Try this one on for size...

Do you want to feel resentment and be divorced or would you rather be resentful and married?

The resentment is the same.

Only the marriage is different.

Suppose your child wanted to go out with friends and still had homework to do because there was a big test the next morning. Now you can't force him to study but you can ground him and keep him from going out. So you ground him and he stays home. So he remains home, makes a half-a$$ed attempt at studying and goes to school with his shorts in a knot.

But imagine how you'd feel if he came home and told you that he was thankful that you kept him from going out with his friends because the group got into a car accident and all of them died in a fiery crash. Imagine that he shared that story with other friends who had a new outlook on their parents rules and suppose that it made your son buckle down and study hard and graduate at the top of his class.

You forced him to stay home and study and he showed his gratitude every day of his life.

And just so you know, it always feels like you're second choice at first. What the WS does once home determines how long you believe that.

It's a battle of wills. The WW wants to keep the affair partner. You want her to give up OM. You do everything you can to get her to bend to your will and she does. You get what you wanted, the OM is toast.

THEN you begin to fix what was wrong with the marriage and she does things that shows you that she a grateful that you did what you did to end the affair. She HATED it and you at the time, but is so thankful that you did once she sees the consequences clearly of letting her have her own way.

That is what many guys miss in Plan A. Plan A isn't about making the marriage better or fixing what is wrong with it or any of that stuff. It is only about ending the affair and bringing the WW home to stay.

Then you get to fix it. But if you don't save it, there is nothing there to fix.

It sucks, it's hard and it isn't fair, but it works sometimes for those it does work for they get a chance to do things right. If you don't save the marriage, you don't get that chance at all.

And keep in mind that even if the affair ends and recovery starts, that is not a guarantee that you will recover and be happy. A lot still end up divorced. The biggest obstacle to staying married is the affair. The biggest obstacle to recovery is the resentment of the BS.

It really only gets better if BOTH work at it.

Mark

Or do you want sloppy seconds or an unrepentant wayward or to live with the nagging suspicion of wondering if she'll do it again or what she did with OM or raising a child that isn't yours or a woman who won't acknowledge the pain she caused you or knowing that your wife betrayed you OR

Getting a clean start with a woman who is more deserving?

I'm indifferent to my exww. Resentful? Don't know if that will ever truly go away since she did turn everyone's life upside down for her own selfish intersts.

But I'd rather be with a woman that I didn't have to worry about.

Pom,

We have 2 kids. But DD is in her thirties and has a daughter of her own and DS is 23 and was nearly 21 at the time of the affair. Neither one was living at home at the time.

My wife has serious FOO issues IMO. Her mother has been married to her affair partner for over 40 years. He was FIL's Army buddy and was brought home to teach the kids piano. FIL moved on and remarried; MIL tried to run his life till the day he died.

And this was not my wife's first affair either. But we did nothing to recover from the first one since it wasn't discovered till it had been over for ten years and neither of us did anything to learn from it and do what needed to be done to make sure it didn't happen again.

This time we are doing what needs to happen.

If anther one happens, there won't be another recovery. This time I did what I needed to do and so far she is too at least for the most part. Much of that has to do with boundary issues, BTW. Not only do I Know what leads to an affair, but she does too. No more excuses for not doing things right now.

We got married when she was not quite 18 and I was just 21. Her father was moving away at the end of July, she didn't turn 18 till early October and we wanted to get married any way. So he signed for her to get married before she turned 18 and we rented an apartment where she lived alone till we got married in August.

FWIW, FIL was married to his second wife the morning of our wedding by the base chaplain and then they drove down for our wedding that afternoon. FIL was a double lifer in the Army. 20 years active and retired as a Warrant Officer then returned to the same desk to do the same job for 20 more years as a civilian.

His second wife worked for the Army as well and was transferred to Ft Knox. He retired and she was still in the reserves. After he died, it was her being called to active duty that precipitated my wife travelling to Kentucky to take care of the house and her step mother's aged father that led to the affair with step-mom's neighbor.

My father was in the Navy during the Korean war. My uncle was a lifer in the Marines and then became a "contractor" for the military for another 20 years. He showed up in Central America a week before we took out Noriega and he took a cruise on his boat into the Caribbean a couple weeks before we invaded Grenada. He suddenly had a desire to visit Qatar and was there when Iraq invaded Kuwait. He didn't retire, just changed titles.

My brother was active Navy for 8 years and my other brother was in the Army reserves for 10. His PHD was in political science and his specialty was Transnational Terrorism which was the focus of his doctoral thesis. He was assigned to an intelligence unit and never saw active duty but has done consulting for the military since he got out.

I myself almost joined the Marines when I was 19 but I wasn't fond of rice paddies.

I got a letter on November 9th that year telling me to report for my Army physical on December 12th and then got another letter on December 3rd telling me to not bother as they weren't going to process my number that year and I was off the hook. They took 200 hundred fewer that year from our county than they did the year before.

Mark

You know this is where I am not getting the connection in my case. Once I confronted my wife she never again saw OM. She had contact with him for over a month after that and was still claiming she was leaving for about 3 weeks, but if she'd run off to see him, I can't say that we would be having this conversation right now.

Part of the reason she didn't get to see him was that I made it hard to do it and part of it was that so many people were watching her by then that she had to simply run away and do it without regard to what others thought of her. At the same time I was doing everything I could to be the husband she said she wanted and after blowing up one afternoon and telling her to crap or get off the pot, she told me she was staying and wanted to work things out. Not till after the second worst night of my life as she vanished and didn't answer her phone all night. I know she wasn't with OM because she made it to work the next morning and stopped at home to shower and change with not enough time to drive that far and back. Se said later she spent the night in a motel halfway between our vacation cabin and home, which was where I spent the night. NC began the next day via email.

I was about to jump to Plan B and was making plans when I got an email from her telling me she was staying. The next few weeks alternated between sucking stale pond water through a straw and
hysterical bonding that left me exhausted all the time. Two months later I got another email thanking me for fighting for her and not letting her go. It's been up and down but progressively upward since.

I guess I just felt like I had that 57 Chevy. Some only have an old Yugo and don't want to spend the effort. I can also tell you that if she had not gotten on the recovery bandwagon and showed remorse and a willingness to do whatever it took, we would not be married today.

To be honest , Mark, I think I would have given it a try, the marriage, that is. We have 3 young daughters and I really wanted to try to keep us together.
I think it is hard for those of us that had remorseless WS's, some that never even admitted what was clearly evidenced and proven to a certainty, to relate to what it would be like to have had a WS that came clean, and felt bad for the pain he or she caused.
I have come to peace, but I have not forgiven as I have never received a request for forgiveness. Janis Abran Sprin, in her book " How Can I Forgive You' makes a distinction between acceptance, which allows one to move on when a person never apologizes and forgiveness, which she feels require active participation from the transgressor.
I suppose if my XW had acted like a decent human being who f-ed up royally and admiited it and did the work, I might have been able to get past it. By, that's just theory.

It's about what one can tolerate. Choices that we make, that is.

Plan A often works. Because it's not 100% effective, does that mean it should not be used?

Better to give up without trying?

However some people can not tolerate their WS's affair. So it goes to it's all about what one can tolerate.

Does not doing a plan A mean plan D? No They can do a plan B.

Again plain B when followed by a good plan A often works.

Plan B often works. Because it's not 100% effective, does that mean it should not be used?

Better to give up without trying?

Raise an OC?

Neither good or bad, it's what the BH can tolerate.

Do not recover or attempt to recover because there will be an anger phase, triggers for the BS?

Does the BS have to get over their WS's affair?

No. They can not tolerate the affair and it's memmories and triggers. So they go straight to plan D.

Can they try to swallow the affair and fail to do so at any time after D day? Yes.

This is why it does not matter if the WS wants to return. The BS has to attempt to do what the BS want's. Not every goal that is set is obtained.

You know, MyRev, your remark about the strengths and weaknesses of MB is bang-on. I've been kicking around here for a couple of years for reasons I don't want to get into, but I've often scratched my head at the single-mindedness of the whole "program."

Does a BS really want to be with a partner that's been railroaded into staying in a marriage? Does a BS really want to live out life with everyone knowing of the infidelity in the marriage? I have a family member who cheated on his wife (which resulted in divorce) more than 25 years ago, and the BW still tells everyone who will listen. You know what? It's old news. After all this time, he's the one I feel sorry for, not her. Geez, talk about living your life as a victim. Who's to say that the first marriage is the right marriage?

I'm going to agree that the numbers are greatly skewed about who leaves, who re-marries, and who stays together. My husband wants to be with me. Period. I want to be with him. Period. My own experience has shown me that the MB tactics themselves can be enough to ground a marriage. I would think long and hard about the motives for a WS to return.

How is "luring" them back railroading them back?

Railroaded into anything does not work long term. They eventually make a choice either for or against the marriage. Duh. The trick is to get them to make that choice when they are thinking rationally.


Well probably 70-80% of marriages have infidelity in them. Some people's pride is I daresay irrecovably wounded. Some people can and do get over it.


So what? Not all BS's play the victim for 25 years.


The bible?


I have no idea what you mean by that.


Well my wife having had a rectal cranial extraction wants to be with me too.


Well it's all a great theory until you are actually confronted by your spouse cheating. So you get the luxury of chest thumping about what you would do without ever having to put up or shut up.

I am on this site because I too think that BH get bad advice. They are encouraged to take abuse in my opinion and that is why I still hang around here.

I also had a mother that was a WW and she left. My poor dad did a plan A and then held out hope for years. Remember this was my mother I am talking about. She was not worth the pain she put him thru. She ran off and took his money so he could not even feed his family. I watched a very good man have his life destroyed and he never recovered. He was far to good for her yet he let it destroy his life.


Now I suppose that if the plan is to go to plan "A" and then to plan "B" if your wife does not stop sleeping with another guy it can work. But at what cost? If my wife knows she can be with another guy and have her fun until she gets tired of it well it will take her a lot longer to get tired of it. And if she knows I will wait until she does then I have just given her a pass to treat me this way.

ML I really like her posts. But I also know that when her husband cheated on her she threw him out. In my case also when I threw her out and went to plan FU my wife had a huge change in her. She still lost me but at least she changed into a human being again. Now ML husband changed his tune when she threw him out and in my case it did the same. My XW would have tormented me if I would have done a plan "A" and plan "B".

Now my wife seemed to think that worse case scenario she would get divorced and have a new man. She would get most of my assets and I would pay her my paycheck and then we could remain friendly. Reality set in when I became very aggressive and filed and stopped being Mr. nice guy.

I also have noticed that most of the BH's still have to live with a woman that neglects their SF need. This same woman who has no problem putting out for another guy that does not financially support her.

There must be a reason why Dr. Harley thinks a BH should Plan A for 6 months and a BW should only Plan A for 3 months. My wife when I found out was confrontational and blamed me. If I would have done a Plan A she would have been happy to have me pay for her affair. I can tell you when I booted her she stopped all contact with him and never saw him as far as I know. If I would have done a Plan A she would have just abused me.

People need to set boundaries and the number one boundary would be that if my next wife screws another dude I will divorce her. No exceptions and no excuses.



I could not agree with this more. As I stated above I learned it from watching my dad get destroyed. Deal through strength not weakness.

I have noticed that people who SETTLE or recover just for the kids always seem to want to somehow blame the PROGRAM for their situation whereas in actual fact, it was THEY who lowered the bar!!

I think that is the time frame. IMO a BS would be silly to Plan A forever. If there's no progress after 3-6 months then shouldn't they be in Plan B already? And isn't Plan B about them, not their spouses?

Zelmo, contentwife, IHadEnough,

THANK YOU ... it's good to know that some are employing some independent thought and challenging the status quo.

There are several newbie BH's on the board right now that are being advised through numerous pages of posts to employ various versions of the plans when it is obvious that few, if any, of them have the strength to work the plans properly, nor do they have WW's that are likely to ever become suitable life partners.

However, they continue to plod along hanging on to the thinest strands of hope while their WW's continue to abuse them, when most would be well advised to use their WW's fantasy visions to their advantage and negotiate a better life for themselves and their children.

The key here is RESPECT ... without it on some fundemental level ... I don't think you can have any type of true recovery and in most of these situations the WW has stripped the BH of his self-respect, which makes it very easy for the WW to lose all remaining RESPECT for her BH.

Once the BH gets to the point of diminished self-respect coupled with an unrepentent and disrespectful WW, then Plan D is the sensible choice for the BH to reclaim any semblence of a quality future for himself and his children.

Yes, some of these WW's are just monstrous. They are disordered or something. It is critical to look at them as they truly are. The infidelity was my get out of jail free card.
I've been in love before. But, love could never make me act the way some of these WW's act toward thier H's. Not sure I buy this fog thing. I just could not imagine treating someone like my WW treated my, regardless of my feelings for someone else.

I believe it says somewhere on this site that Plan A only works 15% of the time. I believe the success rate is even lower for Plan B. But it is still better than doing nothing at all.

Regarding exposure, this works best when it's done instantly and in a nuclear fashion. Runnerboy (who posted earlier in this thread) conducted the best and most instantaneous exposure I have read on this site.

I exposed yet, my WstbxH is still living with OW. Their A is nearly 3 years long now - almost 2 years since D-day. What went wrong? Well, OWH found out first but OW and WstbxH quickly put up barriers to prevent him from contacting me. He didn't try to expose at their work and was slow to expose to her family. WstbxH had time to come up with a speech to me about wanting a divorce (swore there was no A), and a plan to divide assets. He had already begun the separation process (took money from the joint account etc.) before I even knew we had a marital problem. He had also brainwashed his family. So when I eventually found out, the only place left to expose was his work - and they had already brainwashed them as well - to the extent that they allowed the 2 of them to stay at one of their places until they could get an apartment together (WstbxH left home within days of d-day). The only virgin exposure I had was my son who lived away from home anyway. Everything that happened with me, OWH and WstbxH/OW's A follows what I read in threads where exposure is slow or non-existant.

This nuclear attack (exposure) also gives a BH the upper hand with respect to custody and other issues in a divorce settlement. These things can be done in conjunction with Plan A. They are not in opposition. At this, I performed well. I immediately openned my own bank account and had my paycheck deposited into it instead of the joint. I also wrote up my own LSA strongly in my favour. Luckily, DS was grown so custody wasn't an issue. OWH, on the other hand, made critical errors. While he protected himself financially, he made the assumption that OW would be reasonable and at least fair to their DD(6 at the time). He allowed her to take DD with her. She has since all but removed OWH from his own DD's live, replacing him with WstbxH. I can see the mistakes he made and Pom's advice really does ring true - if he'd done HALF of what Pom advises, he might even have custody - or at the very least some type of regular visitation. As is, because wstbxH and OW moved to another city, he almost never sees his DD. Very, very sad.

So does MB work? Yes it does. But it has to be applied correctly, swiftly AND these other important factors can't be ignored while implementing the plans. Cut throat exposure and protecting a BH's parental rights are not LBs at all. They attack the affair, not the spouse. I wish this point could be made more clearly to new BS's who come here.

Just to add:

Exposure is very efective, because it is not 100% does it mean that it should not be used?

Why do I keep doing this?

Rhetorical question, I have an answer already...

Those with the biggest problem with Plan A can't describe it and have probably never done it.

Plan A is NOT paying for a WW to continue her affair. It is NOT placating her so that she won't run off with OM. I t is NOT rolling over and taking it while she boinks OM and you watch the kids so she doesn't have to worry about them.

Plan B is NOT letting her know that when she's had her fun that you will accept her back and everything will go back to the way it was. Plan B is NOT about reducing yourself to the level of acceptance of being a cuckold.

Plan A CAN'T be forever because it is IMPOSSIBLE to do it for very long. The 6 months for men and 3 for women is Dr Harley's recommendation for the MAXIMUM time you should attempt it because if you do it and do it RIGHT it will KILL YOU or at least make you wish you were dead.

Plan A is GIVING while NOT getting anything in return. If you can't do it, then don't bother to try.

Plan B is most likely to end in divorce. It is more likely to end in divorce than Plan A followed by Plan B and is almost as likely to end in divorce as going right for Plan D. Once you are not together you have NO chance to make love bank deposits and no chance to show that you can meet ENs or any of the other things that Plan A is supposed to be for. Plan B is the last hope for those who still hold onto it.

Another comment here that I feel I should address is the question about who says the first marriage is the right one...

If a marriage ends because of abuse, cheating by your spouse or abuse of the children or abandonment, then a second chance is valid, acceptable and a great idea.

If the second chance at love is with someone whom you met while married and began an affair with no matter what you thought of your spouse at the time then it is NOT right and even if your marriage ends because of other reasons your affair partner canNOT be "the right one" especially if he/she was married during your affair as well.

Happiness cannot trump the fact that adultery is wrong. Feelings cannot override the fact that it is wrong to break a vow and the fact that you fell in love with someone else while married is not the only condition by which to judge right and really should not even be considered as one standard at all, since falling in love is a CHOICE and NOT something that happens to you without any decision from you. You can say "I didn't mean for it to happen" all you want but the time to decide to prevent it from happening was when you made the choice to allow the conditions that let it happen. THAT is when you choose remain faithful, not when your underwear is damp.

raozone, you are right that Plan B is not about the WS but about the BS. But really, so is Plan A. Plan A is supposed to remove the obstacles that might prevent the WS from choosing to remain with the BS instead of running off with the AP. It is a way for the BS to show the WS that he/she is willing to meet the ENs that AP is meeting and at the same time give the BS leverage against the affair through the stick side of the equation including exposure. It is NOT being nice to a tramp. It is NOT doing laundry for a philandering womanizer. It IS stepping up and making sure that everything on your side of the fence is in order and YOU are not the reason the marriage is failing.

If you do Plan A, not rollover and let WS walk all over you but a real Plan A that does NOT tolerate disrespect because in Plan A you stand up for yourself without the WS being your only source of self and actually make yourself a better person.

The problem I have with the idea that you have to choose between standing up for yourself and Plan A is that Plan A is about standing up for yourself. It is about not taking the status quo from your lying cheating spouse and about making yourself the best person you can be in spite of, not because of you spouse. It makes you strong in and of yourself and removes your spouse as your source of fulfillment and life.

Not every marriage should be saved and some will never get over the pain of betrayal and for them there is Plan D and Plan FU. Those are perfectly valid PLANS. Most people are not advised to choose one of those when they get here because this is called Marriage BUILDERS and not Marriage Enders. (there may be one of those BTW and I have no affiliation with that group or any other group wishing to advertise on this site) By the fact that people come here to ask what they should do leads most of us to believe that they have decided to try to save the marriage.

Now the ones for whom Plan A beats them down, makes them feel worthless and diminishes their own ability to function in life without being a doormat: If you are not getting stronger as you do Plan A, you aren't doing Plan A.
If your confidence is failing during Plan A because you are unsure of what you are doing being the right thing to do then you are NOT doing Plan A.
If you are not doing Plan A with the GOAL of a fully recovered marriage in mind, you are NOT doing Plan A.
If you are not doing Plan A with an already determined end point in mind beyond which you will walk away knowing you did your best, you are NOT in Plan A.
If you are not doing Plan A with the idea of ending up with the marriage YOU want then you are not doing Plan A.
If you are babysitting so your WW can go boink OM and saying you are connecting with the kids for the first time in your life, you are NOT in Plan A.

You win at Plan A by being BETTER not by being easier to push around.

And that applies to those who do NOT save their marriage as well as those that do.

If you feel like you are being a doormat during Plan A, you might be doing everything right.

If people are telling you you are being a doormat you aren't doing it right.

Plan A and Plan B do NOT force anyone to come back to the marriage that doesn't want to come back to the marriage.

In order to recover you do have to be able to accept that it happened. In order to recover you do have to forgive and move forward.

You do have to have a remorseful FORMER wayward spouse who has earned the stripes of the F by their actions and not by their inaction (No longer boinking OM every Thursday, Saturday and every other Monday nights does NOT make one a FORMER WW any more than waking up sober one morning makes one a FORMER alcoholic)


You do NOT have to forget all about it.

You do NOT have to settle for what you get.

If you settle for being second best, that is YOUR choice.

I have to go to work. No time to proof-read or edit...

Mark

Great post, Mark! Especially this:


This needs to be repeated to both newbies and to those who are doing Plan A as much as possible.

This post calls for an NPN-Notable Post Nomination!

Charlotte

Well said, Mark. Unfortunately, some do not get that!

BINGO!!