Hi tully and TA,
I agree with TA that you and WH are in stalemate. I wonder whether you should do anything to move things forward from this position. As you know, I have grasped at straws in the hope that your marriage will not collapse through WH's pride, stubbornness or whatever is making him maintain his ambiguous position.
You have not replied to my query about contacting Steve Harley for advice on another temporary break in Plan B. Are you willing, and financially able, to do this?
However, I'm puzzled by TA's view that you are over-focused on your H's relationship with the OP (I'm paraphrasing, TA, but I hope I have not misrepresented you).
In an attempt to move my own marriage forward in recovery, I constantly re-read the articles on the web site and SAA. Now, I am aware that posters to the forums disagree with some of Harley, even when they find him the best hope for affair-busting and marital recovery, but I don't understand the reasoning behind TA's comments about your approach to the affair. It seems entirely in line with Dr Harley's advice. It is certainly true that Dr Harley identifies unmet emotional needs, and says that these will have to be tackled in recovery, but he he makes it very clear that there can be no recovery without complete NC, and extraordinary precautions to ensure NC for life. He does not say that this is only necessary in the deepest, most romantic of affairs; he says this for all kinds, ranging from one-night-stands to "soul mate' affairs.
tully, your situation seems very like that described in this letter in the Q & A columns, and what you have done so far seems to me to follow very closely what Dr Harley recommends:
What to Do with an Unfaithful Husband
Letter #3Dear Dr. Harley,
This past Summer, my husband of 14 years confessed he had been having an affair with a woman from work for the past two years. He contemplated leaving me and our two children many times but could not bring himself to do it. He claims he loves us and cares about us but he is not in love with me.
Our love relationship started going down hill after having our children with all the pressures of family life. But it didn't really get bad until after he started the affair. Our power struggle has always been him not having enough sex, and me not having enough affection. We recently read your book, His Needs, Her Needs, and agree that we were both at fault.
The logic of it all is easy to see but my husband is seeing everything from an emotional view, he feels love for her and he doesn't feel love for me. He has not been seeing the other woman even though they work at the same place and I believe he is sincere about it. We have been just riding it out until our emotions start to level out but we are both growing impatient.
I have suggested counseling but my husband is reluctant because he says he knows what his feelings are. I asked him, "If we could restore the intimacy we once had, would he want to stay with me?" He said, "Yes." My husband is a truly wonderful person with qualities that are had to find. I love him more than anything and the last thing I want is for him to move out; but the tension is so high. Sometimes we do relax and have a great time but that seems to scare him and he gets depressed and withdraws again.
Right now I feel like the only way to win his heart back is to separate for awhile. It would mean that the kids and I would have to move back to my family, out of state, in the meantime. He feels that would be unfair. He doesn't want his life disrupted like that. He wants to have access to his children. The move would be really hard on all of us but I cannot stand thinking I will have to live in our home with all our memories without even having the love and support of my family. My real question is would counseling help at this point considering his emotional state or am I better off letting him find out what his real feeling are for me by separating?
I don't want another marriage to end up in divorce because of a communication problem. But my husband feels the love is too long gone to get it back.
W.M.
Dear W.M.,
As you know from having read my book, I advise your husband to never see his lover again. He must move to another job and possibly to another state before he can reconcile with you. Otherwise, he will continue to love her and be unable to resist seeing her from time to time. Even if your marriage improves, he may never be able to overcome his feeling of love for this other woman unless he stops seeing her.
But, from your description, he is unlikely to accept my advice -- at least at this time. All of his talk about the way he "feels" proves that he is addicted to his lover. So I recommend a three step plan to you.
The first step is to be the very best wife you can possibly be. Do everything you can to meet his needs, and don't do anything to upset him. Set a period of time that you think you can do this without getting too upset, say, six months. Once in a while, tell him that you think both of you need a fresh start somewhere else.
If he does not respond to your kindness and respectful suggestions within that period of time you're ready for the second step: pack up yourself and your children and move near your family and friends for their support. It should be far away from his lover -- another city or even another state. Have absolutely nothing to do with him. Don't talk to him, don't see him.
If you are forced to say something to him, tell him that you love him and hope he can free himself from the addiction of his affair. Let him know that the only way you will consider restoring your relationship with him, is for him to quit his job and move to where you are. From there you will start life over again. Be certain that your words and tone of voice communicate your care for him, not your anger.
Your husband is not likely to follow you right away after you've given him his ultimatum. He will try to develop a relationship with his lover first. But in the vast majority of cases, it doesn't work out because he needs both you and she. She meets some of his needs and you meet others. He will discover how much he misses you when he is with her.
In the event that he stays with his lover and he does not come back to you, you avoid untold sorrow trying to reach a man who is in love with another woman. As you wait for his decision, it is very important to surround yourself with your family and friends as you go through this crisis. In the end, if he chooses his lover, the experience will be much harder on him than on you.
If he eventually agrees to your terms, you begin the third step, which is to start again with a new commitment to meet each other's needs and avoid Love Busters -- in a new location.
At first, he will be depressed because he misses his lover. He goes through a grieving process that usually lasts a few weeks. For some, it takes as long as a year to overcome, but this is quite rare. His affair is an addiction, and the withdrawal from his lover, puts him into a very painful emotional state. If he calls his lover on the telephone, or inadvertently sees her, the clock is set back to zero, and the period of withdrawal begins again. That's why he must avoid all contact with her for the rest of his life.
After the period of withdrawal has ended, he will open his heart to you and give you a chance to meet his need for sex, and other needs his lover met. He will also learn to meet your needs, particularly your need for affection. You will have an opportunity to build a new lifestyle together, one that fits your needs so well that it will affair-proof your marriage.
When the ordeal is over, you will both know what a marriage should be -- what yours could have been, right from the beginning.
What to do with an unfaithful husband: Letter no. 3 From moving away from France to be with your family for support, to insisting that he agrees to your terms, it seems to me that you have followed Dr Harley's prescriptions closely. In your posts you have identified weaknesses in your marriage that you are willing to discuss with WH, and you are keen to work with Steve or Jennifer during recovery to restore the marriage. It doesn't seem to me that you are reluctant to look at your marriage as a whole, but that you are following Dr Harley's rule that total separation is the right way to end an affair:
Coping with Infidelity: Part 2
How Should Affairs End?Some affairs are "one night stands." They usually take place when a spouse is away on a trip, or when one has gone out partying without the other spouse. These relatively loveless affairs usually happen when people drink and lose impulse control. Alcoholics are the ones most likely to have these flings.
Other affairs start as a caring friendship and develop over years to become a complete relationship that solves most emotional and practical issues for the couple. These relationships become so complete and persistent that spouses are eventually divorced, and the lovers are united in marriage.
But most affairs are somewhere in between one night stands and relationships that lead to marriage.
Affairs usually take place because they meet important emotional needs. But most affairs meet only some emotional needs not met in marriage, leaving others that are being met by a spouse. That fact usually rules out the possibility of divorce, at least for the spouse having the affair. The wayward spouse knows that the lover, for some reason, is not able to meet some of the needs met by his or her spouse. So most affairs are never intended to lead to divorce and remarriage, but are "safety-valve" relationships that satisfy a need not met in marriage.
Affairs are intended to be kept secret
Having drawn the above conclusion about the nature of affairs, it should be obvious why most wayward spouses would like their affairs to go undetected. Not only do they want to avoid all the unhappiness that goes with discovery, but they also want to continue the affair as long as it meets needs not met in marriage. In most cases, a lover only meets one or two emotional needs, while the spouse meets others. Unfaithful spouses usually don't want their marriages to end, and yet they want emotional needs met that the spouse does not meet. Discovery of the affair, in most cases, would ruin the "solution" to their problem.
But there comes a time in almost every affair that an unfaithful spouse realizes that it has run it's course, or it wasn't a good idea to begin with. In some cases, it's the lover who ends the relationship, finding that the spouse isn't living up to expectations. And in other cases, it's the spouse that ends it when the disadvantages of the affair begin to outweigh the advantages.
In most cases, affairs end peacefully and in secret. By their very nature, there is not much of a commitment to hold them together, and a desire to do the "right thing" is usually the excuse an unfaithful spouse uses to end it. But the real reason is usually that the affair has become more trouble than it's worth.
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Some affairs, those like the husbands of R.J. and M.S., are discovered by their spouses. But as R.J. and M.S. have seen, knowing about an affair is only the first step toward recovery.
Never see or communicate with a former lover
Once an affair is first revealed, whether it's discovered or admitted, the victimized spouse is usually in a state of shock. The first reaction is usually panic, but it's quickly followed by anger. Divorce and sometimes even murder are contemplated. But after some time passes (usually about three weeks), most couples decide that they will try to pull together and save their marriage.
The one having an affair is in no position to bargain, but he or she usually tries anyway. The bargaining effort usually boils down to somehow keeping the lover in the loop. You'd think that the unfaithful spouse would be so aware of his or her weaknesses, and so aware of the pain inflicted, that every effort would be made to avoid further contact with the lover as an act of thoughtfulness to the stunned spouse. But instead, the unfaithful spouse argues that the relationship was "only sexual" or was "emotional but not sexual" or some other peculiar description to prove that continued contact with the lover would be okay.
Most victimized spouses intuitively understand that all contact with a lover must end for life. Permanent separation not only helps prevent a renewal of the affair, but it is also a crucial gesture of consideration to someone who has been through hell. What victimized spouse would ever want to know that his or her spouse is seeing or communicating with a former lover at work or in some other activity?
In spite of career sacrifices, friendships, and issues relating to children's schooling, I am adamant in recommending that there be no contact with a former lover for life. For many, that means a move to another state. But to do otherwise fails to recognize the nature of addiction and its cure.
Look at M.S.'s husband. Here he is, thousands of miles from his lover, and yet he still feels compelled to call her. Can you imagine the trouble M.S. would have had separating them if they had not moved? Their move was the best thing that could have happened to their marriage because it not only revealed the affair, but it also set up the conditions that would make ending it possible -- total separation.
We don't know if R.J. still sees his lover, but he says he has broken off all contact. In many cases where a person is still in town, that's hard to prove. But one thing's for sure, if he ever does see his lover, it will put him in a state of perpetual withdrawal from his addiction, and make the resolution of his marriage essentially impossible. In fact, one of the reasons he is not recovering after three months of separation may be that he is not being truthful about the separation.
How should an unfaithful spouse tell his lover that their relationship is over? If left to their own devices, many would take a Caribbean cruise to say their final good-byes. Obviously, that will not do. In fact, I recommend that the final good-bye be in the form of a letter, and not in person or even by telephone.
Coping with Infidelity: Part 2: How should affairs end? TA, do you think that tully has misinterpreted Dr Harley's advice, or do you not agree with that advice?
), I also observe that you seem to be determined to frame your sitch as 'Tully being rejected for the OW'. 
