Wanted to add, isn't it critical in analyzing this change issue to factor in that pk came forward on her own without the threat of revelation? What would motivate her to do so if she wanted to retain the ability to deceive in the future?

Oh my goodness - it's "you" lol.

Thing is I know Ahuman from here and I know that having more A's is NOT what she is asking/talking about. She is asking what she should do to recover her marriage. I don't know how it all got twisted into "she's looking for another A".

That is what happens when Aphelion starts posting - it's his only theme these days.

You never said a truer word BigK.

It would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.

I've been following this thread and I am wondering if we need a place to discuss the merits of the BS pursuing recovery. It seems like most of the site and a large number of the members get immersed in the tactics of recovery and ignore the larger question.

I fell into the same trap and my family suffered for it. If I had had the wisdom to really look at my WW and think about the merits of the situation, then I would have realized that recovery was not the right choice.

No, it is not funny to see someone hurting like that. This crap changes folks.

I think it is not the right choice more often than we care to believe.

I just wish that ahuman would come back and be able to feel safe discussing what she came here to discuss: recovering her marriage. She got some very good advice at first. But then the thread changed. Instead of help (with a good side dish of "examine your own actions!") she was treated to a bunch of (IMHO) nonsense about how she is just waiting (after 5 years now) to have another A and that she should tell her H that she is prepared to leave and give up the kids.

It was at that point that I decided I was tired of reading and needed to write.


The only reason I posted was because I deplore generalities like "the BS" or "the WS". How easy it would be if every WS acted exactly the same way. But they don't. How easy it would be to give advice for all BS that would work...but the fact is that people are built differently.

My H does not have a plan A bone in his body. That doesn't mean that it can't work very well for others. Not all BS want to save their marriage. That's perfectly ok. What I think is not ok is taking your own bleak situation and extrapolating from it to the point that everyone else's situation must mirror your own. That's delusional.

In some cases, certainly there is no point to beginning recovery because the WS is not the type to want to change. He or she likes things just the way they are, good for him/her, who cares about anyone else. This is the type that Aphelion probably lives with - the type who kept up her affair long after discovery with nary a qualm. That takes an exceptionally cold and calculating individual, and Zelmo is right, IMHO, when he labels such an individual as a sociopath. Personally I wouldn't want someone like that to have an insurance policy on me.

But that wasn't the type of scenario that the OP, ahuman described. Far from it. She described an affair that was ended long ago, a recovery that was stalled and a marriage filled with AOs and resentment. She wanted to save her marriage. I got the feeling that her H did too or he would have been long gone.

Aphelion, perhaps you should consider starting your own thread where you can discuss your particular situation. I think that there are probably others in your shoes. But remember at some point you cease to be a victim and become a volunteer.

I think 6yearleft at least brings up an interesting point. What if the M just can't be restored because of the A and all the tactics and plans will not make a difference. Not for lack of effort but just because too much damage has been done. Dr. Harley uses the rape analogy (which btw I'm not sure I agree with but having not experienced I'm not qualified to judge) for describing an A and how the BS feels. Now how many people would forgive someone who raped them? I realize there are a lot Christians on this board and the Bible says that's what you should do - but in reality could you really? The counter argument would be that since the person who 'raped' you (using the analogy) is your S then you should at least try. I would argue that it actually makes it worse because this person is supposed to not hurt you unlike some random stranger who has no vested interest in you.

Obviously there are many success stories on here so it is possible but sometimes looking at it from the above perspective makes me wonder how in the world anybody gets over an A.

Maybe I should make a thread of my own to help with this question. I am not advocating that all BS just chuck the M, or that all try to recover, I'm saying it is hard for the BS ti figure it out and I am concerned that immediately going to the Harley plan can obscure the bigger decision. I know we all have baggage but maybe we could make a place where the BS or even the WS could come and get some help with that decision.

Many can and do get over it and come out with GREAT marriages. If both people are working on recovery, there is excellent potential.

penaltykill, great post.

I don't agree that using MB principles obscures anything. While some marriages should not be saved, using Plan A buys the BS some time while he assesses his situation, without burning any bridges. The WORST TIME to make such a decision is just after D-Day because the BS is in shock and under great mental duress. Better to get the lay of the land and THEN act, instead of acting hastily and burning a bridge that can't be recrossed.

I see this somewhat differently.

I think a large amount of time is spent on plans to get the A to end.

I think not nearly enough time and effort is spent on how to recover and build a great marriage. Because of this too many just end up settling as they get lost and don't know what to do. For example, people may hear that they need to use the POJA. They may read it, understand it, agree with it, but applying it and putting it to regular use is a whole different ballgame.

Our emotions are great at letting us know where things stand, but, are not constructive in solving problems in the relationship or any relationship for that matter.

I have heard this a number of times from different posters but i do not see things that way. My emotions tell me if i am happy or not. And if i am not happy then SOMETHING is not right. I think you should use your emotions but that is just my opinion.

Let me explain what I am trying to communicate much clearer.

I agree you should use your emotions. They are a great guide in telling you if something is right or not. They are a great measure for how you are being treated, for instance. Am I being treated fairly or not?

But, the great advantage to using logic is that it is predictable and you can always count on it.

Fear is an emotion.

How many times do you see people recognize a situation that is dangerous and frought with risk and they make there decisions on what action to take or not take out of fear?

And the logical decision is more often than not right there for them.

Same thing happens with anger.

Or how about love? We see plenty of WS's acting on LOVE. Even though they risk everything for this emotion. All logic tells them that they will lose there spouse, kids, lifestyle, you name it.

Well for me i would rather be safe than sorry so i would react out of the fear rather than the logic.

And as far as love, in most situations the BS would probably not try to recover the marriage at all if it were not for their love of the WS.

Once again just just my opinion.

The folks who act on emotions are usually the ones who don't make it because they cannot follow a strategic PLAN to save their marriage. Emotions change with every passing mood, so following emotions is a bad idea. Putting emotions ASIDE is critical to success.

Our emotions are under extreme duress in an affair so they are NOT a good guide. They lead us wrong most of the time. [ask any teenage girl!]

I'm not sure if you are hearing what I am communicating. Or maybe I am not hearing what you are communicating. Or maybe it is perception.

If I hear you right, you are stating that like a deer in the middle of a road with a car with headlights on you would be frozen by your fear as your emotion of fear controls you and your decisions. Or would you logically recognize that your emotions are telling you you are in a dangerous situation, and then assess the situation, and then move 5 feet to either side before the car hit you as logic is telling you.

Or is it perception.

Read the COLOR of the word below:

YELLOW BLUE ORANGE BLACK RED GREEN PURPLE

What i am saying is that if i am standing in the road and a car is coming at me, my fear of being hit by the car would make me jump out of the way even if the car might not be heading straight for me.

And i could read all of your colors even though the words and the colors of the words did not match. I read yellow even though the font color of YELLOW was not yellow.

And i fell that like in Melody Lanes scenarion about a teenage girl that life experience changes your "feelings" so as a teenage girl i did not know as much about life in general as i do now. So as a teenage girl i most certainly should not act on emotions. But as a grown woman who has been married for almost 25 years i act on my emotions quite a lot.

If something bothers me i tell the person that it bothers me, to me it is honesty to tell your emotions. If my husband makes me angry about something i tell him that it made me angry. That way he knows that particular action makes me angry and if he does not want me to be angry then he should not do that particular action anymore.

If he does that action again and i do not say that it makes me angry again then he may think that it does not make me angry anymore and therefore he would continue to do that action.

If he chooses to do that action even if he knows it makes me angry then i feel he is not taking my feelings into account when he makes his decisions. And in my opinion that is what a marriage is about trying not to do things that you KNOW would bother your spouse.

Mel, all these years on MB together and you still crack me up. Always trying to turn the tables, you are.

I am reticent with details of my sitch for a lot of reasons, some of them strategic, most of them tactical and potentially legally useful (in an opposing way, of course). And some of them, well, so many of them are just so damn redundant. So totally boring by now.

Yet, you do ask a reasonable enough question. I feel posting on MB entails acceptance of an implied TOS that one explain their own whys, wherefores and whatnots …their biases for the lack of a better word.

So, allow me to answer you by quoting Pep from one of her posts on this very thread:

“Quite frankly, if there had been two, I would have stayed until our youngest was graduated from high school and then divorced him.

That is possibly your husband's plan. It would be mine if I were in his shoes.”

Add to that a quote from one of my own posts in this same thread:

“Think long term severely abused wife receiving advice on how to prepare to get away from her abuser, with her children, and not be followed. It takes time and planning and setting some minimal emergency resources aside. It takes creating a place to go to. She better play that close to her chest or even those slim chances at rescue and salvation will be foiled.”

If you care to think on these two quotes for a moment you should be able to get reasonably close to identifying my primary intentions and my objectives. Not my reasoning, of course, but perhaps my goals. Reasoning is personal, and not always easy to explain. But the high (and the low) points include, in no particular order:

Early confusion and panic, lasting several years actually.
An all consuming love.
Memory of an all consuming love, even though the love itself is gone now.
The only person I have ever had intercourse with.
DS!
Solemn covenant, promises I made I really meant, and specific ethics.
Religious beliefs (I will not be able to marry in the Church again after D.)
MB : This place got me believing, early and entirely wrongly, there was a fix to a mess that is in fact not at all fixable. A huge amount of wasted time!
Inertia.
Fear of the unknown.
I still care what happens to her, at least as much I do for a homeless stranger.
eta: PTSD (why I posted on this thread in the first place - I even have the same involuntary head tics as AH's BH.)

So there. OK now?


No, actually. I recently assisted in getting him terminated, so he negotiated with HR for early retirement. He is completely gone now. But it has made no noticeable difference to what I feel or to my long term plans. I find this very strange, actually. Anyone care to explain this evident lack of satisfaction to me?


Yeah, I have wondered. Asked too. I have been told, in a word, money and looks. OK, two words. And they seem to think me a very empathic nice guy. OK, maybe that reaches three words.

I am a science geek who has aged extremely well and invested huge FOO and my own assets very wisely. Most of these women seem to be able to smell big money a mile away. In fact, the more beautiful they are the better their nose works, for some odd reason.

Now, among these diggers, to one degree or another, there have been some genuine nice women I could have frolicked with ‘till the cows come. I say this in all truthfulness. I could have had ONSs, short As, middle sized As, long As, garden variety As, As purely for SF and even As for what might pass as true love. I could have had As for ENs, As for kicks, As for soul mates and an A for someone I really, really, truly should have married long ago in the first place.

Pop quiz: Why did I always run the other way, sometimes fast sometimes slow, every time? It was always for the same reasons, no matter what the A would have been for and like, you know.

Regarding what others think of me because I neither believe nor like a vast majority of WS or FWS and I actively keep them away from me irl as much as possible… meh…tell it to the hand.