I'm not really understanding the Plan A/B thing. We're recovering now from my husband's affair...it's coming together but I'm just wondering if there is more we should be doing so that we don't get back to where we once were.

Storm,

Please take some time and read this website carefully. It explains Dr. Harley's principles for saving marriage including both plan A and B.

It would be helpful if you could provide more information like how long you have been married, the marital status of the OW, length of the affair, and what steps you have taken to recover your marriage.

MC with Steve or Jennifer would be very helpful for you once you understand the principles or even better if you could attend one of the weekend seminars.

I understand that it is very easy to slip back to where you were before the affair, except without the naivity.

Who

Well i've only been married for 3 months. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> I've been with my husband for 2.5 years, and we blended a family (2 girls). It has been hard, very stressful and completely overwhelming alot of the times. I was feeling neglected, unloved and resentful; he was feeling unappreciated, critisized and completely overwhelmed as well. We were fighting like cats and dogs but thought we were working on making things better. He was holding everything in; not being truthful about his feelings and one day, just got pissed off, called a girl he used to 'date' to meet with her during the day and they did it in her car. That was the end of it. Then he met another girl who found him on facebook and started to chat with her for about a week, but was flirting quite a bit (i read the emails). I found out all this and freaked out. He thought he was losing me, and just poured his heart out. I still don't completely get it...but can kind of understand that he did it to build up his own ego. Some positive without any negative, if that makes any sense. Anyways, it was a big wake up call for the both of us...for me it was. I knew we were on our way down, way down regardless of the affair. I was lonely and sad all the time, and he was just annoyed and pissed off all the time. The breaking point was coming.
We are in counselling; we are talking and opening up more. I feel like we're nurturing our relationship - at least this is what I believe I'm trying to do.

I will go back and read the A&B more thoroughly...i don't think it applies to us too much. The girl he had sex with is really a nobody to him; he just called her cause he knew it would be easy. The online girl he chatted with, another previous fling who again he has no interest in and she's married but just got caught up in the attention as well.

I was witness to the email he sent the one (they never talked in person) and also to the phone call to the one he had sex with. She didn't seem overly concerned. LOL

She may as well have been a prostitute in my opinion

Why not admit you made a mistake and move on? You have made a mistake and made a bad choice. Your child doesn't need this garbage. Your "H" is not marriage material, so I would suggest cutting your losses before they get worse. And believe me, they will get worse. If things are THIS BAD at the start of your marriage, you are headed for bigger problems.

I would also suggest that you get STD testing.

Frankly, I have much more respect for a prostitute than an unpaid wh*re. A prostitute is just trying to make a living and at least puts a value on her services; an unpaid wh*re places no value on her free services.

What Mel said.

Your WH has no boundaries and given that he cheated within the first 3 months of marriage AND the fact that you have no children together, this is a no-win situation for you and your children.

Why would you even want to stay with him? If you do, I see this situation repeating, and repeating, and repeating.

IMHO, Not much of a life.

Who

Wow, not exactly what I expected to hear back. We do love each other but let all the other stressors in our life get between us. I know the love is there for me...for sure. And I'm pretty sure it's there for him. He was being immature, selfish and hanging onto stupid pride. He wanted to make sure I didn't change him, or make him do things ...it was all about a power struggle between us. Believe me, there were some big issues...how can there not be when you've got a crazy bio-mom involved, and a stepkid who is creating all sorts of issues. We were letting everything else build up on top of us instead of working it all out together. We didn't know how to be a team. We were working against each other in every way.
Now we're learning to really listen to each other, listen to each others needs and be a team. A united front.
Don't get me wrong...every single thing you wrote I did think and sometimes wonder if I'm being 'snowballed' right now and am just wishing to have something else.
I guess for me, i have to give it a real shot. If he screws up again - or doesn't continue to show me that he's growing into this relationship, then we're done.

Thanks for the honest replies...it just hurts to hear it when you're working so hard at making things better

Storm,

I understand that you want to stay married and recover your marriage. So are you in MC?

Something that is very important, especially given the circumstances of your FWH's infidelity, is why he chose to use a quickie in a car as a coping mechanism.

My FWH and I both thought we understood why he had an affair, but without MC, we missed the real reason. He used dabbling in infidelity as a coping mechanism whenever things weren't going well in his life.

He did simple things like collect phone numbers of women when he traveled, internet dating, etc. And every time something would go badly in his life, he would take things a step further until one day, he found himself in a very complicated full-blown affair.

Him loving me and me loving him and the fact that we were, for the most part, happier than most couples didn't stop this from happening. We both thought that he had learned his lesson and that we had moved on, but after over 3 1/2 years in recovery, I once again caught him comtemplating an inappropriate relationship during a difficult time. It was nearly the end of our marriage.

I hope that I am clearly stating why it is important to understand why your husband had his ONS, why he felt it was OK to even call the OW and set up a meeting. He needs to accept responsibility for it. No excuses like we were not getting along, or you said mean things to me.

He CHOSE to be unfaithful to you and must come to an understanding of why he made that decision. Then he need to establish personal boundaries that will protect him from, himself in the future.

The bottom line is that you two need MC to help you build a better marriage.

Who

We are in marriage in counselling - and we were even prior to it to help us deal with some of the big stressors in our life although he didn't open up there and he wasn't really taking part in it. He just went to make me happy.
When I found out about the A he told me everything about how he was feeling...he was just so down and out on himself and needed the 'boost' to his self esteem. He had managed to convince himself that I was doing all these things wrong to make him feel bad about himself all the time, yet he's now realised that it was really him who felt bad about himself and he managed to put the blame on me. He has not once mentioned that any of this was my doing. He's told me that he was a coward to not tell me how he really felt. He was so stuck on 'being strong' or having the power in the relationship that he held so much back from me, which in turn would make me complain to him about my needs not being met, and then would make him do it more or allow him to create this wall between us.
He hasn't really figured out yet 'why' he did it other than the fact that doing it was simply 'all positive, no negative' whereas he had convinced himself that our relationship was the opposite.
I don't get it still - but I do get that we were in a bad place and were heading down a doomsday path anywas. That I can admit.I don't agree that that entitles us to have affairs, cause geez I was miserable so if i went with his justification I should have been the one having an affair as well.

We are working hard to make our marriage work and to be in a better place than we ever were. It's not easy but I'm doing my best and I know he is as well