute MUST)
7. Act helpless or depressed
8. Discuss morality, invoke God or Dr. Laura type babble
9. Suggest marital counseling (must be the waywards idea)
10. Tell them continually "we need to work on the relationship"
11. GIVE UP

*sorry the above is a little choppy...I combined several similiar posts to compile this one.

Mr, W.

Thanks again for the refresher on PLAN A. I will do my best. I am trying to be friendly, without being needy. I will probably end up seeing her later today, to sign the car titles. I will keep it brief and friendly and then let her know I need to run since I have plans tonight. I sent her a text this morning to let her know I hope she is out of the hospital and feeling well.

Thanks for all the help, keep it coming ;-)

Ryan.

Update, well we had our meeting at the coffee shop to sign the car titles and get the keys back for the house. I got there early and ordered us 2 coffees and found a table, so that we could sit accross from each other and do the paperwork. Right as she was sitting down I think she got a call from the OM. She answered it, kept it brief, but had a huge smile on her face like someone taking drugs :-( It was so hard not to ask who it was, but I just stayed the course and was very nice. We signed all the paperwork and then had some small talk. Right before we were getting ready to leave, she got a call from her surgeon, saying that she would be going in for surgery on the 14th of Novmber (removing a possible tumor in her leg). I hate the feeling that my wife will be going in for surgery and I won't be there.... When we walked out, I said that if I don't talk to you before the 14th I will be thinking about you, and asked her to let me know how everything goes. She said that she would and then she walked off looking kind of sad??? I don't feel as confident about tody as I did yesterday, as far as PLAN A, goes, because of the phone call that she got from OM right as she was sitting down. I know that if the affair dies, we would have a chance, but both he and my wife seem very persistent.

P.S. I checked on the Certified letters I sent to the FBI, they were delivered yesterday at 9:40am. I am sure that nothing will come of them until next week.

P.P.S. A couple of days ago, my wife called me so upset about money, and that she couldn't buy furniture that she was crying. Well today she tells me that her new furniture is being delivered tomorrow? I have no idea, who gave her the money, OM or her parents, but her crisis was averted by someone else. She never really had a chance to feel like her EN for financial security wasn't being met.

Ryan.

Sure could use some input tonight. I am feeling like it is a lost cause. She was very interested in giving me back the house keys, and signing over the car titles. It feels like she is just pulling chockes and running.

Ryan.

The meeting across coffee is an event; not an end.

THe OM called her just as she got in to the place? You think he's pushing her, crowding her, unsure of her?

Also, back to his maybe losing his job and moving in with her to be supported by her: *cough* I don't car ehow modern or liberated your wife is, she will not like supporting her boyfriend. It will put pressure on their relationship. Good for you; bad for the OM and the affairees.

Could be the signing and returning of keys isn't exactly what she wants. Please don't give up hope.

Affairland will not be paradise. Things may not have sunk in for her yet. They will.

Did she ask for the money from the car sales??

Mr. Wondering,

We didn't even talk about the money from the car sales. I assume that she will want me to pay off the 2 credit cards that used to be "ours" but she took me off of them. I assume we will talk about that later, but it really does feel like she is just walking away. Maybe since the OM was in Baghdad for a year he has enough money that she doesn't think she has to worry about it??? The whole situation is so strange. I just wanted to be there for her when she found out she needed to have surgery again and that her cancer might be back, but she just doesn't want/need me right now. It is such a different feeling from 8 months ago.

Ryan.

Did you get a sense that the phone call was staged???

There's a NEED for affairee's to create drama and having a quick little discussion in your face may fill some of that need. They don't have near as much secrecy so they drum up some of their very own saliva to make things more exciting.

Was she looking at your reactions??

She'll mentally note it so she can report it back to OM...oh, the thrill of putting it right in your face.

While she's at it...she'll be really standoffish. Try to convince you she doesn't need ANYTHING from you...EVER. Though it's likely she may soon need you to "allow" her a quicker divorce in your state. Maybe that's part of her plan too...if it's possible...to convince you it's completely over and manipulate you into letting her go quickly and easily.

Does Virginia allow divorce quicker for other reasons than adultery???

More likely than not she's justified the affair by internalizing and convincing herself that your marriage is over. She has to act like that to support such justification. This will allow her to continue on in life with OM (she hopes)...should it come to it...with the built in excuse she can share with others "I was married when we met but my marriage was already over when we met". Waywards think that if they keep up the act...then they and everyone around them will believe it.

Doesn't make the act reality. When the affair ends...clear thinking can and does typically return.

Anyway...your wife is FOGBOUND. I often surmise it is typically the OM's that have to be bugged and bothered to such an extent that they end it as it is very likely that the WW just can't pull her head out of her butt. Maybe 80% of these situations require the OM to dump the WW. This is why exposure on his side of the fence is so important. It will be interesting to see what happens next week. IF you can contact his parents or siblings over the weekend that would be great too as you want to finish exposure as fast as you can lest you t-off your wife week after week.

Not the t-ing her off is bad. It means exposures working but at some point you've got to have a non-angry wife to Plan A effectively.

Try to find out when the surgery is scheduled and BE THERE, invited or not. She's still legally your wife. Absent a restraining order you show up. That's what husband's do therefore what you do...despite her wishes.

The money???...pocket it. Spending it on yourself is the best way to make it disappear. If you add it to a cash horde you should disclose it in any divorce proceedings but that's a year away...hopefully. Maybe deposit 20% of it. There is no way they can prove you didn't spend it. IF she's going to end the marriage at least you can save yourself some money. IF you save the marriage...you've got the cash to share with her. A win-win.

Mr. Wondering

I just thought of this.

OM's a "war hero".

Wonder how the boys in his unit would feel about him if they knew.

Our pastor just last week discussed how his nephews unit returning from Iraq has got nearly 50% of the married men being served divorce papers upon arrival. It's one of the greatest tragedies of this war. In fact, Dr. Harley is currently working with some friends of mine on a program to assist, educate and support marriage in the military. The costs to the soldiers and to the military that is losing qualified and trained men and women left and right to marital woes is staggering.

It might not be so hard to discover what unit and with whom he served. They'd be good exposure targets too. Just some nice letters disclosing and encouraging them to support you, your wife and marraige.

Mr. Wondering

p.s.- Considering his occupation...isn't it likely he's found this thread by now??? mmmmm.

Two comments on Mr. Wondering's posts...

1.) Virginia is a "fault" state, as Mortarman can attest. Divorce for any reason other than adultery is harder here.

2.) I had to chuckle at the comment about FBI agents finding internet threads. The FBI is notoriously far behind in technology - they probably still have computers there using Windows 95. FBI headquarters didn't even have internet access for most employees until very recently - agents just a short time ago had to go to public libraries to do google searches. Considering his occupation... I don't think he'd be any closer to finding any internet thread than anyone else out there...