Self care is vital. Keep it up.

I'm a neak freak, and spent lots of time organizing my home. It really helped me feel in control of something.

I think you will be fine until you go to Plan B, because your hubby is really coming around.

Why, thank you!

LOL, a neak freak and a neat freak. It makes me feel good to have everything just perfect.

And for all of you ladies with husbands and kids, remember, I don't have any around. So it is much easier these days.

Yeah I feel ok for what I am going through. I mean the Plan A has helped me so much as weird as it sounds. I was just surviving before.

Last night I organize bottom half of closet. Today kids and I organized the garage and tidied the back yard. Gonna work on top half of closet and probably getting rid of the rest of the clothes I no longer fit in and never will return to either LOL. That way when I go to Plan B my room is organized and I can start painting it. I'm looking forward to that painting project.

I only have 12 days left I think that's pretty manageable.

Tried to get H to visit today instead of tomorrow since I have the salsa class I want to go to but he may not be able to so I've decided I'm going to go even if he visits tomorrow. I told him I'd rather have him today so I wouldn't miss his visit tomorrow but I need to go to something fun so I'm going even if he comes. I'll just sweetly excuse myself.

We'll see he said he'd let us know if he's out here today.

I'm off gots more cleaning to do!

WH's don't seem to like it when the BS's go off to have fun by themselves. They seem worried we might cheat... :RollieEyes:

Lol at believer!

Should I still go to my salsa lesson tomorrow if he comes and visits kids or should I stay and visit?

Are you any good? You could always ask him to practice with you or come to watch.

I vote for SALSA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Funny thing is he doesn't have a whole lot of rhythm. WE took a beginners class about 3 years ago and I never got any good since he wasn't good. Salsa is a male lead dance so if the lead isn't any good or strong at it you can't do very well. If was a lot of fun though.

I started Salsa a month after discovery day to try and have fun and continue living.

But yeah I learned so fast that when the teachers helper wasn't there He used me to demonstrate a few times.

I did invite him to come along about a few weeks ago or to come watch me but he said I'm too big and salsa is for fags. He's not fat he's pretty muscular naturally. I said well you should come see cuz it's not for fags and I laugh.

So I should still go? I mean I only have 12 days left and if I should put it off I can for an extra week, and it wouldn't be a big deal. I will still have dinner prepared either way.

Go to the salsa lesson.

Salsa. It's good for him to see that you have a life. That you are an interesting fun person. In fact, that is even part of some folks's Plan A.

Salsa. Why does that make me hungry???

Salsa it is then! Yipee! I am really looking forward to it!

No visit with him today so tomorrow he will be here.

Still organizing, feels good. Been doing it all day. Gonn take a quick break and do some grocery shopping and then come back an do a little more.

BTW it's ok to dress up for your salsa... wear your sexiest dress, make-up, perfume... let him wonder...

I vote for salsa, too.

Spending time with him is important during Plan A, but so is letting him know once in a while that you have your own thing going on, too. You're not just sitting by the phone 24/7 when he's gone, waiting for him to call.

I also agree with looking and smelling smokin hot. Leave him wishing he'd taken your invite to watch.

Hey guys this is a silly kinda weird question by does anyone know how Dr. Harley came up with the Plans A/B? I mean there are so many other specialist out there.

I ready Divorce Remedy by Michelle-Weiner Davis and Love must be tough by Dr. James Dobson, but funny this was the one I really feel God led me to. I implemented a few things from each of the other books, but really feel this one specializes so well infidelity.

Just wondering how he came up with the Plans, I know weird question maybe there is no answer.

My Pastor knows what I am doing and I told him of my Plan B date and how I was kinda dreading it and my Pastor says,"T2L, I believe this is a tested and tried out plan not just something thrown out there. Unless God directs you otherwise follow the plan, H needs to make a choice and by him saying he doesn't want to hurt anyone anymore he is avoiding having to make a choice. Sorry but a choice has to be made."

My Pastor is right on too!

Anyways anyone know how he came up with it? Was it a trial and error thing or was it from having to deal with the drug addicts?

Definitely Salsa! Let him know you have a life. Then when you go to Plan B not only will he be missing you and all your watermelon rinds, he'll be worrying about what hot studs are in your class.

I *think* I read in one of Dr. Harley's books that when he realized what a dearth of effective marriage counselors there were, he began interviewing successfully married couples in an attempt to find out what makes good marriages good. That's how he came up with the Love Bank and the idea of ENs and LBs. I'm not sure about Plans A and B though.

Gotta love those watermelon rinds!

BTW way back when, when my now-ex WH was leaving me, I read the Tough Love book. I ended up divorced. Which actually turned out to be a good thing, so I guess the book worked for me. Not sure I'd recommend it though if you want to save your M. I'd stick with the MB Plan A and Plan B.

Here is what he says on this site:


How Dr. Harley Learned to Save Marriages
When I was 19, a married acquaintance in college told me his marriage was in trouble and asked for my advice. The advice I gave did not help. His marriage ended in divorce. Why couldn't I help? What was it about my friend's marriage that made divorce seem so inevitable?

It was 1960, and I was about to witness something that few expected - the beginning of what may turn out to be the end of the traditional nuclear family in America. The evidence for such a disaster accumulated over the next 20 years. The divorce rate would climb from about 15% to over 50%, and the percentage of single adults would go from 6.5% to 20%. While the rate of divorce finally stabilized at about 50% in 1980, the percentage of single adults would continue to climb right up to the present (currently about 30% and climbing), because fewer and fewer would be willing to commit themselves to one partner for life.

At the time, I had no way of knowing that my friend's marital failure was part of a trend that was about to overwhelm nuclear families. I thought that his failure was, at least in part, due to my inexperience. I blamed myself. I felt that I should have left it to an "expert."

But over the next few years, couples continued to ask for my advice regarding marriage, especially after I earned a Ph.D. degree in Psychology. After all, psychologists were supposed to know something about marriage. So I decided to learn enough to help these people. I didn't think it would be much of a challenge. After all, if our scientists knew enough to send people to the moon, surely they would know how to save marriages.

I read books on marital therapy, was supervised by "experts" in the field, and worked in a clinic that specialized in marital therapy, claiming to be the best in Minnesota. But I was still unable to save marriages. Almost everyone who came to me for help ended up like my college friend - divorced.

In my effort to overcome failure, I made a crucial discovery: I wasn't the only one failing to help couples. Almost everyone else working with me in the clinic was failing as well! My supervisor was failing, the director of the clinic was failing, and so were the other marriage counselors that worked with me. And then I made the most astonishing discovery of all: Most of the marital experts in America were also failing. It was very difficult to find anyone willing to admit their failure, but when I had access to actual cases, I couldn't find any therapist who could prove their own success or train others to be successful in saving marriages.

In fact, I learned that marital therapy had the lowest success rate of any form of therapy - in one study, I read that less than 25% of those surveyed felt that marriage counseling had helped. A higher percentage felt that counseling had done more harm than good.

What a challenge! Marriages were breaking up at an unprecedented rate, and no one knew how to stop it! So I made it my own personal ambition to find the answer, and I looked for that answer not in books and scholarly articles, but rather among those who came to me for answers - couples about to divorce. I stopped counseling and started listening to spouses explain why they were ready to throw in the towel. What did they have when they decided to marry that they lost somewhere along the way? I asked each couple what they thought it would it take to be happily married again.

I knew that I had not yet learned how to save marriages. So I would explain that inability to the couples I counseled, and because of it, didn't charge them for my time. I taught psychology to earn a living, and worked with couples in my free time.

By 1975, I had finally discovered why I and so many other marital therapists were having trouble saving marriages -- we did not understand what made a marriage work. We were all so preoccupied with what caused them to fail, that we overlooked what helped them succeed. Many marriage counselors, myself included, thought that a lack of communication was causing these marriages to fail. So my goal had been to teach these couples how to communicate, to stop fighting, and to resolve conflicts.

But when I asked couples why they had married in the first place, it wasn't because of great communication. It was because they were in love. And over the years, they had somehow lost their love for each other. In fact, some had even come to hate each other.

When I asked couples what it would take for them to be happily married again, most couldn't imagine that ever happening. But I persisted, and as the couples reflected on it, they came to the realization that they would need to be in love again.

The poor communication that was apparent in many of these failed marriages had contributed to their loss of love, but it was also a symptom of their lost love. Couples who fall out of love tend to fight instead of resolve their conflicts the right way -- with care and respect. So if I wanted to save marriage, I would have to go beyond improving communication -- I would have to learn how to restore love.

With this insight I began to attack emotional issues rather than rational issues. My primary goal in marital therapy changed from resolving conflicts to restoring love. If I knew how to restore love, I reasoned, then conflicts might not be as much of an issue.

My background as a psychologist taught me that learned associations trigger most of our emotional reactions. Whenever something is presented repeatedly with a physically induced emotion, it tends to trigger that emotion all by itself. For example, if you flash the color blue along with an electric shock, and the color red with a soothing back rub, eventually the color blue will tend to upset you and the color red will tend to relax you.

Applying the same principle to the feeling of love, I theorized that love might be nothing more than a learned association. If someone were to be present often enough when I was feeling particularly good, the person's presence in general might be enough to trigger that good feeling - something we have come to know as the feeling of love.

I could not have been more correct in my analysis. By encouraging each spouse to try to do whatever it took to make each other happy, and avoid doing what made each other unhappy, that feeling of love would be restored. The first couple I counseled with this new approach fell in love and their marriage was saved.

From that point on, every time I saw a couple, I simply asked them what the other could do that would make them the happiest, and whatever it was, that was their first assignment. Of course, not every couple really knew what would make them happy, and not every spouse was willing to try it. But as I perfected my method, I began to understand what it was that husbands and wives needed from each other to trigger the feeling of love. And I would help them identify what each of them needed. I also became more effective in motivating them to meet whatever need was identified, even when they didn't feel like doing it at first. Before long, I was helping almost every couple fall in love again and avoid divorce. My method proved to be so successful, that I quit teaching psychology, and started counseling full-time.

As you can imagine, there were more couples wanting help from me than I could possibly counsel. Ten years after I began using this method, I finally wrote my first book describing it, His Needs, Her Needs. Over three million copies have been sold so far, and it has been translated into twenty-two languages. Surveys have found it to be one of the best self-help book ever written.

To help you fully understand this unique and groundbreaking method I developed to save marriages, I will describe it to you in a series of basic concepts. By the time you finish reading these concepts, you will be in a position to re-create love in your marriage. And if you do, you will have turned a potential disaster into a personal triumph!

The first, and most important concept that I created helped couples understand the rise and fall of romantic love. I call it the Love Bank.

And the best part of the program is that with all of the counseling they do, they have made some changes over the years. They used to advise 6 months of Plan A for women, but have shortened it by seeing the damage it can do to some BS's.

And what I really like is that if a person cannot afford the counseling, the program is all here, and it is FREE. I checked out many sites where they tell you a little, and then you have to pay.

By the way, I always suggest that if there is anyway possible, that folks scrape together the money for even one counseling session. I didn't, and instead it cost me over $100,000.

I think you should go to Salsa class. He needs to see that you have your own interests too.

I forget what your final Plan B letter ended up being, but make sure you emphasize that you want to preserve the love you have for him and that is why you have to go into Plan B.

I also wonder if you should start making hints about him having to make a decision between you and OW at some point.

If he is alluding to still sitting on the fence in May of next year, then you might say "You think we will still be like that then?" and then just listen to what he says, but don't reply.