I was asked to post this here as well as my original post on Plan A/B Forum.

So here it is...

Plan A or kick ‘em to the curb?

There seems to be two schools of thought floating around right now on these forums in regard to how a betrayed husband should handle an affair by his wife as opposed to what a woman should do in response to an affair by her husband,

One line of reasoning seems to be saying that a man must confront his wife directly and demand that she end the affair and throw her out if she does not comply or he will look like a wimp.

The other says that a man should follow the Marriage Builders practice of attempting Plan A, follow it up with Plan B and only after some time has passed jumping to Plan D.

The first always works if you are willing to immediately kick your wayward wife to the curb, file for divorce and leave her in the dust if she doesn’t stop the affair. It keeps the husband from having to deal with an actively wayward wife, quickly pushes the marriage into recovery or divorce and the state of limbo so many go through comes to a merciful and well defined end.

This often leads to a quick move into recovery for those whose marriage was actually pretty good before the affair and the wayward wife really wasn’t looking to end the marriage and run off with the other man but merely “having a little fun on the side” as so many men have been prone to do for so many generations in some cultures. In these cases simply confronting the wayward wife and telling her that she has to decide often makes her decide at once to end the affair and try to fix the marriage.

Those who have recovered their marriage using this technique rightly believe that it can lead to recovery pretty quickly and so in their experience, demanding all that is needed from the wayward wife in order to recover the marriage seems like a proven method that leads to recovery. And it does, in a pretty good sized number of cases. But many men who used this method and had it turn out successful never appear at Marriage Builders because the affair ended, the wife made concessions and their lives have moved along with little fanfare.

One problem with those who don’t come here and believe that recovery is an instant solution often never get to the real problems that led to the affair in the first place and a repeat is more likely. This is not the domain of betrayed husbands alone and many women find themselves on a second roller coaster years down the road.

The only problem with this method of demanding an end to the affair and laying out certain recovery steps in order to remain out of divorce court is that it usually does not lead to recovery of the marriage. The wayward wife who decides when confronted that she has made a horrible mistake and immediately sees the damage she has done and wishes to rectify it is in the minority rather than the majority.

Most often, a woman having an affair has already checked out of the marriage and has decided before she got very far down the road to adultery that she wants to get divorced from her husband, whether or not this new relationship with the affair partner works out. Now this is really just what we all call the fog of the affair talking in most cases, but the wayward wife believes it is true and has convinced herself that she would be seeking divorce even if the other man were not in the picture.

A man whose wife falls into this category and has maybe already moved out of the house, in some cases having already filed for divorce and yet he wishes to attempt to save his marriage is the one we most often see around here. Telling this type of wayward wife to either shape up or ship out usually ends in her living with the other man in a rented love shack while the husband tries to work visitation with his children into his busy schedule.

Plan A only brings the affair to an end and leads to recovery about 15% of the time. I know that doesn’t sound like a very big number but considering that half of all marriages in this country end in divorce, it probably means that Plan A is saving some marriages just because it works some of the time.

But in the case where Plan A does not bring and end to the affair Plan B is what most around here would suggest as a next step. The purpose of Plan B is to basically stop the bleeding and wait until the affair burns out at which time it can be determined if there is enough left of the relationship to attempt recovery. Just so everyone understands, there usually isn’t enough left by then, but in the cases where there is, the two step Plan A followed by Plan B can lead to a recovered and rebuilt marriage.

Now some might not be able to stomach knowing that an affair is continuing and will be unwilling to attempt to win their wife back from another man. That is purely a matter of choice. But telling her to put up or shut up will only lead to a small number of recoveries and in most of those cases where it does not the men will not be here looking for help to save their marriages because they either bought the bovine excrement their wives fed them that the marriage was over and there was nothing they could do about it or they themselves couldn’t handle having a wife that was sleeping with another man and decided to leave her behind and seek out a replacement (most often the case when he hasn’t been exactly thrilled with the marriage for a while either.)

So Plan A is for those that want to save their marriage, or at least try to do so and when the affair has not come to an immediate end and remorse set in just by confronting a wayward wife. It doesn’t save all marriages, is not for anyone who is a bit squeamish about swallowing their own pride and is not for everyone. But for a man, who wants to save his marriage, has not been able to break the affair by confronting his wife and can handle his tendency to be macho above all it can and does lead to success in about 15% of the cases it is applied to.

What is most often wrong with men who are in Plan A is that they are not really in Plan A at all. They are in Plan Beg, Plead, Kowtow, bend-over-and-take-it, lay down and let her walk all over you… Plan Doormat… They really have no PLAN and are just floundering around looking for the magic solution to their problem. There IS no magic…

These men most often believe the garbage they have been told by the wayward wife when she tells him she has been unhappy for years, that OM has nothing to do with her wanting to leave him, that there is nothing he can do to stop this from happening and all her friends and family seem to be on her side already. These guys come here and ask “what should I do” and then do the exact opposite and come back wondering what the continuation of the affair means in the big scheme of things. “How do I make her stop this?” is the most common question, even when not asked directly. The answer is, you can’t make her do anything. You have to make her WANT to stay married in order to have any hope for the marriage at all.

And for those that confrontation alone did not cause that to happen and yet still desire to save their marriage, Plan A is the next step. Not making her happy since that isn’t the purpose of Plan A, but giving her a reason to end the affair and try to recover the marriage. Properly done, Plan A doesn’t make her happy, it makes her furious because it intrudes on the fantasy she is living in and brings the light of truth into the darkness of deception where the affair exists.

There is a huge difference between men and women when it comes to Plan A. But the difference is in how long they can actually do a decent job of it. A man who enters into Plan A knowing what it is and what it is not should be able to do it for about 6 weeks with little effort. Six months should be the maximum. Women can’t do it for that long because most women aren’t as competitive to begin with. And that is what Plan A is, a competition to win your wife back from the fantasy she has run after. If you can’t stomach that thought, then don’t bother to try, because it will make you sick every day of your life from now till the day you die.

But if you understand and agree to do it as an effort to save your marriage, it bridges the gap between confrontation and Plan FU. It is a step in a process that might not lead to recovery at all for the marriage, but will always lead to making the man stronger rather than weaker if it done like it is supposed to be since Plan A is about fixing yourself in hopes of saving your marriage.

The list of all the things a betrayed husband needs from his wayward wife to stay married to her including honesty, passwords to email… all of those things only apply to making the marriage better and more affair proof, fixing it. Unless you save the marriage to begin with there will be nothing to fix. And when telling her to stop the affair doesn’t work and you aren’t ready to throw in the towel, that is when Plan A and maybe Plan B can do what they are intended to do, save the marriage so that it can be fixed.

Not everyone needs to do Plan A.
Not everyone CAN do Plan A.
Not everyone SHOULD do Plan A.
Not Many WILL do Plan A.
Not every Plan A leads to recovery.
Not doing anything while the affair rages on is NOT Plan A.

Plan A is a plan of action, not inaction…

If you find your wife is having an affair, I suggest that you confront her at once and tell her in no uncertain terms that she must end the affair and commit to making the marriage better than it was before.

If that doesn’t make the affair end and you still want to try to save the marriage, for whatever reason, that is when I recommend Plan A.

And if that doesn’t work and you STILL want to try some more, then it will be Plan B.

If you don’t care or you don’t want to Plan A or B, then I will support you in Plan D.

Mark

This is an outstanding post, Mark, and I thank you for posting it. While every marriage should not be saved, there are many that can be saved if the BS will react strategically, rather than emotionally.

While it might feel good in the moment to kick them out, that is a practice that almost guarantees they will STAY kicked out when the marriage could be saved with a little strategic thinking. Kicking a spouse out when they are already emotionally detached is to throw them into the arms of the OP. Not a smart move if one wants to save the marriage.

I would also add that it is expected that MOST situations will require Plan A and Plan B. It is RARE that the affair ends in Plan A, 15%, so the expectation is that the BS will also have to go to Plan B.

Thanks again, Mark, you have a special talent for framing the issue in a clear and concise manner.

Makes sense to me. I knew nothing of Plan A when I found out and I made a few mistakes. No pleading, etc, but I went dark , doing this 180 thing, again, instinctively. I wound up divorced, which has turned out to be a good thing. I did the exposure thing, though and it led to the ultimate demise of the affair, after the divorce. This was the desired result, as well. It got the OM out of my children's lives and, for the first time in her life, my XWW felt some consequences for the type of behavior she's engaged in for a lifetime. It showed my kids that there are consequences to bad behavior and saved my reputation, as she was lying to justify her affair.
I doubt, even had I done everything as recommended, the affair would have died. They needed to see each other on a daily basis with all their flaws before they realized what each was dealing with.
Can't hurt to try these Plans and it may help. I think, even if it does not save the marriage, the exposure component is especially important. It helps get the truth out which is always a good thing, for the kids, the betrayed spouse, and all concerned.

Well.....I'm not sure I can by into the theory that there is a big diff between male/female in reactions.

My WW fell into the dreaded category of long EA into PA. She had definitely checked out of the marriage. I blew up the A in dramatic fashion and we are trying counseling and MB techniques, but I think it is a long shot to rebuild her love or get the better marriage I require now.

In my case, the OM went NC because he liked food he could eat without a straw.

But I'm not sure a female would be any different.

What is Plan FU ? I'm sure it's not what I assume it to be !

It's one of quite a few that I have come across that is not on the list of abbreviations.


Thanks

BTW, it is a good post.

Plan FU is not an official MB/Harley plan. It is sort of an inside joke. It pretty much means what you think it means...

Vittoria,

It is the first thing most guys consider when they find out their wife has had an affair, I'm afraid. In fact it's what most people think they would opt for if they ever found out their spouse had cheated...Until it really happens...

I'm afraid it does mean what you thought it meant.

That is why Plans A/B are something else that can be tried first if a BS wants to try to save the marriage. It doesn't always work out, but the alternative is to just kick 'em out and get on with your life without 'em. Or worse for the long term, just letting it go in hopes the affair will end by itself, aka: Plan Doormat.

Every once in a while a BS makes the news for opting for Plan Glock or Plan S&W instead. Compared to that, Plan FU doesn't seem so bad.

Mark

OK, got Plan FU....thanks. ( I like that one )

Plan Glock.....shoot the b* ????

No clue for Plan S&W though, what's that?

And where would this new dictionary be found ???

Smith & Wesson as in 357 Magnum for instance....

got it, thanks

Well, I know Vittoria is not from Texas!

Neither is Tony Romo. Beat my Giants-waaaaaah.

who be dat??

Not even close....eh !

With you on that. Season tix since 1952.

Plan Glock, lol. I bought a G-9 right after D-day. Got my W's attention...

Plan A is only for those that can handle their spouse having affair while trying to win the WS back. If not then go to plan B.

It has been said that WW's will respond better to plan B if plan A is kept to 3 months. It is said that a WW will lose respect for their BH that will plan A for too long.

WH's should never be plan A'd more than six months.

It has been said that most affairs end after two years. Novelty wore off. Change in jobs or moves for one or both of the AP's. One of the OP's was just a player saying and doing what it took to get laid. Both or one of them never had the intention to leave their spouse/s.

The whole point off plan A and B is to use as many tactics as one can to save their marriage.

If one wants to save their marriage then why issue an ultimatum?

Why not use every tool that you can?

Can one not always after at least trying plan A for a bit, then followed by six months of plan B, say to their WS: It's me or OP.

If you can forgive your WS for having an affair, can't you wait a while before you tell them it's me or the OP?

Because if you can't forgive the WS for banging the OP 10 times, then how can you for 5 times?

If x times + 1 is to many, then x times should be to many, even 1 time then should be too much to forgive.

Because they seem to work! In my time here, I have seen more BH's regain their dignity/self respect AND their marriage by doing this.

Watching your wife leave the house to go f the OM and also trying to meet her EN's is, based on what I have seen here...a recipe for her not respecting you at all.


sure...and why not wash her underwear for her after her date too????


this is insanity. EVERY time is a knife to the heart and ANYTHING you can do to stop even ONE MORE time should be done.

TheRoad,

You know, I agree with what you said in some places but in others I disagree.

Plan A should be about 6 months according to Dr Harley for BHs and about 3 for BWs. But that is really about the maximum.

The three months that women do Plan A is really about max for the reason that they can't usually sustain it because of the stress while having to maintain such a high level of competitiveness. But another reason for the shorter time is that men are more likely to be cake eaters. It is more typically a man that has his fling on the side while wanting to keep his wife.

Many men have no problem in their own mind with having a mistress. They love their wives, have no desire to leave her or the family and want to fool around and get a little extra where they can. There are women who look for a situation like this in order to get the benefits of being a kept woman while maintaining her freedom. It is fairly common within the culture of some large corporations for a man to have a girl friend that does all she can for him in exchange for additional promotions or extras that the job wouldn't normally entail.

Women are more likely to have emotionally divorced their husband, either before the affair in the case of a marriage that was going bad already or more often, just at the beginning of an affair in an effort to justify to herself the affair she would never have if she admitted to loving her husband. The emotional attachment usually happens first for women and sex follows at a later time in the relationship. For men, it is usually all about the sex while women will say "It wasn't about sex." Seldom stops them from having sex and often women in an affair will do things with OM that they would never even dream of doing with their husbands.

I'd go so far as to say that if women having an affair expended as much effort on their marriages as they did on their affair, their husbands would hardly want to leave them in the morning to go to work.

Now, as for Plan B for six months and then try to renegotiate again...

Not a real Plan B. Can't Plan B for six months and then contact the WS and say "End it now." Six months is not long enough for most folks to have any kind of real personal healing take place and going to the WS after 6 months to try once more to win him/her back defeats the point of Plan B.

Plan B is to stop the daily pain of dealing with the affair and allow the BS to withdraw from the WS. Withdraw refers to the same thing as we mean when we talk of withdrawal form the AP when NC takes place. It takes more than six months in most cases to stop missing this person you have fought so hard to keep.

Plan B should also be established and begun in such a way that the WS makes the first move to come home. If the BS chases after him/her there will forever be a doubt as to why the WS came home.

Even after divorce, the WS might have an epiphany and want to try to reconcile so the BS must set the ground rules before beginning Plan B and set the bar high enough that they can get a real recovered happy marriage if the WS returns home. Testing the waters can rip a BS's heart out all over again if the WS does not recommit and agree to totally transforming the relationship and building a better marriage. Don't take my word for it, ask Bugs...

And your opening premise that Plan B is for those who can't handle their spouse cheating while trying to win them back is slightly off the mark I think. If you can't do Plan A, Plan B isn't going to lead to a recovered marriage most of the time. Plan B affects the WS more if a good Plan A took place first. It doesn't have to be long, but it has to be good.

And if you can't stomach the thought of your spouse having sex with the affair partner during Plan A, letting the affair run it's course isn't going to make you want to try again after the affair ends. Plan B isn't a fall back position; it is a step that follows another step. If you can't handle the movies that play in your head enough in order to do a Plan A, then Plan B will only make it worse and you are better off in Plan D.

This is Dr Harley's words...



Full article HERE
From the same article.

The bottom line in the decision as to whether or not you are willing to try Plan A is how much do you want the marriage to succeed? Are you willing to sacrifice for it to succeed? How much are you willing to sacrifice in order for it to succeed?

And the first question every betrayed spouse needs to answer is this, "is the marriage worth saving?" If the answer is yes, then this must be answered next, "are you willing to do what it takes to save it?" Answering either question in the negative means you should skip Plan A and Plan B and just go to Plan D right from the start. You should either give 100% to trying to save the marriage or kick 'em to the curb...

Edited to add:


This is where the disagreement as to Plan A or ultimatum comes from right here.

The answer on this is a resounding NO!

You should NOT wait to tell them it's you or OP. You should NOT wait to take the stand and say end it or get out.

BUT seldom does the WS end it and seldom does he/she get out. A WS will more likely cake eat at least for a while. This is what Plan A is for, to tip the odds in your favor while trying.

MEDC, As for those who have recovered by using an ultimatum, I can think of one for sure, perhaps two. These men fall into the category I first described in that Plan A was not needed. According to Dr Harley, Plan A is to negotiate the end of the affair when the WS refuses to end it when confronted. This USUALLY leads to recovery but in that vast majority of cases this simply does not happen. Refer to my first quote from Dr H above. MOST affairs don't end when the WS is first confronted. MOST require additional methods in order to end the affair.

And I know that part of the debate here has to do with what constitutes recovered and on this I would guess that your definition might be different than mine. I think we could both identify marriages that are NOT recovered, but those are not the ones that followed Plans A and B. MOST affairs end in divorce. ANY statistical probability of recovery greater than 0 can make it worth while to a person who really wants to save a marriage.

As for lack of self-respect...I understand the concept here, but I am still missing how fighting in spite of the pain and in spite of the embarrassment factor and in spite of a feeling of having no control is cause to lose one's respect of self. Those I respect are the ones who sacrificed and overcame adversity much more so than those who took a hard line and bailed when things didn't go their way.

A BS SHOULD demand an end to the affair. A BS SHOULD tell the WS to stop instantly. A BS SHOULD expect to be strong and dominant if they hope to succeed at recovery. But it just doesn't usually work that way and Plan A and B are for those who don't want to quit just because it didn't work that way.

Step 1: Beat your chest, roar and demand that she stop this nonsense.

Step 2: Either of two options. a) Throw her *ss out and move on or b) Plan A followed by Plan B until an end can be brought to the affair or it ends on it's own (usually during Plan B)

Step 1 should be over long before a man starts learning about Plan A. It's only those who flounder and refuse to do anything of value or those who don't pressure the affair while meeting the WW's ENs that lose self respect and become doormats. Plan A isn't about doing nothing to interfere with the affair, it's about not letting the excuses for the affair to hold up.

You see, Plan A doesn't have to let the WW go out and meet the OM while the husband stays home and does laundry for her...A well done Plan A keeps her from running off to be with OM and eats up as much time as possible when you are together. A GOOD Plan A makes her not want to go to OM as readily while making her life chaotic enough when trying to see OM that it becomes a living hell. You don't have to enable the affair to be in Plan A, in fact, part of Plan A is to make the affair as difficult as possible.

But the real difficulty is that some guys just can't get over the affair at all. Some can't handle it from the beginning and unless the affair ends back at step 1, they are not willing to do any more or sacrifice any of themselves to keep the marriage together. And that's fine, but don't try to make that the ONLY way for affairs to end, because only a small percentage end that way.

And only another small percentage ends from a good Plan A...

And another smaller percentage ends because of a dark Plan B following a good Plan A...

And most just die a natural death because the things that make an affair make them unreliable as lasting relationships.

But not all of any category leads to a recovered marriage...

Even if the numbers for Plan Ultimatum were as high as 15 or 20%, which I think is too high, BTW but I'm using it for the sake of argument, what do you propose to do with the other 80 to 85% of marriages that are not solved by that method? Are all of them doomed to divorce because you can't imagine accepting a wife back after she's slept around?

And suppose the number was as high as 50% instead, would the remaining half be not worth any further effort to try to save?

I can think of one shining example of Plan Ultimatum that resulted in a marriage immediately moving into recovery phase...And it is still recovering and is still dealing with triggers and is still not completely healed.

That is because the steps to healing and recovery and the steps to remaining married are not the same steps at all. You can't recover if the marriage ends. If the GOAL is recovery, then a lot of things should be tried and Plan A and Plan B have been shown to work some of the time, just like Plan Ultimatum has worked some of the time.

Hey Mark,
I guess I kind of opened a can of worms with my post about Does Plan A make a BH look Like a wimp?
Your explanations and others help me see a different view point.
I am still under the notion that I would just leave. To me it's a deal breaker to the max.
I know I would have a problem knowing my WW is having sex with another man while I "be nice"and try to win her back. I can't fathom that at this time.

However your posts gives great insight and I thank you for it's clarifications.

I'm reading the material here and other sites to prevent it from happening at least on my part.

Thanks again

Mark, here is the latest and greatest from Dr Harley on the time of Plan A for men versus women:

MelodyLane:

The primary reason for abandoning plan A for plan B is protection. The stress experienced in plan A (trying to care for someone too long who is hurting you more deeply than you ever have, or ever will, experience) can leave you physically and emotionally damaged. So the question each person must ask themselves is, "how tough am I?"

My experience is that men are tougher mentally and physically than women. By that, I mean that women seem to start falling apart emotionally and physically after just a few months, or even a few weeks, of plan A. Men, on the other hand, seem to be able to keep it up for years before experiencing health problems.

If I don't know a person too well, I tend to lean to the safe side by recommending 3-4 weeks of plan A for women, and 6 months for men. But if a woman is no worse for wear after a few weeks, or a man is feeling okay after 6 months, there's no reason to end plan A at that point. As you can see, it's inexact, and depends on how the person is doing. A good support system (like the support people often receive on the Forum) can often keep a person in plan A much longer.

Best wishes
Willard F. Harley, Jr.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubb...in=151015&Number=2069970#Post2069970 *

*This is over on the weekend forum