Am I in Plan A, Plan B or no Plan at all???

6 months ago my husband of 5 years (together for 10) rang me at midnight, drunk, telling me how much he loved me and that he was coming home. I didn�t hear from him again until 9.30am the next morning.

A couple of weeks after that he told me �I love you but I�m not in love with you�.

He then had to go back to his hometown to do some work on his Mum�s house. He became very distant, hardly ever called and hardly ever came home.

In mid-April I found a string of texts from his ex-girlfriend. A few days after that he admitted (over the phone) that he had �drunken sex� with her twice.

We had a heart to heart and agreed to work on our marriage. We have been to marriage counselling. Unfortunately he said that he couldn�t imagine being intimate with me � he wouldn�t hold my hand or give me a peck on the cheek or anything. His explanation being that since we had children (aged 2 and 4) our relationship had become virtually sexless and he didn�t think we could get the spark back. He is also suffering serious business problems and I put a lot of his distant behaviour down to that. However, we did go on dates and I did my best to be a brilliant, loving, understanding wife and just kept calmly saying that we could work things out and that our sex life would get back on track now it was out in the open (Plan A?).

A fortnight ago a lightbulb went on in my head and I checked his phone records. He calls/texts his ex-girlfriend more than 150 times per month and it all started the day after he stayed out all night 6 months ago.

I called him and calmly asked if he was still sleeping with her or calling her. He said �no� to both questions. I freaked out and told him he wasn�t to come back to our house � he has been living out of bags ever since.

I have told my family and his family (Mum and sister) what has happened as well as a few friends and he is now saying that means we can�t get back together � I hope I did the right thing? Rumours have now spread and my OH just wants to run away from the shame and embarrassment � will I have driven him away? It makes me feel sick I might have driven him out of town?!?

I�ve just had another long talk with him and although he says he doesn�t want a divorce or to tell the kids we are separated (supposedly that�s too �final�) he doesn�t want to come home.

I have told him that if he doesn�t want a quick divorce then he has to stop being in contact with his ex-girlfriend. I can still see his phone records and there has only been one text or phone call per day so he does seem to be distancing himself.

What on earth am I supposed to do now? I know he sees me as being an option (but can't get his head around how we get our sex life back on track - he just doesn't fancy me!) so how do I get him to come home? Do I continue Plan A even though he is not in the house or do I start Plan B? Or have I messed up so I don�t have a plan at all?

Heeeeeeeeelp!!

Welcome to MB, sadmummy. I'm sorry that you have had to come here

Are you in the UK? I am in London. There are not many posters up at the moment because most are in the USA and Canada. The board will wake up in about 4 hours and more people will respond to you.

In the meantime, would you please read this thread which has been put together to give advice to newly betrayed posters. Please answer the questions in the first post, and please read the links, especially to "Exposure".

You will gain a better understanding of Dr Harley's programme when you have read his Q& A columns, beginning with Coping With Infidelity: Part 1.

You H is not staying away because of shame and embarrassment; he is staying away because he is still sleeping with OW. His lack of attraction to you is for the same reason. Your Plan A has a poor chance of working while he is still seeing OW; Dr Harley says that Plan A ends the affair only about 15% of the time. Eventually, and sooner rather than later, you will need to go to Plan B.

If your H wants to give your marriage a chance he needs to go home. He cannot wait for his feelings to recover before he does so; the distance between you will only increase if he stays away. If he will not go home, then you will be forced into Plan B. This will at least take away his cake-eating opportunities (i.e. getting his emotional needs met by both you and OW).

What have the sessions with the marriage counsellor covered? What approach does the counsellor take? Does he/she listen to you both without offering a plan? Does he/she offer to help you achieve whatever you want (e.g. a friendly divorce)? Counselling will not save your marriage if the counsellor is not trained and dedicated to doing so. You'd be better off abandoning that counsellor and calling the Harley coaching centre. Their telephone coaching can be done anywhere in the world.

Do you have financial arrangements in place? Is H supporting you and the kids, and paying the rent/mortgage? Do you have paid employment? Do you have childcare for when you work?

Please read, and the come back and answer the questions.

I am in the UK.

I have told H that he must end all contact with OW � his response was �Ok. I�ve hardly had any lately anyway�. Unfortunately I have heard that before!

I have asked him to come home but he won�t. He is talking about getting a flat (but only talking about it). Unfortunately our finances are dire as his business is going through � we can barely afford one house not two!

If he doesn�t rent somewhere nearby he will end up travelling up to where OW lives for at least half the week as we inherited a property there that is empty. It�s 4 hours drive away. Once again an opportunity to continue the affair.

How can I persuade him to come home without begging?! Should I offer living separate lives under the same roof?

The sessions with the counsellor have covered very little so far and now his ongoing affair has been found out he is not going to come with me again. The sessions basically covered the fact that he had made himself emotionally unavailable and he made us believe it was due to the problems his business is facing � I even had a 4 week �amnesty� where I couldn�t talk about our relationship whilst he dealt with his business stuff and he was in touch with her throughout grrrrrrrrr.

I have been to see a solicitor today. I won�t be able to afford to stay in our house so I need to get it valued. At present my H earns nothing and hasn�t for 6 years whilst establishing his business. The turnover is now fantastic but it still makes no profit. Basically the financial split will be on a �needs� basis to ensure that me and the kids get a suitable house going forward but then I will have to meet all other payments until H starts earning at some point again.

At the moment nothing is formal and I�ve had no money off him for a while (but that�s not unusual as there isn�t much to be had). I work three days a week and pay for childcare and have a fairly decent salary � I can keep us all in a smaller house.

I told him about the meeting with the solicitor and we discussed things amicably (we still get on). One moment he says to get stuff valued and the next he says �we haven�t run our course yet�.

I feel so torn in two and I even feel sorry for him (everyone thinks he�s behaved terribly, he has no money and nowhere to live).

I want him back but is it just too much to deal with? Should I just go for a clean break and have a simpler life? Does anyone come back from these sort of things and have a happy marriage?

Will get reading the stuff you suggested and come back later�

I think I implemented Plan A for the past three months without even realising it. I reassured him that our sex life could get back on track, listened to him more, went on dates, improved my appearance etc etc.

H has said several times that he can�t believe how I have handled everything and have gone further to try and sort things than he would have ever imagined.

But what now?

He isn�t living with us but doesn�t want to divorce or tell the kids. I said I needed space to try and move on but can�t seem to stop calling/texting him � always with me asking him to try again and him saying no.

We have two small children and I don�t see how I can Plan B him without telling them something but he has made it clear that if we tell them there is no going as he wouldn�t want to mess them around (as if he hasn�t done that already!).

Any advice on what to do next? Given that he has significantly reduced contact with OW (I think, very difficult to prove though as she lives in another town and we have no mutual friends) should I still be doing Plan A even though he isn�t living with us? When I am joking and flirting with him I think he enjoys it and sees the woman he once fell in love with. Or should I massively reduce contact with him and see if he decides he does love me after all?

He has asked whether we can just �be� for a couple of weeks � no flat, no divorce, no arguing etc.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I can�t see the wood for the trees anymore and am just exhausted and lonely and confused�

I thought I recognised a fellow Brit!

sm, Dr Harley's advice is that small children should be told, in an age-appropriate manner, about the affair. Yours must have asked why Daddy isn't home, and you MUST NOT whitewash or lie to spare their feelings. You will just confuse them if you do, and teach them that Daddy is doing nothing wrong, when he is. You need to say something like "Daddy has a girlfriend (or has been kissing another woman) and married people are not supposed to have girlfriends. Daddy cannot stay with us now while he still has a girlfriend. We need him to stop kissing her and come home to us." No graphic speech and no bad-mouthing H. Do not listen to your H's rantings about it all being over if you tell, and do not forewarn him.

You are telling nothing but the truth. You are not causing them to hate him. If they do that, it will be because of his own actions in destroying their family, not because of your truth-telling.

I think you should continue Plan A for those two weeks, if you can. Please practice safe sex, though.

Please read the "What are Plan A and Plan B" advice column from Dr H, though. He explains that Plan A includes "negotiating" with the spouse to end the affair and come home. From time to time you should tell H that you hope he will end contact with OW and come home, and that you and the kids miss him. Be light and upbeat when you say this. Do not cry, demand or nag; these things are unattractive to WSs.

In the original Plan A and Plan B column, Dr Harley suggest six months of Plan A for women. However, he later revised this advice to say that women should Plan A for about 4 weeks, because they seem to find their H's ongoing affairs too hard to cope with for longer. The affair is detrimental to women's mental health more often than for men, so 4 weeks is now advised.

(I'm using a very slow system at the moment and it takes me ages to search for links, but I will try and post these later.)

If and when you go to Plan B, you do not "massively reduce contact" with H, you cut off direct contact altogether, including by phone, text and email. You must arrange for someone to be your email intermediary, passing urgent messages about the children between you, filtering them first for unwanted comments from him. You need to have an intermediary to handle the pickups and drop off with the children. Perhaps he can p/u and d/o from the childminder/nanny? You must not see or speak to H on those occasions, and you should try not to let him use the house while you go out. Plan B is really a taste of his life without you should you divorce, so you must not meet his ENs at all. Plan B also involves a secure living arrangement and finance for you - including a bank account that H has no access to. You can see, therefore, that it requires planning. The worse Plan B is one where the details are not watertight in advance, and you have to break it to deal with an issue that comes up. The two weeks longer of Plan A will allow you to sort these things out.

Only you can decide whether you should try to save the marriage - which Plans A and B are designed to do - or go straight to divorce. Most parents here, including me, tried to save our marriages first, not least because of the children. We did not want to stay together in bitterness because of them. We used the Harley methods to try and build happy, romantic marriages after the affair.

Is there any chance you could afford a couple of sessions with the coaching centre? The cost is about �200 dollars per time, plus the cost of the phone call. They are experts at dealing with exactly what you are going through, and the cost is so much less than even a few meetings with a solicitor, never mind a full-blown divorce! There is a link to the centre on this site; send an email giving an outline of your circumstances if you are prepared to pay. I haven't used it, but it is always highly recommended by those who do. The coaches are Dr Harley's son Steven and his daughter Dr Jennifer Harley Chalmers.

Keep posting here to keep your post at the top of the board! You need more replies!

Hello SM, So sorry that you are in this situation.
Listen to SugarCane - she talks a lot of sense! She helped me hugely when I found myself in a similar situation.
Just wondering. If your WH has no money, how is he managing to live away from home. If you are the main (only?)breadwinner I hope you are not financially supporting his lifestyle.
If you have a joint account, go and open your own personal account immediately and make sure that your income goes on that. Do not in any way finance his adultery!!

Just to add, I would be stunned if this is not an ongoing PA. It is not over yet.

tully, thanks for the endorsement!

sadmummy, the poster MelodyLane systematically collects posts by Dr Harley that are made on the private forum, to which ordinary posters like you and I have no access. You must complete the online course to gain access.

I copy and paste anything that she has written to somebody else that might be relevant to a thread I am on. She hasn't slapped me for that yet, so I'm doing it again.

Here is what she posted a little while ago to a BH with children:

SadMum, Sorry you are here and welcome to MB.

You absolutely should do a Plan A for a few weeks and then move on to Plan B. Part of Plan A though, is NO RELATIONSHIP TALK(other than what SC suggested). That means that you need to STOP telling your WH that you want him to come home. He knows that you want him to come home.

Read through the thread that was posted to you and when you find yourself wondering what else to do, you could read other people's threads to see what they were advised to do. A LOT of the things will apply to your sitch as adultery seems to be the same all over the world and wayward spouses seem to do things as if they were reading from a script.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

So, if I understand correctly, my plan is:

1) Plan A for 2 weeks with no relationship talk (like you've said, I've made it very clear I want him to come home).

2) Do not finance his affair!

3) Whilst I am Plan A'ing I should be getting everything in place to do a Plan B if necessary in 2 weeks time.

OH hinted that he was thinking about coming back last night. However, he is mortified that some people know what he did and it's making me feel really bad that I told anyone - I know everyone here thinks exposure is right so why do I feel so lousy like it's me that's messed everything up and made it impossible/difficult for him to come back?!?

As for the children I can see your point but at 4 and 2 they think he is just working away for the time being. I feel quite strongly that they are too young to be told that he has moved out unless he has actually got somewhere to live and it is no longer temporary.

Thanks for all the advice. Wish me luck with Plan A!

Actually SM, I think number 1 on that list should be: EXPOSE.
You say that some people know - anybody that counts should know.
And don't feel bad about telling them. I know how you feel, I was exactly the same but, believe us, it is the right thing to do. If he comes back into his M, everyone will have nothing but respect for him for admitting his wrong-doing and doing everything he can to change. Deep down, he knows that too but what you are doing is making it more difficult for him to continue with his A.

If he feels mortified, then he should ask himself why! It's because what he did was wrong.
When you tell people, say, 'I'm telling you this because I want to save my marriage and I need your help. I know that as long as he remains in contact with her, we have no chance. I want him to realise that he is on the wrong path and come back to me so that I can forgive him.' It is not out of vengence that you are telling them. This is not hatred or vitriol. On the contrary, this is caring for him.

Let him get angry if he wants (he more than likely will but it will subside and quicker than you can imagine) I had the most incredible experience one day with exposure. I exposed to some key people at my husband's work. I sent him an email telling him what I had done because i was afraid of his anger. He came home VERY angry but ended up at the end of the day thanking me for trying to save our marriage! I didn't succeed in saving it in the end but exposure was not the problem, the continuation of the A was.

Do not allow his anger to affect you. Reply calmly 'I am not doing this to hurt you. I am doing this because I love you and our family. I want to save our marriage' and then walk away and have a bath or something. Do not respond to anger with anger, no matter how you would like to.

Don't forget your husband is an addict engaging in self-destructive behaviour. If he was an alcoholic or drug addict you would not apologise for checking him into rehab or cutting off his access to money to feed his habit, even if it made him angry. He no longer sees the big picture, he is just looking to his 'next fix'. You need to think for both of you.

In the end, the decision to break away from the addiction will be his but it's as if he is drunk right now. You cannot reason with an alcoholic while he is drunk. He is intoxicated by the A. NC will sober him up enough so that he can make a more logical decision. Plan A shows him that you are prepared to be by his side to fight this addiction, but the day will come when he will have to make that decision by himself.

Be strong. Listen to the advice you are getting here.

Thanks Tully - I appreciate the support.

I have told my sisters and parents as well as his sister - he then told his Mum because he realised I was going to do it and got there first.

I know that if I hadn't told his Mum he would probably still be deeper in his affair. However, he used trips to visit her (4 hours away) to cover his tracks - he won't find that so easy now.

However, I told a few mutual friends as a knee jerk reaction when I discovered the affair was continuing. These people won't help end the affair so they aren't really anybody that "counts" and it has caused alot of gossip and discomfort - that is the exposure I am regretting, not the family.

Oh well - it's done now and I can't take it back. I am going to hang on to what you said about the admiration he would get for returning to his family and making up for his mistakes - over time that would negate any bad feeling there is now.

Another piece of advice required though! As H is living out of bags at the moment how do I carry out Plan A in terms of keeping in touch? Do I just check in once or twice a day? Do I wait until he calls me and then just sound really happy to hear from him? Should I try to encourage him to go out for a drink? Or do I just play it cool and relaxed and leave him to come to me?

Don't regret the exposure you did. Even if it just creates an 'uncomfortable' environment, it all helps to stop the A. Before he could have been with her in public, having a coffee for example but now it will be all the harder.

Do not trust what he said to his Mum. He probably said to her that his marriage was over and that he is finding happiness with this other woman or some other sort of fogbabble. If she is a normal Mum, she wants what is best for her son. You need to talk to her and tell her that you love her son, that you are concerned that he is destroying his life, that he will lose you and his family if he continues with this A.

Telling your family is good because it gives you emotional support at a time you need it but you need to think hard about the circumstances that allowed him to have the A and alert anyone who unwittingly helped these circumstances to exist. For example, if he left work early to be with her then you need to tell people at his work so that it becomes more obvious that he is going to meet her if he leaves early. Even if these colleagues don't inform you, their silent observation will act as a brake on his adulterous behaviour, making it more sordid and less romantic to him.

What about her? Can you inform people on her side so that they can exert pressure on her?

As for your last questions, I have one for you. Does he come to see his children? They are only small and if he doesn't have a place to take them then he must see them in your house. If he shows little or no interest in them, then the A is still full-blown, IMO.
How about saying 'Little J. was asking for you. It would be nice if you came to see him.' Then have a peaceful, organised house when he comes. Make a nice, but normal dinner for you all and tell him he is welcome to share it with you (no pressure). Make it clear that he is welcome to stay in your house (it's his home too, after all) but do not show any sign of neediness. Show him that you are a strong pillar. Your family would be all the stronger with two pillars but you will not collapse if he chooses not to be there. Refuse to entertain his drama.

My husband�s business was (and still is) failing at the time he started the affair 6 months ago. This coincided with him going up to his Mum�s house (4 hours from where we live and his business) to do some work for her. His ex-girlfriend from 11 years ago still lives there and I guess it was some sort of �escape� from his mid-life crisis and feelings of failure. We had begun to live parallel lives due to financial worries, stress, young children (no excuse for the affair I know but it explains why he talked to her and not me).

He really has no reason to keep going up to his Mum�s without me and the children once the work is complete. The majority of the affair has been texting/calling rather than meeting face to face but I appreciate that, from now on, even this will stop him coming back to me.

He has gone from calling/texting 150+ times per month (and that�s just him to her!) to having only called her once last Wednesday for 20 minutes (having just told me he was going to stop contact with her) and since then there have only been two texts and a 6 second (?) phone conversation. Obviously she may be calling him but I guess unless I managed to get hold of his phone (unlikely) that�s difficult to prove.

I will talk to his Mum myself tonight to let her know I just want the affair to stop and for him to come back home.

Unfortunately apart from his Mum I don�t know anyone up there to tell. He hasn�t lived there for years so has few friends still in the area. The only one I do know already knew about the affair before me! The OW is recently divorced.

My H does come to see his children � he is a brilliant Dad. In fact, last night he wasn�t meant to see them but when they spoke to him in the morning they asked him to come home from work so he changed his plans and picked them up from nursery. He had an appointment at 6pm but asked if he could call me later � I asked him if he wanted to come back for a beer but he said no as he was heading back to finish work at his Mum�s (I know! Red flag!! Must call her!!!).

I have called him this morning to make sure he arrived safely. I heard somewhere that with a man they don�t really like �chatting� so if you are the first one to speak to them in the day then they haven�t got so much to tell anyone else (i.e OW). He has told me he doesn�t have much work left to do up there (surely he would pretend there was a load to do if he wanted to continue the A?). His Mum has actually asked him to do some more work and he has told her he won�t do it until next year � that�s got to be a good sign hasn�t it?

I just keep analysing everything � it�s killing me!!

I�m also worried that I am fighting so hard to get him back that I�m not even thinking about the consequences of doing so. Can we have a happier stronger marriage after all of this? Will our friends/family forgive him if I do? Lots of people giving advice on here don�t seem to have made it through and that makes me nervous�

SM, I can 'hear' in your writing that you are not calm. Take a deep breath. Know that it is normal to feel like this: your life has been placed in the hands of a raving addict with the equivalent of a loaded gun who has shown absolutely no regard for you and your children.
But you must take control back from him.

Firstly, don't analyse his behaviour so much. He is an ADDICT and addicts do not behave logically. Have you ever had any dealings with an alcoholic? They say every day that they will not drink again and they mean it!!! Except that the devious addict part of their brain takes over and they do drink again.

Secondly, don't worry yet about the quality of your marriage in the long run. At the moment, you don't have a marriage! If and when you do have a marriage, then you can assess if it is good enough to stay in. Your WH will have a big part in that. Is he capable or not of stepping to the challenge of Recovery? Who knows? One thing for sure is that it will require him becoming a bigger man than he has ever been before. What people are doing here is helping you to create the environment where it's possible.

I am one of the ones who uses the MB plans and then my WH did not have it in him to face himself and the damage he caused. I am divorcing now but I am doing it with a clean conscience, knowing that I did everything I could to save my M. There were times I wavered and was unsure of the advice I was getting here but now I know it was the right way and I am so glad I followed it.

Now, back to business! Sorry but I think this is rubbish. (I hope other more experienced people chime in!) The reason he is not texting her so much is that he is with her and so he doesn't need to! He doesn't live at home any more. Of course he's seeing her. You have no idea how devious these WSs become! I thought my WH couldn't possibly be seeing OW because he would leave the house for only 20-30 minutes in the evenings or weekends (complicated work explanation for this) but I later discovered that he was sending her a blank text message as a signal to meet in a carpark halfway and have sex in the back of his car for 10 minutes!

I am a little bit concerned that this smacks of neediness. Focus on yourself. Find your inner strength. Go for long walks if you can. The physical feeling of advancing helps you to feel that you are advancing mentally. Talk to people who help you to find your strength. Maybe I misunderstood but picking up the children from the creche and dropping them off is not 'being a brilliant Dad'. Is he spending time with them? And in your house? The idea of Plan A is not to become a doormat, to cater to his every whim. It is to show him that a great M with you is possible and that means showing him that you can be a strong, supportive, caring, loving spouse for him and that you will require the same from him. You need to show this through action, not words. And you show this by believing it deep down, that's why you need to find your inner strength.

Can I say it again? HE IS AN ADDICT!! He is not thinking logically. All he cares about is the next fix, not the future. In fact, in some twisted way he may be thinking that he wants the A to end, just not now. He is still having sex with her. Believe me.

Tully � You are soooooo right! I have just come back from an IC session and my counsellor said the same things � �calm down, stop trying to rush things, focus on yourself and your needs� etc etc

I am out of control but I am determined from this moment onwards to take control back. I am not needy (although I admit I have been acting it) � I can manage without him, I just need to remind myself of that regularly.

I hear what you are saying about him still seeing OW. I know it�s possible but I am just in denial. I�m still in la-la land where my �lovely� husband couldn�t possibly still be doing this to me. I need to get real!! They could easily have an arrangement where she calls him and I�d know nothing about it. However, one advantage is that OW is 4 hours away � no sneaking out for 20 minutes there!!

I will encourage him to spend more time with the children. He seems to have accepted that he won�t see them this weekend but I am going to speak to him and sort that out � he should spend some time with them.

My counsellor also said he was being quite manipulative in telling me not to tell the children as then there would be �no going back�. She said I shouldn�t lie to them � if he is away working then that�s fine but if he�s not I am just storing up trouble. I am going to talk to him again about letting the girls know we are living apart whilst we try to sort some things out.

Thanks again � this place is a blessing.

Hello SM,

I have girls too. Mine were a bit older than yours. I would say something like the following to them:

"Girls, when Daddy and I got married, we made a promise to each other to stay together and live together and look after our little children - that's you. Daddy is now breaking that promise and is not living here and is spending time with a different woman who is not me. It is not good to break promises, especially such a big one as this. But I hope that Daddy will understand that this is not a good thing to do and will come home to us."
This is the truth and your children need to know that they can always get the truth from you.

BTW, how do you know she is 4 hours away now? Are you certain she has not moved closer to him? Or at weekends? I'm really sorry to say this, but I would guarantee that the reality is far worse than anything you are imagining. It was for me and for most others here.

great posts, Tully. So good I have nothing to add.

Thanks, barbiecat. But I'm sure you have lots of good stuff to add.
It's such a tough place to be. What's hard for a WS to realise is that this is a time for action, not inaction.