My husband walked out on me and 3 kids just over 12 months ago. we had been happily married for 14years.(or so I thought) he got himself a flat and said he just needed some space and time and convinced me there was nobody else. May this year I found out there was somebody else he had been seeing who was 60 miles away from him in another part of the country. He didnt tell me I found out accidently. His response was that he didnt want to hurt me. He has since moved in with her, and they do nothing but argue it isnt a healthy relationship. He has everything here we never argue. he has been back home on three occasions during the last 6 months be it only for a week maximum. I love him with all my heart and would do anything to get him back. We get on so well and are best buddies. he comes here at least once a week to see me and kids. He has to lie to her an say he is taking the kids out. He doesnt we all spend time together and he always gives me a hug an kiss before he leaves. He says he will never divorce me.
He just can't seem to get over her, she always needs to be texting him even when hes in work he cant move.yet he always ends up going back. most of the time he is living out of his car as his boot always has his clothes in. Why does he love this woman so much. Dont tell me to forget him because I cant and I believe one day we will be together. I love him with all my heart. I dont want anybody else. He even gets jealous at the thought of me with somebody else. what do I do some advice please.............

Ok, I first say straight up I am NOT nearly as good as some of the vets on here about when to do what or smelling out situation. However, in this case it seems pretty cut and dry to me that your WH is cake eating. Which means he is living with her the frosting and having his loving wife at home. Of course he wouldn't divorce you, WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD.

Divorce is UGLY, it's NASTY, and it COSTS...

Your WH is in LOVE with the FANTASY of an A. Very alluring, very passionate, very dangerous, very exiting, but a fantasy. He may think he loves this woman and he may even himself think he loves this woman, but you can't REALLY love someone who is part of a secret and that's what they are about, SECRECY, LIES and DECEIT.

He is what is commmonly referred to around here as ADDICTED to the relationship. Are you familiar with addictions, what drives them, what happens when they are involved in one?

I'm the LAST person who is going to tell you what to do. I fought for my M for over 2 years, was separated from my H while he lived with the OW and virtually abandoned me and MY children.

Welcome to MB by the way. What we are about on here is helping you decide what you want to do, give you the tools to do them and support you as you walk through stuff. Some of this is going to go against the grain of making sense. Do them anyway. My first recommendation is to pay attention to the people who have what you want, a recovered marriage. Now in truth, my marital recovery is in it's infancy, so I am not the best example, but I am an example of someone who worked BOTH Plan A and Plan B.

Of course he would, but this isn't the point, the point is, YOU are married and you want your marriage. Don't even think about someone else until you take care of this once and for all.

What you do is start reading on here the basic concepts and you ask LOTS of questions. If you can afford Surviving An Affair, you get it and you start reading it. If you can, you call up the Harley's and make a phone appt and they will GIVE you so much information and path to walk it will amaze you.

Are you ready to work for your M?

This was posted by Fred.... It has an enormous wealth of information. Also the link will take you to Pepperband's carrot and the stick. It's so valuable and easy to understand.

Plan A is the first of two steps a betrayed spouse (BS) takes in implementing a program of recovery for their marriage. There are two components to Plan A. Please take the time to read about the Carrot and the Stick of Plan A.

Let me warn you: This is extremely difficult and mentally and emotionally draining on the BS. It requires the suspension of the "Taker" and the action of the "Giver." That is why it has a specific time limit. In essence, you become 110% of the woman and wife your husband fell in love with and married. He will reject you, get angry with you, and try to push you away. You cannot get upset with him, argue or Love Bust (LB) in any way (do you see why this is so difficult?). At the same time, you do everything you can to learn about and expose the A. You do this by snooping, prying, and being stealthy. You do NOT tell him you are doing this. When you have PROOF POSITIVE of the A and the OW's identity, you go "nuclear" and start exposing it. Since he's in the military, you include his commanding officer and others in a position to apply pressure on WH (military vets will give you suggestions here). You contact OW's family, friends of his, his parents, etc. He will be enraged, but as they say here, your marriage can survive anger, it cannot survive and A.

I'm sorry, hopeful, but right now it's a one-way battle. Before any chance of recovery exists, all contact with the OW must be broken, your WH's withdrawal from it must be addressed, and you will be required to do the hardest work of your life in order to save your M. If that is what you want, then that is what you will have to do.

Fortunately, at MB you have an entire "army" online to help you. This is where you can come express your anger, frustrations, sorrow, hurt and more -- NOT to your WH. The wonderful folks here can be your 24 hour-a-day support group if you let them. Keep reading Surviving An Affair (SAA). Re-read it. Perhaps purchase His Needs Her Needs and/or Love Busters to help you better understand MB principles. At least read every article you can here (start by clicking on the Most Popular Links entries to the right of this forum).

Be brave. Be strong. You CAN have your marriage if you act quickly to do so. It's the holiday weekend, so responses will be slower than usual. But soon, some very wonderful people will read your story and begin helping you work the MB principles. If you FOLLOW THEIR ADVICE (especially when it seems to go against everything you believe in) then you have the best chance possible to save your marriage.

I think Plan A after such a long period of cake eating - including moving back home and leaving, more than once - will feed the affair addiction and hurt zodiac. No BS should have put up with this for so long.

Plan B is long overdue. Dr Harley writes:

Sometimes a wayward spouse settles into a routine of having his or her cake and eating it too. In an effort to win the wayward spouse back, the betrayed spouse meets emotional needs that the lover cannot meet, while the lover meets emotional needs that the betrayed spouse has not learned to meet. While this competition is excruciatingly painful to the betrayed spouse, and the lover as well, the wayward spouse basks in the warmth of being loved and cared for by two people, with no real motivation to choose one over the other.

So, to avoid an indefinite period of suffering while a wayward spouse vacillates between spouse and lover, and to avoid rewarding the selfish behavior of having needs met by both spouse and lover, if plan A does not work within a reasonable period of time, I recommend plan B.

Plan B is for the betrayed spouse to avoid all contact with the wayward spouse until the affair has completely ended and the wayward spouse has agreed to my plan for recovery. In many cases, once an affair has ended, a betrayed spouse makes the mistake of taking the wayward spouse back before an agreement is made regarding marital recovery. This leads to a return to all the conditions that made the affair possible -- love is not restored, resentment is not overcome, and there is a very great risk for another affair. Without agreement and subsequent implementation of a plan for recovery, the betrayed spouse is better off continuing with plan B.

What Are Plan A and Plan B?

Hi Zodiac,

Right now your husband is an addict. He is "In the fog" This is why he does not make good decisions.

I recognize your title -did you post before now?

Thanks SC, I honestly don't know which would be better. That is so NOT my expertise. I'm just giving her the information to see what her options are.

I completely agree that Plan B is in order, but that was a PLACE I had to GET to instead of walking right into. I needed to know that I had done everything in Plan A with a purpose so that when I went DARK, it was done on MY TERMS.

He sounds liie a selfish monster, a liar and a cheater. Why do you want him back?

Queenie and Zodiac: Here is the link to Pepperband's very thorough and informative post on THE Carrot & THE Stick.

Thanks Fred.

Zelmo, aren't all waywards a selfish monster, liar and cheater while wayward?

But get them away from the wayward thinking and them become human again.

This is so NOT my expertise either, Queenie. I did not know anything about MB during my H's cake-eating years, so I relied on my instincts, which were the worst instincts anyone ever had!

YOU are the Plan B Queen(ie) around here, and if anyone can help zodiac set up Plan B so that it has maximum effect, you can. I do hope you'll take her through all the things she needs to set up before doing it. I'm much too undisciplined to have worked through it all even if I had known about it. My Plan B would have been "your bags are down at the rubbish dump and I've changed the locks. Get out."

zodiac, when you read Dr Harley's Plan A/B article properly, you will see that he recommends a good Plan A first. That is done to leave the WS with the most pleasant memories possible of the BS, and increase his desire to return once the affair burns out.

My view is that you have been stressed to the limit doing your own version of Plan A already, and that the main effect of a more concerted version for another few weeks will be to exhaust you and possibly give you a nervous breakdown.

However, you do need to prepare for Plan B; you cannot just be in it, starting tomorrow.

You have to find somebody through whom you and your H communicate, and teach them their role as your instant messenger. You have to work out how you can avoid seeing him altogether, which might mean arranging for someone to hand over the children for his access days. You have to make sure you have some money in a separate bank account, so that he cannot close your joint account and leave you penniless. You have to know where your regular income will come from. Sometimes a legal separation agreement is the only way to make sure a WS pays his share for the house and children, so you might need to see a lawyer. I presume that some financial agreement is already in place, since he is not living with you now, but you must secure this. Cutting him off from you, in Plan B, will make your H angry, and you must anticipate this.

So, while those measures are being taken, you could do a concerted Plan A (without telling your H that you are doing any kind of plan whatsoever). Set a date by which you will move to Plan B which allows yourself time to set things up.

What are your thoughts?

thanks each of you for replying i appreciate ur help. will read the carrot and stick an commence Plan A. I know im probably a fool but i just want him back so much i really do love him with all my heart.

Warning - 2x4's coming your way.

Then you need to be SMART and do the SMART things to get him back. That does not include being his 'feel good' non-sex partner.

He says he'll never divorce you - do you realize how SELFISH a statement that is for him to say? It means that he wants HER and he wants YOU and he doesn't give a crap if you have a broken heart for the rest of your life; it also means that he thinks you are stupid and have no self-esteem, and he can 'have' you any time he wants. Of course he'll never divorce you. If he hasn't started sleeping with you, he will, in the next few months. And then he'll have TWO...females to give him as much sex as he wants, just because he can.

You want him back?

Then it's time to show you have at least a teaspoon of dignity, and Plan B him.

zodiac, you are no more of a fool than any BS on this site who wants (or wanted) to recover their marriage.

People here generally understand why BS wants to recover a marriage. Don't feel that you need to apologise for loving your H and wanting to recover.

However, you must see by now, after all his cake-eating, including moving back into your home and out again, that "loving him" back to the marriage will not change the status quo. He will continue to have his needs met by both you and the OW, and he will not choose between you.

You must stay in Plan A for only a short period of time. Dr Harley recommends only 4 weeks. You MUST set yourself that time limit. Dr Harley says that, when the affair continues after D Day, despite the WS seeing how hurt the BS is, despite the hurt to the children, and despite the BS going all out to meet the WS's needs, then Plan A ends the affair in only about 15% of cases.

You do not stand a good chance of ending the affair by implementing Plan A. There is a small chance, and if you do a good plan you might be one of the 15 in 100 that is successful. However, those are not good odds.

You must be prepared to go to Plan B to protect yourself from further emotional damage while you wait for the affair to end. Plan B is NOT designed to end your marriage. It is designed to give your marriage some chance of recovery, as is Plan A. Please do not think that Plan B means you are giving up on rebuilding.

I worry that you might have interpreted Plan A to say that it gives you justification to keep doing what you have been doing indefinitely. Don't interpret Plan A as a plan for continuing to be used.

Plan A is no such thing. It is time-limited, and it normally works as a preparation for Plan B. It is best seen that way, because it doesn't usually end the affair.

I absolutely agree with SugarCane, do Plan A expecting NOTHING.. All the while, getting ready for Plan B.