How long have you been married?

How old are you, WW, and OM?

Don't waste your time with marriage counselors. You need to expose to her employer and either he needs to get a new job or your wife does. Your wife and the OM cannot have ANY CONTACT AT ALL.

And regardless of how far they went physically, an affair is an affair. And your wife is a wayward and will lie. You need to get tested for STD's.

Bottom line: As long as your wife has contact with OM, she WILL NOT commit to your marriage.

@everything -

#2 PLAN A - Read! Read! Pepperband's tag line. Carrot and stick.

e, what do your friends and family know? Has the affair been exposed to the OM's side? I would do a nuclear exposure at the workplace and on OM's facebook page to his family and friends. Do her family and friends know the true story FROM YOU or do they know spin from her?

The way to save your marriage is to bust up the affair. The way to bust up the affair is cause unholy hell for the OM. OM are pansies and he won't like the trouble over some married woman. He will likely dump her if you raise some hell.

When she gets home tonight I have no doubt she will throw a fit. Don't let it bother you bit. And do not leave that house unless it is by virtue of an armed sheriff with a court order. If anyone leaves, it should be HER. She wants the space, let her be the one to leave.

Now that you're back home, the next step is to start Plan A. Read everything you can find on it, starting with the Articles link at the top of this page.

Here is a very helpful MB post that will get you started:


"The Carrot and the Stick of Plan A" by Pepperband

THE CARROT OF PLAN A:

Meeting your wandering spouse's emotional needs.

Making "home" a warm and inviting place to be.

Placing emphasis on what has worked in the marriage.

Showing consistent self improvement in areas where previously lacking.

Stop lovebusting behaviors.

Communicating with a calm reassuring voice and relaxed body language, even in the center of a verbal storm created by the infidel.

Becoming the person any reasonable spouse would want to come home to.

Remaining open to the possibility of recovery.

Offering forgiveness and understanding.



THE STICK OF PLAN A

Exposing adultery where it matters most. Exposure that takes the form of a swift and sudden unexpected tsunami of truth.

Not apologizing for exposure or speaking the truth in a kind yet direct way.

Directly communicating the hurt and devastation that the affair has caused.

Not accepting blame for the infidel's choice to become adulterous.

Allowing the consequences of adultery and infidelity to fall freely upon the heads of the adulterous.

Establishing boundaries that disallow the affair to affect children of the marriage or the financial security of the marriage, or otherwise ruin innocent bystanders.

Standing up to infidelity as a beast that must be slain for the good of the family.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Plan A is both a *carrot* and a *stick*.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We've been married 4 years TODAY. I'm 26 and she's 28. She's been going through a kind of quarter-life crisis where she's made some drastic physical and emotional changes to create an alternate identity for herself (ie.- cut and dyed hair purple/pink/blond/black, gotten a pair of tattoos and lost considerable weight.

The OM has no spouse or girlfriend and really has nothing to lose by dating my wife. There's no one on his end to expose it to other than his employer which is what will be happening next if this continues.

You want to get rid of the OM - follow the advice above. Are you a timid man everythingwvu? Why would you let your wife talk you out of the house? What do you have to gain by letting your wife call the shots - other than more time with the OM?

This stuff is for Recovery. Don't get tangled up in this. This not your primary concern. Your primary concern is to focus on breaking up the affair. PLAN A. Break up the affair. Exposure is only one of the tools to use.



DUH! Of course its emotional [needs]. Plan A Carrot is all about giving and filling the $LB$ by meeting WW ENs.

When you talk about divorce immediately that is good. That is your taker telling you that this isn't fair. That you are hurt. Keep looking at these feelings. Analyze them. What do you want to do with them?

Know that you will not be able to bargain, cajole, or convince your WS what is best for her. When you do these things it is your taker in charge.

Keep reading and coming here. Bring your disgust, hate, anger and all the feelings you have here.

You are in a battle for your marriage. Study Giver and Taker and Plan A.

Keeping talking with your WS. Conversation is an EN.


I found a technique for myself. When having a conversation with XGF, I listen. The only time I say anything is when I'm asked a direct question. You know what these conversations are pretty much one-sided. Very self-centered, but that is okay because she is wayward. I understand and accept that. Do you want to know why? Because what she is doing is informing. I also use investigate.

[partial convo]

her: I am very cranky today!

me: Why do you think that is?

her: They just increased my workload at work.

me: Well its not something that you can't handle.

her: I know, but they're trying to have me move to a supervisor position, but I can't. They really frown on supervisors taking time off.

me: You've been a acting supervisor and you do mentor the new people. I can see why they would want you to be a supervisor.

her: I think I'm being cranky because of the new workload. What do you think?

me: Only you know why your being cranky?

her: I'm asking for your opinion. What do you think?

me: I don't think its because of your work.

her: I'm sorry for being cranky.

me: That's okay...

[more convo that centered about why she couldn't be a supervisor]

More later about how to talk with WS concerning OM.

I agree and thank you for the advice. I've been consistent in my message that she must have NC with the OM but she's been consistent in that she doesn't want to quit her job. Well, I guess that some times in life we just don't get what we want.

What about the confrontation with the OM? Since he has no body to answer to (no family AT ALL and it would appear that his ONLY friend in town is my wife), I let him know that I want him to stop contacting my wife. Was this a good or bad thing? It's the primary reason my wife will be pissed when she gets home (if she comes home).

This is a stupid question, I know. But the part of the carrot that I'm struggling with is doing the things that I wasn't doing before that were not meeting her emotional needs.

She has been unable to communicate to me what was lacking that she found with him. She said it's mostly talking and that they share a "deep understanding" of one another (after 3 weeks?). Is it just conversation and attention? Sounds like it right? But she is not a conversationalist until she has a few drinks in her. She NEVER talks which is what I believe got us in this mess in the first place. Rather than tell me something I'm doing (or not doing) is not meeting her needs, she just mopes around and says nothing when I probe to find the reason she's unhappy.

That's the part that really pisses me off. Instead of coming to her husband for support or emotional need fulfillment, she went to another man. I guess this is more common than not, but I feel like, given the chance, I am a man who can satisfy ALL of her needs, emotional and otherwise.

UPDATE: The Facebook messages I sent him to leave my wife alone appear to have worked quickly. He has removed her from his friends list! Small step for sure, but if they talked, I'm sure he said he wants nothing to do with her! Now I have to wait for the WW to come home and unleash, but I will stay calm and let her know that I love her and did what I did to fight for our marriage.

Read up on Giver and Taker. I've been the ultimate giver and she is the ultimate taker. That can lead to an EA, which it has. She needs to give some and I need to take some. This will be a complete reversal of our entire relationship. Hard to do for sure, but I'm up for it. Communication and absolute honesty is the cure.

@everything -

All plans consist of:

• Goal
• Strategy
• Operations
• Tactics

In military usage strategy is distinct from tactics, which are concerned with the conduct of an engagement, while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked. How a battle is fought is a matter of tactics: the terms and conditions that it is fought on and whether it should be fought at all is a matter of strategy, which is part of the four levels of warfare: political goals or grand strategy, strategy, operations, and tactics.

What is your goal? Break up affair and go into recovery of marriage.

Now define each of the specifics of above. Remember, the one thing is you need to utilize, is time. You are back home. Nothing is going to be fixed overnight. You are not going to find out tomorrow that her EN Domestic Support is her primary EN. Then you clean the house and now everything is good in your marriage.

Plans give humans a chance to create feedback loops. IOW, to inform us if our goals are being reached. Concerning ENs, you need to experiment. Try all of them. See which ones affect her the most.

There is a catch-22 here. Don't try to do what you would classify what your top ENs are. because that is probably what you have been doing all along. This a closed loop solution, "I like this. It makes me happy. So I must do this to make her happy." Wrong! Go out of YOUR comfort zone.

I would say to you that her A did not happen without her conversing with the OM.

What is OM talking to her about? Try to find out. Is it work? Is it his problems? Is it his carefree life being single? Talk to some of her friends. Ask them what they think has attracted her to him. Another tool is to snoop in e-mail and txts.

Look your WW is following a script. She doesn't have a plan. She is a stimulus-response automaton. If you poke WW with a stick she will squeak. If you poke her with a stick again she will squeak. Poke her again what do you think she is going to do? "Squeak".

Somebody has poked you with a stick. We've heard you squeak. So next stick poke, you have a plan for avoiding it. That means that you are inside WW decision loop and can disrupt this affair. Remember all she can do is squeak. She has no plan.

Give it time brother. Experiment. You have all the time in the world.

Your WW did not have an affair because you didn't meet her ENs.

She had an affair because she has very poor boundaries.

Meeting ENs makes for a good and enjoyable marriage for both spouses, but will not necessarily prevent one from straying if/when they just decide they want both the married life *and* some fun single life on the side and fail to have the personal boundaries to prevent it.

Thanks for the support clark. I think that I'm about to really enter Plan A. I'll make it nice for her to be home (assuming she doesn't leave because I helped break up the A) and be as sweet and kind as I can, try to talk with her about her day, clean up and do all sorts of things that I didn't used to do to make it an appealing place to be. That's the point of Plan A right? There's still some doubt that the A is over, I am only going off of what was on Facebook, but if he removed her within hours of getting my messages, maybe it took?

That sounds about right too concerning wanting the married and single life. It is a very immature and selfish way to live for a 28 year old professional woman. If that's the case, then we're probably through. If she wants to be single, I will oblige because I can't live that way, you know?

She needs to grow up, mature a little and THEN we can work on our relationship. I fear that that won't happen for quite some time. We shall see. The pain she's caused to everyone in her life has not yet come full circle to where she has felt the full brunt of the consequences. If she can't commit to me 100%, then I will be filing for legal separation tomorrow. If she signs the doc's, I'd be surprised.

NOT! NOT! Uhhh.... underground.

Snoop Snoop Snoop. Don't give up your intel. If it was over, she would run back into your arms. Did that happen? Nope. Instead you get Wayward talk, "Leave the OM out of this." Here is what she said to you. "I care about him and you've hurt him. I will protect him from you!" So much for open and honest.

She hasn't come home from work yet (WW and OM work together...typical). So if she give me that type of rhetoric about protecting the OM, it isn't over for sure.

Slow down! (unless you KNOW in your KNOWER that you are DONE). If you are not, then get yourself a plan and quit reacting. You're in the defensive mode right now, time to get into the offensive mode using MB tools.

Do you have the book Suriving an Affair? Order it yesterday.

How long have you guys been married?

Just a quick run by, but the EN's he should be focused on should be the top 4 intimate needs of conversation, recreational companionship, sexual fulfillment and affection. Those will do the quickest, most effective job of creating romantic love. Even though one of her top needs might be DS, for example, DS does not create romantic love.

Focus strictly on those top 4 needs for 20 hours of undivided attention, and that will make the most impactful changes.