This stuff is simple, but nobody EVER said it was easy.

Some folks find it helpful to make a list and keep it handy to refer back to, to keep them on track.

Simple list:

Meet his ENs
Avoid Love Busters
Have no expectations

That is all...

I'd add that, but that's all.
Simple!
(Not easy)

Thanks everyone. Mark thanks for your great input. I have no problem with the first 2 on your list, but the 3rd is hard as we have been doing this for a year. I will pray for strength.

I am planning on about 4 weeks of plan A. WH is pretty ego-centric and needs to have his ego built constantly.

BTW - although I con't find it, someone here, or maybe I read somewhere else, suggested I tell Him I have my own timeline, but don't tell him exactly what it is....I did this yesterday and it drove him crazy. I just told him I would get back to him 'soon'. That is what he always tells me. Hope this is right. But I feel very goood about doing it. Just to keep him on his toes and guessing, since he does it to me, and because he has yo-yoed us so many times. Tells the girls he is not ready to come back, but wants to come back EVENTUALLY.

Still thinking about breakthrough comments form last night. (or are they really breakthrough?) Told me he was tired of hurting everyone. And he thought that maybe the reason he was comfortable outside of house was because he didn't have to face guilt. Which is what I was thinking all along. Still blaming me for telling the kids, and getting parents involved. Says He is tired of the wedges I have put in the relationships in his life. I don't argue, I just listen

When he starts talking about all that nonsense, just change the subject. He SAYS he's tired of hurting everyone. So what? Has he QUIT hurting everyone? Has he made apologies, ceased contact, apologized to you, the girls, OW's H? Has he gone to any effort to ensure that you and the girls feel safe and secure? Is he open and transparent? No. His words are empty.

Don't listen to what he says.
Watch his actions.

If he brings up the relationship, change the subject. Meet one of his top ENs. Just totally ignore whatever he said and say "You did a great job fixing the garbage disposal, I think of you every time I flip that switch on" (you can leave out the part about "... because you're such a piece of garbage these days!" )

WH: I'm so tired of hurting everyone.
CG: Hey, you wanna check out that new restaurant?

WH: You ruined everything by telling my parents. Now there's too much damage to ever repair.
CG: You know, the house looks so much better since you trimmed the hedges. Thanks for that, it makes me happy to come home.

Good I idea. And you are right. I will keep changing subject while in plan A.

Devil is getting hold of my thought process again. Does anyone out there have any experience with WS who's A is with an old girlfriend? Am I being realistic in thinking he can get over her? Again...devil casting fears I guess.

The point is to make him so in love with you that she pales in comparison. If his marriage is great, he won't give her a second thought.

Thanks

This is me, raising my hand.

On the one hand, it was initially doubly attractive because he was not only getting his ENs filled, but he was taken away to a time when things were simpler (before kids, mortgage, arthritis...). I think it was easier for him to rationalize that they really DID know each other and they really WERE meant to be together.

On the other hand, when it ended he eventually remembered why they broke up in the first place. There were a few last contacts "letting her down gently" and at least one because he was craving a fix, an ego-stroke, excitement, whatever.

But basically once he got over the withdrawal (takes time), he was adamant about not wanting contact with her.

Thanks for the hope. I really appreciate it. I will be off to my dinner with him soon. I'll keep you posted

Um, I had A LOT more on my list and I really did read it a few times a day...
~ I had most of Mr W's list of dos and don'ts on my list (act happy, keep telling yourself you will make it, etc)
~ I also had meremortal's tip (that I have posted for claygal) on light conversation every morning on my list. I really did do this every day and I really think it worked.
~ I had some other notes like, "remember, WH is a crack addict, not H" etc.

Anyway, claygal, how did it go last night??

Thanks Susie. Yes I do keep referring back to you list of do's and don'ts as well. I have gone back through my thread this morning. I woke up feeling very angry. It is helping me to calm down.

I have OWH keeping an eye out on his end for contact. they are very sneaky though. Took months for me to find they had reconnected second time. I am so tired of this.

I hope I will know when WH is sincere about coming back. I guess I worry more about no contact at that point. WH is just so weak, still telling himself I am sure that he can't live without her, that she is is soul mate. He continues to give in to that. Even though he knows it is wrong.

Got another email from 'her' yesterday, saying she had tried to do the right thing over the last year, but she was just weak and lonely, and her feelings.... I am so tired of getting this crap.
I haven't heard anything from her today. Hopefully it will stop.

We did have a nice dinner last night, he was a little distant, but not too much. Only small talk. I stayed happy.

claygal, their affair is crumbling fast. I suspect your H left because he thinks the OW will leave her H. But she won't do that.

Your best bet is to go into Plan B real soon here. With you out of the picture, she will be the only one to meet his needs and his affair will crumble and fall. If you continue meeting his needs, then you essentially prop up the affair. The OW can't possibly meet his needs and he wont know that until you are gone from the picture.

I would do a good plan A for about 2 weeks and then go completely dark a week before Thanksgiving. Spending the holidays alone would give him lots to think about.

Do you know about plan B? Do you have the book Surviving an Affair?

Quick note to explain why I only have three things on my list of what to do in Plan A...

Each onre of us has to flesh out our individual plan to exactly fit our situation. Some WS enjoy eating the food we cook and so in Plan A we cook for them. Others have Physical Attractiveness as a top EN and for them we look good, smell good, present ourselves as if we are in control even though we're falling apart a little more each day. If the WS's top EN is SF and we have chosen to try to meet that EN, though in cases of random sleeping about and such maybe that ain't such a good idea, we might...well...whatever we might decide to do for them to meet that EN.

The thing is that all of these are ENs so the first thing on my list actually covers them all.

Now we know we have to avoid Love Busters. So if we can't control our temper and let fly with a stream of junk that would make a drunken longshoreman blush then we need to avoid anything that will bring that trait out in us.

Having no expectations is really the key. When we have expectations and they go unmet, they do more damage to our ability to keep going than having our ENs go unmet. Having our expectations go unmet destroys our hope, diminishes our focus and makes us do those crazy things we are trying to avoid under the second thing on my list.

The reason I did not include No Relationship Talk on my list is twofold. First is the idea that Plan A is an all out effort to save the marriage. Talking about the relationship while it might sound like it applies to that will really have the opposite effect. So not talking about the relationship pretty much has to be a given condition of Plan A. You aren't going to FIX it yet, just try to show that it is worth fixing to a fogged-out, self-serving, acting-like-a-two-year-old, complaining-about-everything, whacked-out wayward. So while it is true that there should be no relationship talk at all, this really needs to be part of the overall conditions and not something we need to remember to do as much as we need to stop doing all together for a while.

The second reason I don't need it to be on my list is the list is things to do. Not doing something does not need to be on that list.

Now the reason I don't include anything else is that Plan A really is just doing the first, working on the second and keeping control of the third since it will be unmet expectations that will take us off target.

Look good, etc? All fall under meeting ENs. Also under meeting ENs is identifying the infidel's top ENs and learning to meet them whatever they are. Anything related to meeting ENs is really covered by saying "Meet his ENs" so the top item on the list needs to go no farther until each one of us fills in how that is accomplished in our own unique situation.

Avoiding Love Busters likewise really covers all the things required to making that happen. We might enroll in a program to learn to control our temper. Or if one of our big problems is IB we might hook up with an accountability partner that can help us become less INdependent and more INTERdependent in the way we live our lives. If we have a problem with acting without regard for our spouse's feelings, that last thing we need is to show that we can be stronger or more independent.

So any and all efforts toward avoiding Love Busters is covered by my statement.

Considering that when it comes to what we do and how we act toward our wayward spouse during Plan A really needs to be focused entirely on doing these two things to the exclusion of all other things, as it relates to interacting with them at a personal level, this pretty much says all it needs to say.

Plan A has nothing to do with establishing better boundaries or drawing a line in the sand, so these aren't on my list. Plan A doesn't try to fix the relationship so nothing related to fixing what is broken applies to Plan A. In Plan A we need to become the very best we can be, demonstrate that best us to the wayward and show what staying will gain for them and what not staying will cause them to lose out on. We can't do it with words though we have to talk. We can't do it by educating them, so we don't need to talk about what they are doing wrong. We show them, by our actions, what a loving relationship with us can be.

Keeping our expectations and emotions under control is the key to remaining focused on the first two. Just about everything else falls under those two since those two are the only things that Plan A requires to be done properly.

Now we might need to hire a lawyer and prepare for separation by legal means. We might have to make an appointment to have the kids tested to prove paternity if the WS goes really whacky on us and tries to claim he isn't the father of your children or something (they do some strange stuff when they're wayward) but none of those are things that related directly to the execution of Plan A.

The "stick" side of Plan A isn't really a part of Dr Harley's Plan A per se. But it relates to it in that it is a bunch of that related stuff that goes on in the background while meeting ENs and avoiding Love Busters. Plan A should be making being married to the BS the better option over not recovering the marriage.

The twofold approach of the carrot and stick makes the marriage better while making the affair less appealing. And that is really all it takes. Pressure the affair (do NOT pressure him to end the affair but make the affair untenable) while making being with you the best thing since sliced bread.

This all comes down to positive versus negative reinforcement. Make being with you fun, fulfilling, wonderful, exciting, safe, calming, all the things that are attractive. At the same time make being with the affair partner as difficult as possible. Make it so they have to jump through hoops just to talk, can't stay in each others presence for longer than half a minute (those kids have to be at soccer practice right now) and as hard to accomplish as climbing Mt Everest...

In the dead of winter...

With no help and no support system...

Barefoot...

With no coat to wear...
(You get the idea)

You don't have to talk about it, convince him of it or teach him what you have learned. To borrow a phrase from the world of advertising...

Just do it...

Really simple...
REALLY hard...

Mark

I agree with ML! The holiday thing makes a lot of sense...

The other thing I was thinking was you have been dealing for this for a while now so it may be real difficult for you to do a longer Plan A. Right now you are doing great ~ but probably a good idea to keep it very short so that you don't start LoveBusting...

How do I make it hard for him to communicate with her? He is out of the house, and has changed passwords to email account and cell phone. Things he gave me access to while living here.

Should I have OWH call my WH?

Explain to me again why you're focusing on him and making him do (or not do) something?

Is that on your list?

This was only in response to Marks post. What about my last question?

Oops! Sorry, didn't realize it was in response to Mark.
I take it all back.
I don't know about the 2nd question, so I didn't address it. Someone smart will pop in and help out, I'm sure