Divorce is the ultimate result if she doesn't stop her abusive behavior. You can tell her this is where this is heading. Plan B and Plan D are not mutually exclusive plans. But you don't EVER speak of Plan B, per se, just separation and divorce.

This is exactly right. Rarely can you meet her needs while she is in an affair anyway. And that is not the purpose of Plan A. She won't end her affair until she has to.

I think I would disconnect the internet completely. Can't even count how many affairs here were started by WOW connections.

Has she ever been a good mom?

have a new question. If I tell her that I will divorce if she keeps contact then how does Plan B come into play? I thought you go to Plan B when they aren't willing to comply with fixing the marriage.


Good article that explains it.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8113_ab.html


Nesre

Thanks nes for the article. I skimmed through it once, but I really did not sit and think about it. I like the follwoing and how it defines the two.

If the first plan (plan A) is unsuccessful in separating the wayward spouse from the lover, the second plan (plan B) is followed until the affair is ended.

I know that I have been unsuccessful over the past 2 months trying to cut out the OM and have my WW end her affair. She is looking for a job to support herself today, and I was unsure if we were to the point that she should seperate fom me. This gives me the assurance that she must seperate until her affair has ended.

In reality I should have stuck to my guns when I kicked her out the first time, but she had no where to go and no way to support herself.

I still haven't exposed her, enabling the prolonging of the A, no matter how much I beg and pressure her to end it. She will stop contact with the OM when he leaves to do out of state work, and he will have no access to a computer. This is not encouraging because it does not feel like she is resisting contact under her own power, and will easily continue contact when he comes back in 6 months. Will this window of opportunity be in my favor?

WS

You can;t make or force any person to do anything.

PlanA
Show them the spouse they are happy being Md to without being a doormat. No LB's/AO's. Statitics here say 85% of A's don't end with just that.

PLan B
After you have shown them a spouse they want to be with-If the A doesn't end in a resonable amount of time then seperation.

I will pull up or if someone else knows where it is PlanA Carrot & Stick

Gotta run to work

Nesre

I guess I have been trying to force her to break it off, and getting frusterated with my own expectations. I have also been frusterated with the time it is taking (only been about 6 months since she started having EA's). If I were in her shoes I would be doing anything, and everything to save my marriage. That is where my expectations fail me. I never thought I lacked patience in my life, but I have really had my eyes opened due to this affair.

Please let me know if my thinking is correct.

1) Expose her EA with the rest of her family, my own family, friends, and mates online. Monday at the earliest because I do not want to deal with her anger, and all the phone calls over the weekend.

2) Wait for her EA to die a natural death. The OM should stop contact for 6 months starting sometime next week due to his job, and exposure will just put my WW into a tailspin of confusion.

3) During those 6 months give her the husband that she wants. (I suffer from Nice Guy syndrome, a nice guy who says "Yes dear" to everything, does all the housework, yardwork, and takes care of the kids, is not what she wants)

4) Help set our finances up so that she can live on her own if things dont work out. I won't tell her that I am doing this step, but I have already started. I just need to do all the detail work.

5) At the end of 6 months, if she continues contact with the OM then move to Plan B. (She is planning to go on a retreat in August or September with him....ugh.) If she resists the urge to contact him, then I really need to continue building the marriage.

I guess what I really meant in step 4 was separate our finances so she can live on her own. I am so not going to supoprt her, and I dont want her damaging my credit and charging things to me.

I do like the internet idea. My counselor said, "Put a password on her computer that only you know how to access, and be in control of when she is on."

I'm thinking in order to avoid confrontation, becuase she will be pissed that I took her games away, I am just going to unplug it where she won't know where to look. Then I can say "oh look its working!" Or "Sorry our internet is down again. Guess we'll try tomorrow"

WS, I will just reiterate what I said before about talking to her about DIVORCE. She needs to know that if she doesn�t end her affair, divorce will be the result. This needs to be painted in a very, very BAD LIGHT in order to wake her up. Plan B does not preclude doing that.

But your wife believes you will do nothing to stop her, and that is part of the problem. She needs to know that you will divorce her and that you will not make it easy on her. Tell her you will cite her affairs in any divorce action and will go for primary custody and possession of the house. She will have to move out and support herself.

From the new book by Dr. Harley Effective Marriage Counseling pg 94:

"Granted, there are situations when demands may be necessary in marriage. During a spouse's affair, for example, I recommend that the betrayed spouse demand there be no contact with the lover. If there is continued contact, separation or even divorce would be the logical consequence. While normally demands don't work, in this case there are no reasonable alternatives because thoughtful requests are even less likely to separate lovers."

I also agree that you should dismantle the internet. Maybe take the router with you to work and only set it up when you are home.

And expose the affair to everyone everywhere! Does the OM have a facebook page? If so, expose him to his friends and family as a stalker of married women. His parents will likely be on his page and they might help you.

Conflict avoidance CAUSES more conflict. She needs to know you are taking a stand against her abuse. "I won't allow you to carry on your affair from this home anymore. Please take this out of my home away from me and my children."

She needs to understand that you have BOUNDARIES and will protect them.

Additionally, when you have a man to man with her, tell her she will need to get her own place and pay for it on her own. You will even help her move out and lend her a car for 6 months. Try to be helpful without financing her new digs.

One thing she can do is rent a room somewhere close to her job. Offer to buy her a hot plate from Walmart.

The opoint is to give her a CLEAR VISION of her future.

So I just got back from the counselors and he agreed with me that blocking Facebook from my WW was proper since she agreed with us both that she would stop contact, but she didn�t. He also said she is being immature and that the choice has to come between her family or her friends online. She said that she is not giving up her friends online and basically stormed out of the room. She is now walking 10 miles to home. I told her to call me when she wants a ride.

He also said that if she continues to not work on her marriage then divorce is the only solution. After she left he asked me so what do you want to do. I said I do not want to waste X number of years of my life with someone who never even tried to be married 2 years into our 7 year marriage. Im young and I want someone who loves me, and my kids.

The counselor also said, "It seems that when you are asked to do somthing to fix your marriage you resent it." and "You can't fix your marriage for anything other than your marriage, you can't fix it for your kids, and you can't fix it just to look good to your family. Otherwise its all fake and nothing really happens"

Hmmmm....The idea of having a fresh start is really sounding good to me.

WS, will you please tell her what I told you above?? I don't think your marriage has to end. But it will end unless you teach your wife that she cannot be there anymore if she acts like this. You have given her unrealistic expectations of entitlement by enabling her. If you will stand up and lead your family by stopping the the enabling, she will come around, I predict.

WS



Went back and read through your post. Sounds like you have done a PL A.

My WW continued both her addictions (alcohol/Affair) BECAUSE she believed I would not
#1-Keep her out of the house. #2 Move out of my own house.

DD and I moved to save our mental sanity. Not a good financial decision. I just don't know what price our mental health is worth .


I allowed-enabeled-put up with- the circumstances to go on for way too long.

Being a recovering addict I know my sole purpose when I begin using is to protect at whatever cost the object that I want to use.

Your needs don't count. Plain and simple.

Listen to MelodyLane. She is one of the best this board has to offer. Don't fianance any part of your WW's use and abuse if possible. Personal pain and being uncomfortable has a funny way of changing attitudes.

Nesre

This weekend the OM has cut off contact with my WW. It has only been 3 days, but still contact has dwindled a lot. My wife and I had a few good times, and she is talking to her sister and our pastor to get help. She does not want to go back to our counselor because he told her to stop world of warcraft and facebook. (I think anyone who consults her will say the same thing....give up the addiction)

I also said that if she keeps contact with him in 3 weeks she is gone. She laughed at me and said "You dont have the balls to kick me out", and that she will take me for everything i got because she supported me for the last 3 years of school. Yes this made me angry, but I controlled the outburst and just restated myself.

Do I still expose her even though it seems like the OM is keeping NC, my WW is actually making an effort, and we had a couple good times?

If I do expose I wanted to send out 70 pages of their Facebook messages to everyone we know. Is that a bad idea?

I do! I do! need to keep my mouth shut. I just couldn't find a good way of saying if you contact the OM your out, just like Mel said.

Heck, She saw that I was forwarding her mail to myself, and asked how I was doing it! I had to bite my lip on that one really hard otherwise she might know I have a keylogger on her comp. I just said she was sloppy and entered her password into the username on my comp, and it saved it for me.

On the otherhand what about exposure? Do I still do it even if things are looking good?

Do I nuke attaching all her personal and sexual messages from FB?

WS

Three of the posters to your thread have combined posts of over 90,000. They've been 'round the Marriage Builders Block a time or two.

My suggestion to you would be to go back to page one of your posts and READ WHAT EVERYONE HAS BEEN TELLING YOU.

IF YOU HAVE TO copy only the RESPONSES to a word document. Then print them out. For me sometimes seeing black and white print helps to sort out information.

Make sure WW does not find them...

A lot of good information is in those responses.

Don't telegraph your moves...TO WW. She is of no help to YOU from a MB's standpoint at this point in the M.

Come back and ask questions after you have read it all again.
JMO

Nesre

WS, you did good. She has to be told that her actions will lead to divorce, period.


Who would you be exposing to? Have you disconnected the internet?

See, I would go to her and lay it out to her in a heart to heart. Let her know that you are willing to stay in the marriage and try if she a) ends her affair, b) affair proofs the marriage and c) uses the MB program to restore your marriage.

If not, then it is time to consider divorce.

Tell her you are not willing to stay in the marriage under any other conditions, so what is her plan to keep you there? If there is no plan, you need to know that now so you can make other plans.

If she doesn't agree to this, I would contact an attorney and start making plans to divorce.