Yeah, I had a dose of that when I exposed to OW. H called me lots of names and said he�d never forgive me, but calmed down a day or so after.

Well, so far...no reaction. It is a little strange. We have been texting about stuff relating to the kids, no mention of it. I�m certain he would not keep it under wraps if he knew. I left the emails in my sent items and FB too, but according to my Gmail access history he has not actually checked my email account for about a week now.

The main reaction I am anticipating is from his Mum. I know he has told her very little as he felt that she would not be able to handle knowing the truth about what was going on. Maybe she just hasn�t checked her emails today? Hmmm....

Plan A was a bit rough today. Not sure that I did a great job of sticking to the plan.

I managed to get the password to H�s home computer today and got in to have a look. Looked at his FB again but he�s definitely deleted any messages sent/received from her if there has been any further. He�s been looking at her FB page and photos though, a couple days ago most recently :-/ I left a keylogger on it so will see if anything else shows up.

I decided today that I had better make sure it was clear to him what I was expecting in terms of no contact. I don�t know if this was a good thing to do, but I wanted to just put out it out there. So I txtd him and said �I just want you to know that our marriage can�t recover until you have complete no contact with her. That�s going to mean one of you leaving [workplace]�. Which sparked H off into an angry rant, telling me I�m harassing him and annoying the hell out of him etc. I kept replying with variations along �I�m fighting for this marriage� �I love you and want you to come back so we can be a family again�. He lashed out at me a few times about how little it meant coming from me given what I had done not so long ago. But this response from H pretty much sums up his side:

�I still don�t believe that you really want me. To me you seem scared of being alone which is why you keep pushing for my company. I don�t want to come round for tea, I don�t want to watch movies with you and I certainly don�t want to have sex with you. My head is spinning from all this sh**. I have achieved nothing lately because of your pushiness, I�m getting little sleep and still having nightmares. It�s a f***ng nightmare in itself, I cannot think!�

So...is this to be expected or am I actually being too pushy? I have been texting him each morning to say hello, ask how his day is going and say something I�ve been up to. I have been inviting him round to watch a DVD or have dinner, and yeah SF as well but he has declined all invitations. I have been trying to keep relationship talk to bare minimum, though I�ve gone with it when he brings it up. Should I back off a bit?

CherryAnn,

Permit me to offer some other information on Plan A. It is recommended for a shorter time for women mainly because of endurance. If you were to contact STeve Harley, one of his first questions would be is how you are feeling with regard to strength and such. In short, plan A takes its toll, but you should do it for as long as you can with the following thoughts in mind. First, set a date, say a few weeks or perhaps a month from now, and make this date a time of evaluation. What are you looking for? You are looking to see if there has been "baby steps" in the situation. You are looking at yourself and seeing if you are holding up with the AO's, the LB's and such. If you are you are good to go for another period. Set another evaluation point.

Now here is something that you must understand, often plan A does not end the affair, what it does do is plant seeds and lets your H know you can and will be different if he comes back. You should also begin to address the issue of plan B even if you expect it to be months off. Understanding plan B is not as easy as just reading the articles. It takes a bit for all you are learning here to sink in and therefore understand fully the purpose of plan B. It is simply to slow down the loss of love you have for your H. If it puts pressure on him, fine but that is not its purpose.

Take some time and keep up your plan A for awhile. You will find that it takes more than a few weeks for you to break the habit of LB's, of AO's and other behaviors. Give yourself the time to learn how to communicate without the LB's. Plan A is excellent for learning that.

Hang in there, this is a long distance run, not a sprint.

God Bless,

JL

Would you mind sharing what your plan A is? What EN's have you identified that he may be receptive to?

Many men in particular have Admiration, Sexual fulfilment, Domestic support, Attractive spouse and recreational companion as their top needs. Some ways various BW's have worked towards those have been always look gorgeous and goddess like whenever around WH, no sweatpants, sloppy T's or looking frumpy.
For SF, flirt a little, look at Schoolbus's body language thread on seducing without sex. Always have the house clean and tidy - a refuge from the world and if possible have foods he likes either cooking or ready for him when he is there. Recreational can be a bit tricky, maybe go for walks together or just be with him when he's working on the car. Try and find things to admire about him and tell him them. If he is being too scungy right now for you to find anything good, look to the past. Waywards dont seem to notice that your using historical events

Remember that in essence your back to doing the things you were doing when you first meet your H, in a way you are back to the wooing stage.

Welcome CherryAnn

You will get some very good advice here. The advice that this forum gave to Lildoggie was a major help to her in getting me back out of an affair and back into our marriage, a marriage that is now better than it has ever been.

I will offer you no help or advice, it would be inappropriate at this time, but the advice of others will be tremendously valuable.

I hope your H joins the forums, it helped us when we both were getting the advice from the same group of people.

Thanks for the comments guys

At the moment my timeframe for Plan A is 6 weeks, so early August is when I will re-evaluate. I am definitely going to keep going as long as I can on Plan A. Given my own infidelity there is a lot to forgive on his part, so I know I need to give him a really strong demonstration that there can be a good marriage to come back to. I know that Plan B will most likely follow, so I am keeping that in the back of my mind.

For my Plan A:

I believe that his top ENs are: SF, Admiration, Conversation and Affection. I know that Openness & Honesty is obviously high at the moment too given my affair. Physical Attractiveness is up there as well. He does like having the house clean and tidy (domestic support stuff) as well, but we live in separate houses at the moment so makes things a little more difficult.

For both SF and the Physical Attractiveness ENs, one of the things I have been doing for him is sending photos of myself, just cute/sexy shots. He found out that I did this for OM and asked me if I would do it for him, which I have been doing regularly (every day or so for the last few weeks). He has been giving me compliments and appreciation when I do and saying he loves the attention and how it makes him feel really wanted Even though he was quite grumpy with me this afternoon, I still sent him one tonight. But will not follow it up unless he replies.

I always send a few flirty texts in a conversation or comments if I get to see him. I�m not one to dress up all the time but I always dress up a bit more if I�m seeing him. I make sure I have my hair and makeup looking good even if I�m dressed pretty simply. I know that he does appreciate that, he often tells me he admires the way I dress and present myself.

However, he told me a couple of days ago that he�s decided that he wants absolutely no physical contact with me. He won�t explain in detail but basically says that he feels too angry at me to touch me. He�s fine with pictures or flirty texts but no actual touching. (Interestingly, found quite a lot of porn sites on the recent internet history when I went through it this morning, so I guess that�s his outlet right now).

He�s told me for a long time that he needs physical affection and physical closeness. (And I�m not confusing this with SF, he definitely says he needs physical contact of a non-sexual as well as sexual nature) So hugs, kisses, shoulder rubs. But again, there�s the �don�t come anywhere near me� problem just at the moment.

For Conversation, I have been trying to just start conversations here and there. I send an email or text around lunchtime each day and tell him what I�ve been up to, ask how his day is going, sometimes send a link to something funny or interesting. But he�s been 90% ignoring me. He�ll pretty much only respond if I bring up something about the kids.

I�m trying to add admiration into conversation where I can. I�ve never really thought about H as being someone who thrived on admiration but when I thought a bit deeper I realised that its more noticeable that he gets very, very discouraged by criticism. So I�m assuming on that basis that it is one of his ENs.

Which leads me onto my LBs...and criticism or judgements is definitely one I have to keep under control. I am trying to think calm, positive thoughts so I don�t let any angry outbursts out. I�m trying to be careful not to attack his character, if I have to point to something bad, it�s �his behaviour�, not �him�. I am being careful not to demand anything either, I know that this one gets him riled up.

Breaking it down to day-by-day, I have been and will keep doing the following:
- Send him at least 1 text or email and try and strike up a conversation.
- Include at least 1 compliment/admiration.
- Send him at least 1 photo and a flirty comment.
- Invite him over for dinner or a dvd or a family activity at least 2-3 times a week.
- And then basically, whenever I can get him engaged, I will try use the time to demonstrate my efforts to fulfil his EN�s.

I guess what I�m wondering at the moment is...is it possible to over-do it? He started saying I�m harassing him. I wasn�t expecting warm, fuzzy reactions but on the other hand, I�m not making things worse am I?

Hey, these are AWESOME! I'll see if I can find some of the texts people suggested to me that I sent to Flick, they were great. I knew he saved them because I saw them during my back then snooping period.

Ad is not a high EN for Flick(about number 5) but men do desire their wives to admire then, they need to feel their wives believe in them. I sat down one night and wrote a list of things past and present for Ad, and any day I couldn't think of something to admire (because he really was very difficult to admire as a WH LOL) I would use something off the list.
well it can be laid it on a bit thick
Generally you need to keep on filling his EN's and avoid LB's with no expectations of any result. A lot of the rewards are deep down and he wont let you see them. Also you being nice and loving when he KNOWS he is doing a really crummy thing is causing him conflict within himself. How can he keep justifying being so armholey to you when you are lovely person.

For the SF thing, I'll see if I can find school bus's flirting and body language thread, or maybe some kind soul will help me out *hint hint*

ETA: aha! found it Schoolbus's body language thread

That is a great suggestion, thanks I'm going to try and do that tonight.



This is starting to sink in with me and I'm trying to adopt this mindset of "do it but don't expect results". I'm coming to grips with the fact that Plan A is likely to be only the first step in the overall plan and that I need to see it like that, not as a complete plan in itself.


Great stuff here, thanks for that

Update on last couple of days...

Positives:
Exposure has worked subtly, but positively. There has been no angry outbursts about it but H now knows who I told and what I said. I finally found out yesterday that H�s mum and sister acknowledged getting the exposure email but they basically said they had no opinion on the matter. To be honest, that is fine by me. I wasn�t really expecting them to be supportive as they have never really liked me, but I felt they needed some idea of what was going on. And they should know about my affair too which they didn�t.

For other friends and family that I have exposed to it seems that they are gently encouraging H to come back and give things a go. H says that he now feels that that is what everyone is looking to him to do. This is not making him happy (he feels pressured)but it's a positive for the M anyway!

I managed to spend most of the weekend with him. H spent Saturday morning helping me with my car. I had to go round and ask him how to get a headlight bulb out of it, and he insisted on doing it for me, going with me to make sure I got the correct replacement etc. He also let me come round Saturday night to watch a DVD, I sat close to him on the couch leaning gently on him and rubbing his knee which he didn�t resist. Sunday I offered to go with him to take DS,DD and H�s nephew swimming so we did that and had lunch together afterward, then I took DS & Nephew to the movies and he invited me to stay for tea after I dropped the boys back. I did all the dishes and cleaned the kitchen for him while he put the kids to bed which he appreciated.

I also showed him a job opportunity that he would be great for and he has decided he will submit an application for it.

But....
I fell into the trap of relationship talk last night....*sigh*. We ended up talking from around 10pm to around 1.30am because I asked him how he was feeling. Was really silly of me because it didn�t achieve much. Basically, he said what I expected anyway � he is still missing her and holding onto the memory of the �fantasy� of the easy relationship and happiness that he had with her.

I do already know this so I shouldn�t have asked. Going to make a much bigger effort to not bring it up at all now, he knows that I will need NC to go forward so I must leave it alone because it just withdraws from his already low LB$.

I did try to make it up a little this morning by going back over there early and getting the kids dressed and ready this morning and dropping DD off at daycare, so he didn�t have to get up till 9am after going to bed at 1.30 after our talk.

Trust me, when you look back at all this one day, regardless of the outcome you will not regret exposing the A.

excellent, these are friends of the marriage. Gentle persuasion is a great thing. Just let them do the work and carry on your plan A.

FANTASTIC! Lots of opportunities to fill the $LB... Ad (oh honey, your so clever, I would have no idea about the bulb)a little affection and flirting with the knee rubbing, RC with the swimming, and domestic support. Add into that you were looking smoking (I hope ) and a good bash round at the top EN's.

Dont talk about OW with him if you help it. Side step C if it seems to be heading in that direction.You don't want to know most of the things he might tell you.I initially let Flick tell me about PQ for intel but after I knew as much as necessary I just told him to stop and that my preference was to pretend she didnt exist. There was one occasion when he started telling me about a txt chat he was having with her right then about her dog running away and then said "but you dont care". I replied "No, I do not!"

Defiantly try and avoid relationship talks, they drain the $LB for you both, and going back to what I said before, for the most part you don't want to know. You think you do, but later on it's hard to get those memories out of your head. There is no delete button in your brain.

So over all, an excellent plan A Cherry!

Keep it up Cherry, you are doing GREAT.

Thanks for the encouragement guys

So a bit of an update...I have been keeping up with Plan A as best as I can over last two weeks. H�s behaviour had seemed to be starting to get a little more receptive (to the point of being quite friendly) up until last Thursday and then there was a dramatic turnaround. He got a bit nasty and started pushing me away again. Had a gut feeling something was up but carried on with Plan A as best as I could despite being ignored.

So found out yesterday what it was � renewed contact with OW. She started texting him last Thursday telling him she was lonely and was willing to forgive him for the lies and cheating and negotiate them getting back together...on the condition that he cut all ties and contact with me. Well, good news is that he said he wasn�t prepared to do that. And we have a had great weekend hanging out as a family and I slept over at his place.

But I�m still cautious about the fact that this scenario could get played out again if they keep working together. However, positive on that front is that H has an interview in 3 days for a new job, one that he has been wanting for years. It would involve a move to a new city, but that would be pretty good for all I think. We haven�t had an in-depth discussion about what it would mean for us (ie moving together or separately) or how we would do it, but I have been assisting him with his interview prep and giving him lots of admiration-loaded pep talks

I have to say though � I am REALLY tempted right now to send OW a short to-the-point text message telling her to back off � could this hurt? I�m thinking I just want to subtly imply that I�m going to make H more trouble than he�s worth to her if she keeps pursuing. Thoughts?

Hi CherryAnn

Yep, its amazing at how renewed contact with the OP can turn a decent person back into a POS instantly.

Moving towns is a definite help in maintaining NC. Having said that in this day of internet, cell phone, and instant contact, there are ways and means for infidels to go underground

I would defiantly NOT make contact with OW. Do not give her any 'excuse' to contact WH, to go whining about his mean wife, or try and make you the common enemy. Besides which she is NOT WORTH YOUR TIME!

Plan A, PLan A, PLan A focus on the goal, don't get distracted.

Went round to his place this morning to get some measurements for curtains, as we discussed last night we would tidy the house up this month and then put it on the market.

Saw a car in the drive. Left the kids in the car and banged on the door until he opened it (he left the keys in the lock on the inside so I couldnt use my own key to get in). Pushed past him to find POSOW in his bed.

F**** so angry right now. I don't even know if I want my POS H back.

{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}

Thinking of you cherry ann I am in exactly the same boat, deep breath don't do anything rash. Just learning gave me some great advice on my post.

Big hugs x

It probably was rash, but I just re-exposed them to all their work colleagues. Sent a short polite FB message saying they were having an affair to about a dozen key people at their work.

Not going to do anything else though.

Just breathing...

CA,,

Just remember how long your affair lasted and how intense it was and the results. He blew it there is no doubt, but remember recovery is a very nonlinear thing and the affair is addicting as you well know.

Hang in there.

JL

Did you ever tell him about being pregnant with OMs baby?