So as to stop the constant hijacking of another thread which seems to have become about this subject, rather than one the OP originally intended it to be about, I decided to begin a new thread for those who want to play this game.

I'm not going to copy over all the posts related to this right now but if someone else wants to take that task into their own domain, I have no problem with that.

There can be many things that can prevent a response from being the one we desire in other people. An ongoing affair is one of those things. Like any addiction, and it is an addiction in the purest sense of the word, an affair will cause people to respond differently than they might under a different set of conditions.

So a Plan A scenario in which a BS strives to win back the spouse from an interloper is not as simple as doing and saying the right things. Seldom does Plan A bring the WS back into the marriage as a fully committed partner in the relationship.

But that isn't really its intent. From SAA: This quote can be found on this site here: What Are Plan A and Plan B?

Plan A is to demonstrate the willingness of the BS to address the problems in the marriage that led to the affair. Since often these problems are related to unmet ENs and/or repetitive Love Busters, by meeting the ENs and avoiding Love Busters, the BS can show the WS what the new and improved marriage can look like if the affair ends and the WS returns to the marriage with a commitment to fix the problems in the relationship.

Plan B is not intended to end the affair directly either. It is intended to allow the BS to survive with a sufficient LB$ balance in the WS's account and sufficient emotional stability and energy to address recovery when the affair ends if the WS decides to return to the marriage with the intent of fixing what is broken. Plan A increases the likelihood of the WS choosing to come home when the affair is done whether in Plan A at the time or Plan B.

What is so difficult about the way the Love Bank model works for most of us is that we have this idea that we can only control ourselves and therefore nothing we do can have any affect on what others do in response. This is absolutely true as far as actions go but does not apply to feelings (emotional reactions). It is the expectation that doing Plan A stuff will end the affair and cause the WS to react, not emotionally but outwardly that is the fine line between being able to actually do Plan A while getting nothing in return and giving up because the desired reaction is not taking place.

That is a sign that your TAKER is trying to override your GIVER and demanding equal time. Your TAKER is doing what it is supposed to do, requiring that you get something in return that YOU need from the relationship. Your TAKER wants YOU to be happy and doesn't care whether other people are happy or not. That is why in Plan A you need to lock your TAKER away so that it can't require that your expectations be met. It will be your unmet expectations that cause you to waver from your purpose and striving to accomplish your goal.

As to whether or not what you do causes the emotional response from your spouse is not related to whether that emotional response is what you desire from him or her. There can be many things that can prevent your actions from having the desired reactions but unless you get the right actions into place you cannot have any chance of getting the right reactions out of your spouse.

Of all the things that can prevent your spouse from falling in love with you the most damaging I think is resentment and this applies to both the WS and the BS. But addiction, including an ongoing affair can also stop the process cold in its tracks. Yet unless you are aware that your actions do in fact cause you spouse to react either positively or negatively on an emotional level, you will never really get the basic parts of MB that make it work.

Part of this really is a case of semantics in some respects. It has to do with the way define what we want as being success. When we say we want our spouse to love us, we mean that we want him or her to show us that caring love of avoiding Love Busters (Protection) and meeting our ENs (Care). It is simply our TAKER's definition of success that we are dealing with and not really making either positive or negative emotional responses in our spouse that we are talking about in this case.

I'm at work and am out of time for now.

More later...

Have fun!

Mark

Awesome Mark. Thanks!

Great idea Mark! I was thinking about starting a new thread as well for the same reason, just couldn't think of the direction or focus, because it was going in a lot of directions over there

I think one of my issues is with the idea of causing vs. contributing. Could just be that I�m anal about words. Yes, what we do and say can elicit feelings one way or the other, but the action I take may or may not elicit the emotional response I would have expected, and my spouse may choose NOT to act on their feelings. Sometimes people ARE predictable. And sometimes they are not. And if my spouse is not being honest with me about their EN or what is a LB to them, they may seem even less predictible.

I really like that you bring in the idea of the Giver and the Taker, because that helps clarify things for me. The emotional response we may attempt to elicit from our spouse will vary depending on whether it�s their Giver or their Taker who is in control. I may be perfect at meeting EN and avoiding LB, but if my spouse�s Taker is in control, nothing will be good enough, and I�ll be trying to hit a moving target.

Ideally I think marriage should have a healthy balance of Giver and Taker for each spouse, a balance that will always tip on one direction or the other, but only temporarily until the couple figures out a way to negotiate. This is where the MB tools need to be picked up and used, and this is probably when they are NOT. That�s why I�ve stated before that in my opinion The Love Bank concept is not enough. Even meeting EN, avoiding LB, 15 hours UA a week are not enough. This is not a �take what you like and leave the rest� kind of program. You have to buy into all the other things, like the policy of radical honesty and the policy of joint agreement.

Doing the Love Bank stuff is probably what creates the environment in which the real work of having a healthy marriage begins.

And Mark said in his post above, �That is why in Plan A you need to lock your TAKER away so that it can't require that your expectations be met. It will be your unmet expectations that cause you to waver from your purpose and striving to accomplish your goal.�

From the other thread, P&B said, �. . . but don't ever give up your identity for anything.� And this seems to be where the conversation took a turn.

I think P&B�s point from the other thread is that at some point, we need to acknowledge our Taker as a part of our identity. We can set aside our expectations and needs temporarily, but not indefinitely. Our Taker is not inherently �immoral� and our Giver inherently �moral.� Both are valid and valuable parts of our identity, and to deny either one for any extended period of time is probably not very healthy.

Mark, you also talk about the importance of both spouses changing and adapting to each other in order to remain compatible with each other over time, and I couldn�t agree more with you on those points. Again, keeping the Love Bank full is not enough to remain compatible. If I have a willingness to change to remain compatible with my spouse, the ONLY healthy way I can do that is if my spouse is radically honest with me, and if we agree to the POJA for all negotiating of said changes. Otherwise it becomes �sacrifice� and �unconditional love,� and we all know how Harley feels about THOSE things when it comes to marriage!

So I guess the other question for discussion is, at what point do we allow our Takers back into the picture?

In plan a/plan b, the general rule is that women can only do plan a for a brief period (weeks, I'm not sure but I think 3-4), but men are better equipped to go longer, 3-6 months. I think where a lot of people fall down (myself included) is not having the fortitude to go into plan b. It's an especially difficult move to make where there is no infidelity and there are children involved. For me, at least, I'm stuck between high irritation at my H's IB and other LBs as well as his lack of meeting my ENs, and feeling horribly selfish at the prospect of destroying my family because I don't get enough affection and protection.

I vote we get to bring out our takers when our spouses have the tools to handle them, whether they use them or not.

Of course your actions cause emotional responses.

That is the entire basis of Marriage Builders: that you create positive emotional responses by meeting the emotional needs of your spouse, and avoid creating negative responses and feelings by not committing love buster behavior.

You cannot control their feelings and responses. You can only control your actions and your responses. When you first start initiating change in your actions and responses, they will not respond as you think they should. It may take them a long time to realize you have changed. Even when you tell them you have changed, and what you are doing, they may not believe it, or may not want to go along with it.

Every time you backslide, expect them to over react, in your eyes. All you can do is to not be judgemental and over react when they backslide and throw a bunch of love busters of your own.

And if you make a mistake and don't get the right actions in place, that's ok, too. We're all learning new behaviors. The important thing is to immediately own up to it, apologize and suggest either starting over or going in a different direction.

Let's look at cause versus contribution for a second...

Our emotions are reactions to chemicals in a specific part of our brain. When stimulated by some stimulus, whether that stimulus comes from outside or within, chemicals are released that are detected and cause the reaction we know as the emotion or feeling.

Just as if I burn my hand and feel pain as the result, this happens without regard to the source of the stimulus. I can't choose to not feel the pain but there are certain things that can block my feeling it. These things usually block the sensation by blocking either the release of the chemicals that cause the feeling or by preventing the receptors that would normally be stimulated by them from accepting the chemicals. Some illnesses and brain or systemic disorders will do this and can actually prevent people from feeling pain. People who have this type of condition are incapable of actually feeling pain and can sever their arm and not feel it.

Our brain can also overload on these chemicals and shut down the feelings if they become too overwhelming. This is probably the mechanism that allows people to overcome feelings of pain and enter a burning building to save another persons life though a bunch of emotional stuff is involved in this case that allows people to override the feelings to do what they would not normally do.

I still feel the pain in this instance but choose to not act to pull away from the source of the pain as my instincts would dictate. So I can if I choose to do so not react to the pain the way a human typically would react though I am not really not feeling the pain simply not allowing it to effect what I choose to do.

Emotions work pretty much the same way. I cannot stop the feelings (emotional response) that come from a certain stimulus though I am still free to respond outwardly any way I choose.

When ever we have any form of stimulus that causes us to have an emotional reaction, the emotional part is triggered whether we choose to let it change what we do in outward response or not. It isn't a choice but something that happens without our input and without our having to allow it.

A stimulus that causes a certain response in our brain will cause that response in our brain and we cannot choose to not have that response. We can however choose to not react outwardly as if the response had never happened.

Falling in love is the cumulative response to stimulus that makes our brain react in certain ways because the same trigger was present each time we responded that way. This is called a directed stimulus and for the Love Bank model of romantic love this directed stimulus is the person associated with the feelings that have been stimulated sufficiently to cause the response to cease being a general response and become a directed response. That is, the directed stimulus, the person, is sufficient to cause us to have the emotional response without the need for the action that was the initial stimulus to be present.

But the same thing can happen with negative responses as well as positive ones. This is where Love Busters come into the mix. If we do things that cause a negative response emotionally then the person associates our presence with those negative emotional responses until our presence becomes a directed stimulus and they experience a directed response. They don't decide to do this because the part of the brain that handles this process does not process data nor make logical comparisons. It just takes the input and turns it into output for lack of a better description right now.

There are things that can cause this response to short circuit and to not happen or to not happen in the way that should be predicted based on the simple model of how it all works. Just like certain drugs or chemicals can interfere with my ability to respond in pain at some injury, there are things that block the release of the neurotransmitters or prevent the receptors from allowing them to attach themselves.

An addiction can cause emotional responses to become distorted or enhanced or prevented depending on what emotional soup is the norm for the emotional response we want to discuss. Addicts feel "good" by being exposed to their addictive substance. This is true whether that substance is morphine, cocaine, alcohol or another person. They seek out the "good" feeling no matter what right or wrong, moral or immoral or ethical or unethical would normally dictate.

An affair can be just such a condition that shorts out the way they would normally respond. Again, the process can be overridden by choice but must be a clear choice to override it and does not happen until they override it.

But if a person falls in love with us it is because we provided the proper stimulation to cause them to feel certain emotional responses often enough, consistently enough and long enough for them to have a directed response to us as the directed stimulus.

The opposite can also occur in that if we provide the "proper" stimulus to cause them to experience the negative emotional response long enough, often enough and consistently enough they will have a directed response that will begin to be manifested as what we call hate. They don't decide to hate us, they just do because what we call hate is an emotional response to stimulus in a negative way that becomes a directed response to a directed stimulus.

In MB parlance, we can become either our spouse's greatest source of happiness or their greatest source of unhappiness. Happiness and unhappiness are not choices but simply emotions that result from the stimulus itself and the way the brain reacts to that stimulus. We can't choose to feel happy or unhappy any more than we can choose to feel pain or not to feel it. The feelings are not from the parts of the brain that decide. And that is why choosing to make decision based on the nonthinking part of the brain causes us so much grief.

We can however choose to allow the stimulation to continue or not. But that is another post...

The emotions are not the outward reaction but simply the internal workings of the brain. And there is a separation of the emotions and the actions. We get into trouble when we act based entirely on emotions without regard to logic of rational thought and that is how a person ends up having an affair to begin with. The choice is not whether or not to fall in love nor whether or not to fall out of love with their spouse. The choice is made to allow someone who is not the spouse continue to provide the stimulus that causes the emotional response.

A wayward spouse can choose not to allow the betrayed spouse to trigger good emotions just as they could have chosen to not allow the affair partner to trigger those emotions. But usually it is actually a response to the affair partner that is blocking the response to the spouse though resentment can be a huge factor which is also related to emotional response repeated over time but again that is for a different post.

Back to work...

So I can go home and stimulate my wife's emotions so that she will be in love with me and not begin to hate me by causing the negative stimulation of being too late again.

Mark

They call Plan A the reality-bringer, and as I continued in Plan A, and replacing the Love Busters, over time I came to see Plan B as an act of protecting my marriage.

TTT, you do understand that the Policy of Joint Agreement holds that there always be a BALANCE between one's taker and giver? Mark is describing PLAN A above, which is an entirely different situation. Plan A is designed to be used as a very short term plan to bust up affairs. Dr Harley does not believe in sacrifice or unconditional love. This is because sacrifice leads to unhappiness and resentment.


Another good one:


As Dr Harley describes above, extreme giving leads to extreme TAKING. After awhile, the giver gets tired of giving and rises up to settle the score. Not a good situation.

Things that can prevent a person from reacting the way the model predicts:

One that I think is seen around here quite often is the way resentment seems to stop any efforts to fill a spouse's Love Bank dead in its tracks. I think as often as it is the BS that suffers from this condition it can be the WS and is probably one of the things that resulted in the affair to begin with. I think this is because of the way our brain deals with memories.

Any memory that we have is made up of two parts. The first part is the part that contains the details of an event or something that happens to us. This is kept and processed in a part of the brain that deals with facts, figures, details and logic. It simply keeps a file of the details and a systematic breakdown of the events within an event. If you were to try to memorize a list of names, this is where the memory would reside in your brain. It would take a lot of repetition to recall the details of this memory file because there isn't really much of anything that can be used as a handle for the file except the contents of the memory itself.

The second half of a memory is the emotional content of that memory. This file records the emotions surrounding the event and not the details of the event itself. The thing is that the emotional part is much easier to recall than the detail part and the stronger or more pronounced the emotional content of an event the higher the density and ability to recall the details that are associated. Attach a strong emotion to an event and it is burned for ever into your brain. Who (among those old enough) cannot recall where they were when John Kennedy was assassinated or in more recent history, when the twin towers of the WTC collapsed?

When we recall the detail side of the memory file, the emotions follow a short time later. Since the emotional content, the feelings surrounding the event, are certain chemicals that are released into the brain that result in those feelings being manifest, what the memory includes is sort of a recipe to recreate that soup in all of its complexity and precision. Once the details of a memory file are accessed by the left side of our brain and we begin to think about and contemplate the details, about a minute and a half to two minutes behind that beginning to scan the list of details of the memory, the same chemicals that were present with the original event are released into our brains and we "feel" the same feelings we had at the time of the memory.

What resentment seems to do is to constantly access the lists of details of various events that caused us grief, emotional pain, anger, especially if it was suppressed and any other emotion that was associated with that event or series of events. This is the triggers so many of us have to deal with from time to time.

What can happen is that as the BS, for example, recalls these events in distinct detail, the emotions of the betrayal return like clockwork a minute and a half behind the recall of those events and any attempts to make Love Bank deposits get shorted out since the emotion now is associated with the new series of events as well.

I believe this is the process that the WS undergoes when rewriting history to justify the affair. By constantly associating negative reactions to past events, the emotional content is played up until a real hatred of the BS is present. Any balance the BS might have in the WS's Love Bank is oblit4rated by constant recall of past "crimes" that cause the emotional content to build layer upon layer until it simply overwhelms anything left that might be good.

This results from a comparison to the affair partner, I think. That comparison is an unfair comparison to begin with since the affair partner has very little negative history while anyone who has been married for a few years can come up with quite a bit. Most of the time we quickly shift our focus to something else and so the full weight of the negative emotions don't catch up to us. But when we start to actively list out those ways our spouse has hurt us, the cumulative effect can be devastating on an emotional level.

I also think that when a BS constantly triggers, has a reliving of the events surrounding the betrayal and rides the emotional roller-coaster over and over again, it is because these triggers cause the emotions to be experienced anew and the constant unhappiness that thwarts any attempt by the WS to make restitution. If that is what withdraws love units from our Love Bank, unhappiness, then constantly reminding oneself of the unhappiness of the past can prevent any significant balance being established no matter how many ENs are being met and even in the absence of Love Busters. Basically, the BS empties their spouse's Love Bank account him or herself and does it over and over again.

In my managing memories thread I talk about some research that has been done that shows that if we can learn to change the focus of our thoughts when a negatively charged memory occurs, and replace that highly negative emotional content memory with something much more positive, then we can shorten the negative time period, and begin to mediate the flow of negative by replacing it with more positive emotions. Allowing it to continue unchanged, with all the typical symptoms of PTSD, in the face of marital betrayal can lead to a near paralyzing condition in which the BS seems unable and unwilling to allow the repentant WS to do anything that would alleviate the suffering they feel because any effort to help or to show a changed heart toward them reminds them of the pain of the affair and they self inflict a wound that will never heal.

We can't change how we feel but we can actively try to change what we think and by thinking about something different can actually learn to change our feelings by recalling a different recipe for the emotional soup that floods our brains. If we learn to recognize that a memory has been triggered that will lead to the bad emotions we can actively choose to change what we are thinking and if we do it in time, within that 90 - 120 second window of time between the details and the emotions associated with the event itself, we can mitigate and mediate the negative emotional impact of the memory. But our memories contain the entire weight of the emotions and once those emotions are recalled, we cannot change how we feel at that moment even if we successfully change our thoughts and lessen the damage by improving our own emotional state. We have to learn to change our thoughts before those emotions overwhelm us in order to stop them from hurting us all over again.

For more on this, take a look at the Managing Memories link in my sig line.

Another thing that can prevent us from having the desired effect on our spouse's emotions is some sort of physiological condition that gets in the way. If our spouse has lowered serotonin levels, this alone will lessen the ability to experience a sense of well-being. If they do not produce sufficient dopamine levels, then we might never get them to feel good enough to let us do even more no matter how much we have even done.

During an affair, the dopamine levels skyrocket. This sort of has the effect of desensitizing the affair partners a bit. Like a drug addict who has to use ever increasing quantities of the drug in order to get high or the alcoholic who can drink so much that it might kill a normal human yet still seem to function at a reasonably high level and has to drink more each day in order to achieve the same level of self medication, this rush of dopamine can cause any effort by the betrayed spouse to do anything that might result in good feelings to be minimized in the face of the entirely new rush of emotional high associated with the affair partner.

Again, this is not just a choice to not let us effect their emotions and there is a real physiological reason for it.

For the disordered, an imbalance or lack of certain chemicals or the over abundance of other chemicals can make the whole thing be invalid. A person who is depressed has low serotonin levels. A person who is manic can have oxytocin and dopamine levels that make a crack addict look like they are insignificant by comparison. People who have low oxytocin levels seldom are able to maintain bonds with anyone and their relationships are destroyed on a regular basis because they can't connect with anyone for very long. Oxytocin is one of the things being examined in its relationship to high functioning autism, Aspergers syndrome and other diseases and disorders that are manifested by the inability to form and sustain strong relationship bonds. Also in this group can be ADD and ADHD according to some researchers.

Things like disease can effect the balance and levels of the chemicals in our brains but so can abuse, especially childhood abuse. An abused child is often one who becomes one to the numbers of disordered individuals who can exhibit self and relationship destructive lifestyles and actions. Often these peopl can be helped by therapy methods that are becoming better at dealing with this type of thing every day. Seldom does a loved one hang around while these peopl get well unless they are in an active program to control their destructive behaviors at an earliy enoguh stage of the relationship that the loved one is on board with the treatment and can understand what is happening when it happens.

And note that I am not talking about an excuse for bad behavior tied to some childhood trauma here but a very real chemical problem that is the result of years of having to learn to withdraw from relationships in order to protect oneself. Most therapy these days actually centers on behavior modification rather than long term analysis of the past abuse. At least the more successful ones seem to do that.

More when I'm not so tired or in response to input from others.

BTW, all of this is really out their on the world wide web for anyone who wants to research it or to see the latest articles on this kind of subject. Some need to be paid for to read them. Sometimes these same articles and papers are published in part or at least in summary in other publications such as magazines, on-line forums or even show up in the blogs of the researchers from time to time. The phrase "emotional memory management" for example yields about 675 thousand hits on Google. Not all will be scientific research and this post will no doubt show up in the number as soon as the spiders find it. Still, if a tenth of those hits relate to the actual subject in any way, it is a substantial body of information.

Aspergers brings up nearly three million hits and BPD rocks the house with 3 1/4 million. So this stuff is out there for those who want to look for it. The newest information and research is often near the top of the list since it is often the most recently quoted.

On to other things...

Mark

Mel, I don't think thinkinitthru abbreviates to triple Ts, but you might not want to use what it does shorten to naturally as a reference to anyone. Not even sure if the PC filter will let it pass.



Mark

gutter mind!

Who?

Me?



I just wanted you to know that the name didn't shorten to TTT but figured I'd warn you not to use what it does shorten to.

I felt it was my obligation as a member of the MB community.

GRRR. I can't figure out quotes!

ML, I agree there needs to be blanace between giver and taker. And I do get that Mark was talking about Plan A. But in the other thread, Mark was basically saying that when MB fails, it's because the spouse doesn't give Plan A of suspending the Taker enough time. As you point out, it is short term. He seems to think that if the whole Love Bank/suspension of taker during Plan A doesn't work, the BS is the one responsible.

I can't get quotes to work, but here's what he said regarding this issue:

"I will go one step further and say that it is my belief that the reason MB does so little good for so many is that it either is not really being applied or that the one spouse actually gives up long before it has a chance to prove its effectiveness.

A BS normally quits because they are not getting anything in return. They begin to grow impatient, expecting results and a proper response long before any such thing is likely. They thus defeat their own efforts by lashing out then continue the ineffective action for way too long and end up hating the WS and actually making things much worse rather than going into Plan B at the height of the effectiveness of Plan A."

Also,, I'm wondering what abbreviation of my name would be so bad It may be too early in the AM for a gutter mind, though. Give me another hour or two!

Mark, great response about resentment and memories. I have read your mananging memories post and it's excellent.

Great discussion ya'll!

Its a very basic start, as its not a direct one for one relationship of stimulus in, standard chemical change, emotion displayed, but there are other factors which the subconscious stores, which aids or hinders the processing.

there are two key processing pieces to understand, which will start to explain behavior. There is a black box in the middle which determines which chemical change shall be, the extremes being flight or fight. That black box is called the subconscious, to which the conscious mind can't enter, but can only see fleeting glimpses occasionally. I can only remember one time very clearly when i had a fleeting glimpse of it. The subconscious stores all the important events of your life, and is an environmental response center, on call 24x7, interpreting all the events your conscious brain is receiving, and interpreting them and storing them. The subconscious also stores these events in a different manner than the conscious part of the brain.

The subconscious stores the first event, and the last event as the main events, for comparison points, as well as memorable six sigma or extreme events, which are likely to be either first events or very significant in between events. This storage method is what causes illogical conclusions to be made, because the association between the current event and the prior event markers may be stored as causal or coincidental. (that's the difference between people who have common sense, and people who don't, the people who interpret causal correctly).

The second point is that the subconscious can be trained. But training the subconscious requires many, many repetitions, AND requires the correct association for the correct interpretation to be stored properly. This is how brainwashing occurs, both positive and negative, the repetition is associated with a specific explanation or understanding. Likewise the phrase, "if its said enough times, it becomes true." That's the training of the subconscious and the way that the human mind works over a lifetime. So an ISTJ will train the subconscious a certain way, and an ENFP will train the subconscious a certain way, and RETRAINING the subconscious to come to an understanding which can be mutually rewarding, is the uncertainty of each individual, being able to assimulate enough repetitions to retrain the subconscious.

Add to the operation of the brain, the individual's personality type, which is a filter through which the subconscious gets most of its information, and those pieces create the expected responses in humans and animals to a lesser degree. The difficulty with behavioral studies is that each person is unique as are their experiences, so standard bell shape curves of human behavior have fatter tails, meaning a very wide spectrum of possible responses, not seen in the physical world. many logical thinkers find the wide spectrum more difficult to comprehend than others.

Likewise, the subconscious can make wrong conclusions, because the apparent situation looks and feels the same as prior situations, but that is not always the case. The future will always be uncertain, and people will always live in a world of INCOMPLETE information.

Finally, as a interesting side note, the size of the human brain relative to other mammals, only has one known theory of explanation. The only known theory of relative brain size of mammals is the size of the community in which the species can live harmoniously. And that is estimated at about 145 people. The brain is constructed to map out all 145 people and all 145 individual interactions between all 144 other people.

Want an intersting book to read? fun and easy, which describes this conceptual understanding?

"Blink!" by Malcolm Gladwell. . .he has some great books if you are interested in reading and learning.

wiftty

Many functions of the brain function at a level below the subconcious. Reaction to vision, taste, hearing and smell are processed immediately at the brain stem. People react to smells, for example, in a very powerful way. There are chemicals which, in minute quantities, can be taken in by breathing and produce feelings of sexual lust, and even emotional bonding and love, between total strangers.

That is why you have to keep your rational mind in control of your behavior. You cannot always trust your feelings, because you don't know the source of them.

My two points that I tried to make in the other thread were:

1) That we can cause certain emotional responses in others, specifically our spouses, simply by doing or saying certain things.

2) It is this very thing upon which MB rests, not as to whether or not it works for some but whether or not it can work at all. The names of the pieces of MB could change and we could talk about a love bucket and call ENs individual requirements but the basis upon which MB functions is this very thing, that what we do can have an affect on (cause the emotional response in) others.

Now the part you quoted above says that I am referring to a group that I have chosen to define as "so many." It is a lot of people when you go back through the archives and see everyone who was here over the years, even just the ones who have come and gone in my days on this forum. I am not implying that in any way the fault lies with the BS when MB does not work or even when Plan A doesn't work. But there are some who struggle with Plan A because they never really have a Plan and continue to react rather than discovering the WS's EN and getting a grip on Love Busters, especially DJs, AOs and SDs.

What needs to be examined is whether or not the BS is really doing Plan A at all. How many threads do you suppose I could find that include things like "I did Plan A for several weeks before I found this site (or read any of SAA or learned about ENs and LBs) and finally when she didn't seem to get it I kicked her out and she immediately moved in with OM."

Or how many places do you think I could find something like this? "My wife says she never loved me and that this isn't about OM. I tried to tell her that this wasn't true but she has basically made up her mind so we ended up arguing about it and woke the kids up three times."

You see, those are not Plan A. The first can't be because it wasn't defined until after the fact and since Plan A is almost universally counter intuitive in action to what instinct and the "follow your heart" set would advise, the likelihood of identifying Love Busters and understanding how they must be avoided and figuring out the top ENs and coming up with a plan to address them and all the parts of MB that get left at the starting line even when the BS finds this place before confirming an affair becomes really so small as to be statistically nonexistent.

The second isn't true because Plan A does not strive to show the WS where they are wrong and leverage them back into a marriage which they do not see as valid any more. It also feeds the chaos and drama of the affair and makes being at home an absolute hell rather than making it someplace the WS would enjoy spending time while the AP becomes this total withdrawal from all the pain, suffering, even guilt that seems to be at home all the time.

Now if some factor is involved in the dynamics of an affair that the BS has no control over, such as alcoholism, drug addiction, a diagnosed (or undiagnosed) PD or physiological condition or injury that prevents the WS's brain from working the way a "normal" brain would function, then nothing he or she does is going to work like it should according to the predictions of the model.

But this isn't the majority. I would argue that it isn't even a very big minority.

Now the resentment factor wherein the spouse does not ever seem to respond like the model says they should and where one of these other factors is not present I think can account for some percentage when only one spouse is really trying to use MB. Basically the one who is not using MB is triggered to love bust themselves by the simple act of trying to fix what was wrong to begin with. I think these people can be identified by the horrendous roller-coaster effect where they have a great day, even several and then become this salivating monster for no identifiable reason other than past hurts. (Usually these people are BS, but not always) I am not certain anyone here can help in these cases since I don't think that you can change the way your spouse acts as if by magic. Until these people WANT to change, I don't think we can do anything for them.

I also believe very strongly that Plan A can be very quickly identified as being valid by someone who is schooled in it and can point out the ways to tweak what the BS often believes is a good Plan A. This is in part to the fact that the instinctive parts of our personality that keeps us from getting hurt (our TAKER) has certain tools that it uses naturally and are always within easy reach for all of us that try to get us our way. These three tools are SDs, DJs and AOs. We start with SDs and when they don't get us what we want, we inject DJs in an effort to shame the other person into acquiescing to our demands. When this too fails, we begin to raise our voice, pound our chests and use the all out assault of a show of anger (sort of like the gorilla pounding his chest in response to an incursion into his territory). None of this stuff has any business in Plan A. A demand to end the affair should be made and then if it doesn't the BS needs to decide to fight or not to save the marriage if yes, then fight the real enemy and that is the affair and not the WS.

SDs, DJs and AOs aren't about trying to convince the WS to end the affair. They are tools of our taker and when they are being used during "Plan A" then the plan described as plan a is going to fail unless quick adjustments are made to eliminate these things. These are tools of our TAKER that are attempts to control, shame and coerce others into giving us what we want or to meet our unmet needs. They are NOT debating tools or very effective methods of getting us what we really want. Even when we think we have used them successfully to get our way we find out later, often years later, that they did not get us what we want at all.

ANY time SDs, DJs and AOs are in play in conversation after conversation and interaction after interaction with the WS, the BS is NOT doing a Plan A that has the characteristics of the Plan A described by Dr Harley.

See what we do can affect how other people respond to us but we can never directly control what they do in response. Any attempt to change someone else is not an act of love and yet when they need to change we want them to change. Plan A says that I can have a bigger affect on my spouse by controlling and trying to control only those things that I do have control over. And ALL of those things fall under the heading of ME or MINE.

This does NOT mean that what we do has no affect on the WS. It simply means that we can't expect or demand a certain reaction from them. And THIS is where someone doing an ineffective Plan A has the breakdown. They EXPECT that if they make a change in themselves that the WS will react the way they expect in response and do it as soon as the change is present. It becomes a sort of "I fixed what was wrong and now you should do what I want." Even when not stated like this it is what is expected. Read a thread or two and you can see the ones who struggle with Plan A doing this.

I guess what I am really getting at is that if it isn't working the only way to tell if it is because of some other factor or ineffective implementation is to examine the implementation and make certain that it is on track. And just because we fixed something that we were doing wrong for 20 years and did it right one time or even twice does not give a WS enough confidence to stop dreaming a fantasy and begin to work again in reality, a reality the affair was designed to get away from in many cases.

It is absolutely possible to do everything just right and still be cheated on. These are the screwed up, the disordered, the addicted, the mentally impaired. But since this is not really a high percentage of the population I suggest that in most instances of adultery the BS did have some culpability as to the conditions that led to the affair. The BLAME is all on the WS since they had other options that to cheat that were morally superior including divorcing over the conditions they found unacceptable, but if the BS did everything the MB way and the WS was on board with that then there are no excuses for affairs since MB ensures we get what we need and usually what we want out of the relationship.

And when a BS gives up on Plan A/Plan B it is not usually because the WS filed for divorce and moved on, though there have been cases of that around here. The typical condition that results in the plans being abandoned is that the BS burns out, often though not always from an ineffective execution of the plans and drops out of the competition because they are not getting anything in their own realm of ENs met. It is usually this that stops Plan A or Plan B cold and not the WS not responding.

What we do does affect the emotions of other people. What we do does not necessarily cause other people to act a certain way based on our expectations. we don't control what they do but we can cause them to feel more a certain way by doing certain things. I'm not talking about manipulating the deck for personal gain here simply talking about playing the hand we are dealt to maximum advantage.

It is when we expect a change in the other person's behavior or actions that we revert to the instinctive tools of our taker to manipulate them and this method NEVER really works, even when we think it did initially. It always causes resentment and withdrawal of love units.

When in Plan A, or any time you are seeking to improve your relationship by application of the MB methods, we should all strive to focus on only trying to change what we do which is what affects the emotions of our spouse rather than trying to get our spouse to change what he or she is doing. It is when we expect a change in actions that we lose site of the inability to change what someone does and that causes us to fail to focus on what is within our control which DOES affect the emotions of our spouse. We need to work at affecting their emotions instead of their actions.

That is really what Plan A is supposed to be about. It is to show the WS that his or her ENs can be met in the marriage and that the marriage can have all sorts of good things if they remain in it. It's when we think that the WS should act the way we want first or even in response to us that we get our Plan A blown to pieces. During Plan A the most likely cause of the end of the affair is that one or both waywards decide to return to the marriage. This is more likely when we are fixing what is wrong within us and not demanding that our needs get met in return.

In Plan B the affair most often ends by dying a natural death, but during Plan A the WS has to make the decision to stop the affair. All the BS can do is give the WS a reason to stop it. Yes in Plan A you need to make the affair difficult but the pressure has to be applied to the affair and not the WS to end the affair. The WS is not the enemy; the affair is the enemy.

More thoughts later...

Mark