It also might be productive to help her find something else to do during the day. If shes at home all day bored, then there's lots of time to scheme. What does she like? Get her a gym membership, or give her a class she'd like to take as a gift or something. Plan a mid week get away if you can, plan it for Wed-Fri or something, so you'll be together during that time, then come home for the weekend when you'll also be around. These things would serve two purposes, fulfilling a part of Plan A to meet a need of hers and remove some time for her to plot and scheme and agonize over OM. Through the initial NC fog she's going to be pretty impossible. If you can get her mind off of it thats good for you and her both, the whole time with a smile on your face in good Plan A.

Yep, I had her fill out the questionnaires, so I know what her needs are. She also stated while filling it out that she isn't interested in meeting any of my emotional needs. I suppose that's to be expected....

I'm 100% expecting her to go underground and keep trying to contact him. I'll be watching.

Should I continue to expose the affair on his side? He doesn't really have anybody in his life, but I do know of a couple people. I'm not sure if I should keep exposing during this 30 days or not.

Another question - is it normal for her to have absolutely no remorse for what she's doing? She doesn't think she's doing anything wrong here.

Do you think she'll start to feel some remorse during the 30 day no contact period?

I would not expect her to feel any remorse. Either now, or perhaps ever. Be prepared for that -- you are not trying to be vindictive, you are trying to establish a solid foundation for rebuilding.

My WW, still active in her A and me in Plan B, told me before she left that she has absolutely no remorse, regrets, and that OM "makes her happy." Of course, it's the fog speaking. It can hurt to hear that, but know that what you're going to hear/hearing is mostly a lie.

WS and politicians have the same identical trait: you can tell they're lying when their lips move.

Waffle,
Have you done a background check on OM? One BH here found out OM had DUIs and financial problems.

Gg

Dr Harley indicates that one should not expect remorse. If it happens, it happens, but don't expect it.

You attack the affair every chance you get, on all fronts, all the time. Repeat that slowly 3 times.

If you think there's even a chance that exposing OM to his friends, family, work, or associates might help, do it. Realize that OM is likely just doing this because its easy and has no consequences for him (that and he's a scumbag with no honor or integrity).

Is he spending his time at work chatting up your wife? If so, document the evidence, chats logs, call logs, whatever, and send them to his boss. Get him fired if you can. He'll have no money to pay his internet and cell bill. He'll have to spend time looking for a job, which means no time for your wife. The harder you make it on him the better. He'll start bitching at your WW about it, and they'll start fighting. She'll get mad at you for disrupting the A. Your response "oh love, didn't I explain to you that I hate your affair and will do everything I can to end it? Would you like to go out to dinner with me tonight?" Bring the reality hammer down on the A. The A thrives on secrecy and the fantasy that everything is perfect in lala land. Reality kills affairs because the more reality you inject into them, the harder it is to maintain the mental gymnastics that is required to engage in them.

As the A falls apart it will get harder for you wife to justify it in her mind. She'll start questioning why she's putting her REAL LIFE and her REAL MARRIAGE through all this for some loser who's 500 miles away and is suddenly unemployed. Meanwhile, real husband is at home cooking her favorite meal, taking her to a chick flick and asking her if she'd like to get a plan together to save up for a beach vacation. . .hmmmm. .

Your WW will most likely feel remorse after she's ended the affair and gotten through the fog. Until then, you're dealing with a lunatic that you won't be able to comprehend. That's why you stick to the plan. When it doesn't make sense, you think "oh yeah, this doesn't make sense because it isn't sensical!" and continue with Plan A until it works or you're done doing that and move to Plan B.

I think this is really what I'm asking. Should I expect her to still believe this affair is real for the next 30 days?

Expect her to lie to you, expect her to try to contact OM. Don't even get involved in trying to figure out what she believes. WW is your enemy. She is destroying your marriage. In order to win this battle, you have to turn WW into FWW. You do that through the plans here. You attack the affair, you plan A your WW. You don't worry about what she says, thinks, or does about those things, because they don't really matter and her goals are not YOUR goals in this. She is running counter-ops to your plan!

Plan A is an exercise in self discipline. You are doing these things to achieve a goal. You are acting at all times with a PURPOSE. You are going through hell, and you're not going to show it. You're not going to break down and cry and talk relationship with your WW. You're going to analyze her EN's and seek to meet them. At the same time, you're going to stand up for yourself and begin to define what you will and will not tolerate in your life and your marriage. Plan A is not being a doormat, it is you, executing a plan to the best of your ability in the attempt to achieve a goal. That goal is to either end your WW's affair and give your marriage a chance, or to know that when the plan fails that you have done it to the very best of your ability and to set the framework for a properly executed Plan B.

Get your focus off your WW. Plan A is more about you than her.

Question 1: She'll have some internal conflict, but she won't show you she think she's done anything wrong. She'll blame you in an effort to justify and rationalize her behavior.

Question 2: There is no way she'll make it 30 days. She is an addict, and addicts just can give up their drug cold turkey. It won't last more than a week.

You need to get more aggressive at killing this affair. You need to find everything you can about OM and expose him to his family, friends, xW, everyone. You need to make sure you've exposed to everyone on your wife's end as well. I would start trying to eliminate contact. Get some software that will make it impossible for her to communicate w/ OM. Lock her out of email and facebook, block OM's email and phone number. Delete OM's contact info. Limit her finances to emergency money for the kids. I would do a mass exposure to all of OM and your WW's facebook friends. Meet with a lawyer. Be prepared in case she attempts to file, and file first. What state do you live in? Take legal action (alienation of affection) against OM if your state allows. Make her go to the library. Make her get a secret cell phone and confiscate it every time you find it. Avoid all relationship talk with her and be pleasant with her and meet whatever ENs she will allow you to. Be calm and civil in your dealings with her, but go on full-out attack against her affair. Make OM's life he11. Make your WW not worth pursuing. Do you think you could go see OM with some friends (do not go by yourself) without assaulting him? A lot of times that's enough to scare the OM away. Right now you are 500 miles away and a distant thought.

I think the concept of a 30-day cease-fire is flawed. It has an inbuilt logic that she will obey the terms of the agreement and then after 30 days the agreement is over. She can then do what she wants.

Dr Harley does indeed recommend that the spouse in Plan A sets a time limit, but this is only for you, so that you have a goal in mind and do not Plan A indefinitely, which enables a WS and hurts you.

However, Dr Harley also says that the BS must not tell the WS that he is limiting his time on this:

After you have established what her lover does for her that you don't do, ask her to give you a chance to prove to her that you can do it, too. Give yourself about six months where you go all out to try your best to meet her needs. And be sure you do not wreck it all by being thoughtless or disrespectful. If she is willing, take her with you on short vacations to places she would enjoy. Integrate her into your life, without making her feel that you are trying to smother her and take control. Never make any demands of her time, just offer her opportunities to become a part of you, and express your willingness to become a part of her.

She probably wants a soul-mate -- someone who she feels emotionally connected to. Somehow, over the past few years, she has lost her connection with you. Your six month effort should be designed to help her re-connect to you.

Don't tell her that your plan is only for six months, because that would constitute a threat. Besides, you cannot be sure how long you will last. But at the end of six months, evaluate your progress. If your relationship is improving, you may be encouraged enough to give your effort another six months. Remember that her state of mind will improve if you are depositing love units and not withdrawing them. She may become less defensive and less secretive about her lifestyle. She may also tell you that she has completely abandoned her lover, and is giving you a solid chance to work things out.

But, if at the end of six months, she refuses to stop seeing her lover and doesn't seem to be responding to your efforts, tell her that you can't take the pain any longer and move out of your house.

Unfaithful Wife: Letter no.1

During Plan A you negotiate a complete separation from OM and you express a willingness to meet her ENS once there is complete NC:

Plan A is for the betrayed spouse to negotiate with the wayward spouse to totally separate from the lover without angry outbursts, disrespect, and demands. These three Love Busters not only ruin any effort to reach a negotiated settlement, but they also make the betrayed spouse much less attractive to the wayward spouse. Instead of encouraging total separation from the lover, the anger, disrespect and demands of the betrayed spouse make the lover appear to be the only one who truly cares about the wayward spouse. They literally throw the wayward spouse into the arms of the lover.

On the other hand, if the betrayed spouse approaches the wayward spouse with respect and thoughtfulness, the cruelty and self-indulgence of the affair is much easier for the wayward spouse to understand. And once the wayward spouse's mistake is acknowledged, it's much easier for him or her to take the first step toward recovery by agreeing to never see or talk to the lover again.

In these negotiations for total separation, the causes of the affair should be addressed. Since one of these causes is usually unfulfilled emotional needs, the betrayed spouse should express a willingness to meet those needs after the affair has ended.

What are Plan A and Plan B?

I don't see that an agreed "ceasefire' serves the purpose of Plan A. For recovery to start, your WW must embrace NC for life, wholeheartedly. If she only agrees to NC for a limited time (leaving aside the possibility of secret contact for now) you are in essence agreeing that she can go back to contact after 30 days.

WSs don't usually agree to NC easily. I think that yours only agreed relatively easily to this because you have given her permission to go back to OM after the time period, and that is what she plans to do. She can cut 30 days. However, ask her to agree to a life sentence and you'll get a very different reaction.

You are enabling her.

Plan A does not happen AFTER NC is agreed to. Plan A is a plan to end the A and bring the WS back to the table and agree to NC.

I agree, the whole 30 day thing is flawed, but it doesn't hurt anything either that I can see.

I don't believe that I said it does. I said that recovery begins after NC.

I suggested it because having contact on-going is more damaging in my opinion than having a potential 30 days of no contact.

Notice I said potential, because I fully believe she will still attempt to make contact. Just as he will likely fail at meeting some needs. He will likely LB.

But it gets the concept out there, and if things DO get better in 30 days, he's in a better position to negotiate for continued NC.

I appreciate your point of view, E_E. My own, though, is to encourage the poster to follow Dr Harley's plans as laid out in his documents.

Dr Harley has worked through the logistics and the consequences of his plans. Plan A is based on a specific goal, which is to make the marriage attractive to the WS, and to encourage the WS to end contact and enter recovery. Dr Harley points out that is is not often successul in that goal, and he provides a second course of action - Plan B - when contact has not ended after a reasonable period of time. He recommends Plan A and Plan B in that order because he has seen that this works best.

I am not in favour of offering adapted versions of those plans to new posters who have not yet applied the plans at all. There is a case for modification under certain circumstances, and I know that the Harley team sometimes suggests a modified plan, but I do not see any reason to offer that here, without first applying Plan A in accordance with Dr Harley's directions.

I'm not going against Dr H. In fact, I've advised the OP to engage in plan A. I simply suggested he ask for her to commit to 30 days of NC.

His performing plan A was not contingent upon her agreeing. What I suggested was that if she was really committed to allowing him to meet her needs that she demonstrate this by agreeing to 30 days of NC to give what she says she agrees to a fair chance.

We all know that it's difficult if not impossible to meet ENs when someone is disallowing their spouse to meet ENs and is having them met by the OM.

So what's wrong with asking for NC?

It doesn't hurt to ask for NC. To some, asking for NC forever may seem like a difficult step to take. So if they won't do that, then why not ask for NC for a small time period.

Which is better, asking for NC period and getting a no, which I believe was the case already, or asking for a temporary NC and getting a yes?

In this case, I believe the 1/2 a loaf he is getting is a better position than he had before.

No one is modifying plan A. Plan A is still plan A, which if you read, I told him he had to eliminate LBs and meet ENs. That's plan A.

So I've suggesting nothing counter or even modified regarding Dr Harley's plans. I've simply suggested a means that he MAY get a period of NC to maximize the effectiveness of his plan A.

Okay!

Good conversation guys. Thinking about what I want to get out of this 30 says is a disruption in their daily routine. It's clearly not long enough to break the addiction, but I'm hoping it at least disrupts the habit of talking to each other...

One thing this does do - I slept last night for the first time in a while. I'm not feeling like I'm not being stabbed in the heart every day. If nothing else, this contributes to my well-being, which helps me meet her ENs without being "needy".

I'm guessing she's going to go into depression, and probably will last about a week before trying to contact him, I'll be watching.

I am of the thinking that these EA's are just the starting of an eventual PA. The internet has allowed us to get to know others via a safe medium. Once both become comfortable enough, it seems like it 'naturally' evolves into a PA. I know EA's do not have to be emails/texting. Two can become involved emotionally while working together, etc.

Even though I am a BS, I do know guys and know them well. I do not know of any guys that would just settle for 'being friends' long term. They are laying the ground work for some booty calls down the line.