Yes, that would be helpful.


So, wouldn't it follow that if you want to conduct a Plan A that you would ask your husband to return? You wouldn't know what he would say until you ask him, right?

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But I really don't think he would move back in in the first because then he wouldn't have any place to hide from the difficult and uncomfortable reality that he likes to avoid.)

That's what is known as a DJ. I've known men that were conflict avoiders, I've also known men married to women who have to have everything their way and won't hear any different.

I guess the biggest question I have is that you asked/ordered your husband to leave (at least that's the way I read it) and haven't asked him to come back, so I don't know how you can do a Plan A when you don't want your husband to come home. That is why I asked if you did a Plan A and what did it consist of? Guess I was remiss in stating my opinion but your thread is confusing to me. Perhaps giving more detail as you suggested would help me to understand better.

Thank you, that makes sense. I'm such a planner and a doer, it's hard for me to not be moving forward all the time and I feel so much like we're standing still.

One more question. I'm ready to tell him I know they're still communicating, but when he travels these days we don't always talk on the phone, especially when there's a time difference (which there is this time) and because things are still strained between us. We usually just message each other. Should I make a point of getting him on the phone to say this to him? An email seems kind of wimpy, but it's how I would normally communicate with him if I had more to say than I wanted to text. I'm worried that if I make a point of making a phone call he'll feel like I just called for that reason and to attack him. Or is that kind of the point?

I'm sorry, I've just been trying so hard not to LB and be the b*tch I'm known for being. I don't really know how to be a kinder, gentler me without slipping into being too passive.

Hyacinth, yes you should make that the point of the phone call. Casually mentioning it after talking about the weather makes it sound like this is not a big deal to you. You don't want to give him the impression that you are complacent or don't care. And you don't attack him when you do it.

Americajin, she has been in Plan A for several weeks now. Which means she is overdue for Plan B. The time for Plan B is as soon as she can go dark. Her goal is to save her marriage, so that has to be the next step.

Excellent.

Be warned that he will likely attempt to draw you into debate. Do not let him.

Stay calm, cool and collected. Practice.


THIS is the magic bullet:


There's no chance whatsoever of a future together if OW is in the picture in any way, which is why removing her from the picture is the primary objective.

Once he commits to step one, you can then move on to other steps like counseling, hopefully with MB since it's so effective.

This is where it would be helpful if everyone knew WH in person, because he is absolutely NOT going to try to draw me into a debate. It would shock me if he did. My best guess is that I will get nothing but silence when I say that. He's THAT much of a conflict-avoider. I might get some sort of noncommittal response, a generic "okay" meaning "I heard you" rather than one in agreement. But that's fine, because the point of this is just to let him know what's on my mind, rather than to have a big discussion. If he does surprise me by trying to draw me into a discussion, I will just say I don't want to discuss it now, I just wanted him to know that.

But, you will also want to ask him to end all contact with her. Will he commit to that? <---ask him that. With a conflict avoider, it is good to sit down and write out open ended questions to get them talking.

"I see that you are still in contact with the OW." [this is a statement, not a question because you don't want to ever ask if there contact, you tell]

"What is keeping you from ending contact with her?" [open ended question]

"What are your plans for the future with her?" [OE question]

And then close by telling him that continued contact with her will make it impossible to ever save your marriage and ask him to end all contact with life with her.

Thank you. That's better than what I had planned to say. I agree that open-ended questions are the way to go.

Yesterday there were 19 minute and 25 minute back-to-back "unavailable" incoming phone calls while he was on his layover. This man doesn't talk on the phone for 19 minutes with his own mother or best friend! (Much less 44 minutes total.) And he never had a single unavailable call before all this started. Seriously, do the two of them think I'm that stupid or is he just in denial because I haven't confronted him recently? Because that's over.

This is common. If he's a CAer (conflict avoider) like my H, he may just not know how to get off the phone with her if she is a blabber mouth. That's what my H told me about his AP, she talked too much and even though it annoyed the heck out of him, he didn't know how to end the calls. He also liked the ego stroking and OW are good at that.

Ok, so you are going to confront him when?

Re: the trip ~ that is completely off the table. Never shield a WS from the consequences of their actions, and canceling a trip due to an AFFAIR they are having would certainly be a consequence.

Plan A until after your surgery if you must and then go straight to Plan B.

I'm planning to confront him tonight.

As for him being a CAer and not knowing how to get her off the phone? How about: don't answer in the first place?! 99.9% of phone contact is initiated by her, according to the wireless bill (I obviously don't know what goes on via email or otherwise).

Yes, absolutely.

If he commits to NC and recovery with you, this will be one of the boundaries/precautions he establishes.

It may be helpful to role play various hypothetical situations (Steve Harley recommended we do this) to be prepared to do the right thing.

One of the conditions for keeping NC in place is that he needs to change his cell phone number (no excuses, ok? We've heard them all and there is no reason good enough, ever) as well as email address, delete a FB account, etc.

Anyone who wants NC badly enough will do this.

Be firm but do not love bust (angry outbursts, disrespectful judgement, selfish demands) during interaction with him.
Telling him contact with her must end for the marriage to survive is not a selfish demand. Its a fact.

I know, but I'm having such a hard time finding a happy medium between not love busting and not confronting him about anything at all. Since he's such a CAer, these days he panics anytime we have an uncomfortable discussion about anything. Without exaggeration, somewhere between one and ten minutes into any discussion about her or us, he will say "I have to go" and try to walk out. I can see a physical stress reaction come over him, he gets flooded and overwhelmed, shuts down and runs away. So I've basically been avoiding discussing anything, because it doesn't get me anywhere anyway.

But I do know he needs confronted about his contact with her, because until that ends, he's going to continue to feel guilty and overwhelmed with negative emotions and we aren't going to get anywhere.

You are reading WAAAAAY too much into what he is/isn't doing. He's WAYWARD, he is out of his mind. Please stop doing this, it's only making you drag your feet on what you need to do.

You don't need to explain to us how he's acting...we KNOW how he's acting, all waywards act the exact.same.way. Please stop wasting your time thinking about and posting about this.

Just focus on what you need to do: Prep for Plan B.

<Refresh my memory, have you exposed the living daylights out of this affair? All I need is a yes or no. >

THANK YOU to everyone who encouraged me to confront him about his continued contact with OW (and told me what to say). It was so eye-opening. He is so very in the fog and I had been in denial as to how deep.

I called him (Monday night when OMG the boards first went down!) while he was still on his business trip. I had been watching the wireless bill and they�d been talking and texting (since last Wednesday). While on his trip he called her at her office number (1,000 miles from where he was), so I do know she wasn�t on the trip with him. Not that it matters.

Here�s how the conversation went (I took notes!):

Me: I know you�re still in communication with her and it really hurts me.

WH: I know this won�t make you feel any better, but it�s not very often and it�s not in the same way.

Me: What is keeping you from breaking it off with her?

WH: Someone to talk to.

Me: Not to sound pitiful, this is a practical question, but you can�t talk to me?

WH: No.

Me: What do you talk with her about that you can�t talk about with me.

WH: I don�t know� my thoughts and feelings about stuff. I really don�t have anyone else to talk to.

Me: What are your plans for the future with her?

WH: I don�t really have any plans.

Me: Continued contact with her of any kind makes it impossible for us to recover from this and repair our relationship and you have to know that.

WH: I know that.

Me: Communicating with her is inappropriate.

WH: I know it�s inappropriate.

Me: What do you plan on doing about it?

WH: I�ll figure it out and let you know.

Me: You really have to think about it?

WH: You act like it�s a choice between her and you and it�s not. It�s a choice between you or not you and she has nothing to do with it. I don�t plan on a future with her.

Me: You are never going to be able to make a clear decision about our relationship as long as you are emotionally connected to her. You can�t be bonded to two people.

There was a little more, not much, but I stopped taking notes and then he angrily rushed me off the phone claiming he was meeting the other members of the business trip for dinner and they were waiting in the lobby.

Wow. He�s living in a fantasy world, on the banks of Denial River. This conversation was so eye-opening for me.

I�ve barely seen him this week even after he got back. He�s been avoiding me pretty much, although he has been helping with the kids. On Wednesday night we had a long phone conversation where I did get him to open up a little. He said a bunch of midlife crisis stuff about hating the person he is and that having a negative association with everything in his life that was part of the 42 year process of him becoming a person he doesn�t like: his job, our relationship, his family, his friends. This was an 82 minute conversation and I wish I would have taken some notes. Toward the end I again told him that his communication with her was a deal breaker for me, etc. I also told him that I think he�s trying to use her as a therapist, but she can�t be because she�s biased and a counselor doesn�t just make you feel good and tell you what you want to hear. That pissed him off.

Communication between them has continued almost non-stop since I confronted him (there was one day with no contact). But it�s even stepped up since then, with long phone conversations, or else lots of short ones back and forth all day. Last night they talked for almost 90 minutes (broken up into 12 back and forth calls. I assume their cell phones kept getting disconnected?). So much for �not very often.�

I�m still trying to Plan A and not love bust until after my surgery when I can move into Plan B. Also, I�m still getting all my Plan B stuff in order. Here�s my big question right now: We�re supposed to have date night tomorrow night, Saturday. Is canceling on him a huge love buster? He always seems to be testing me these days and then when I do anything he interprets as me rejecting him, he gets very angry and defensive so I know he�s hurt by it and that it�s love-busting. But, seriously, how much crap does he expect me to eat? Is he intentionally trying to drive me away?

Also I NEED his cooperation for at least another 10 days-two weeks due to my surgery this coming Thursday. So I�m trying to hold out until my surgery on Thursday. After that, I figure at least during the first few days of recovery, I won�t care much because of the pain killers (LOL). And once I�m able to care for my kids either alone or with minimum help from friends, I�m going to PBL him and try to find some peace for myself.

But date night. Ugh. I don�t even want to look at him, much less try to have a pleasant evening. When he�s been in recent contact with her, acts so angry and defensive toward everything I do. They�ve been in constant contact all week, so I know he�s going to be silent and crabby. But I also know if I try to cancel, he�ll be a jerk about it. None of this makes any sense.

Should I just say I�m canceling because of his contact with her? I�m so worried he�ll get really hurt and angry and decide to not be there for me after the surgery. I HATE being dependent on him, but I spent days this week trying to find another way, other support and there just isn�t enough available for all the help I�ll need for the kids.

As for exposure: Living daylights? I�m really not sure, so then I guess not?

I have exposed to his family, my family and our close friends back in December. Everyone reacted with complete and utter shock, saying they thought we had a good marriage and that we were the last people they expected this to happen to.

His brother-in-law/best friend is the only one who confronted him from his family (they are all very, very, very passive conflict-avoiders. His dad was the strong, outspoken one they all learned to be passive to placate, but he died 10 years ago). WH told BIL that our marriage has been dead for a long time (even though I pointed out to his family a hundred examples of how it wasn�t, like how until he left for the business trip where he started his A, we both were making long-term plans about every aspect of our lives, so that hardly seems like something he had given up on like he claims). He said and that the girl was �unimportant,� a mistake he regretted instead of just telling me he wanted out� blah, blah, blah. I got all this from BIL who believed it all. And my guess is BIL repeated it to the rest of his family who apparently believe it, too, because they�ve all basically left WH alone to live his life. I think they believe OW is out of the picture. I do know his family expressed disgust to him about the OW (family history regarding affairs is ugly).

My family has had no contact with him at all since I exposed, but I definitely thought we were headed for divorce and told them that, and they still believe that we are in that process, so as practical as my family is I think they�ve just decided it�s the past. They�ve been focusing on supporting me and helping me move on.

However, no one in either of our families knows that we have been attempting reconciliation since the first of the year. Like I said, they�re all 100+ miles away. We have basically been hiding it from them. He hasn�t visited his family in the past three months (which you think would be a red flag to them because when I first kicked him out, he went to his sister�s house every single weekend). I�ve been hiding our �attempted reconciliation� from my family because I guess I�m sort of embarrassed by this pitifully false-R. Not completely sure why he has been hiding it, although I guess I could speculate (I think he painted such an evil picture of me as a wife that he thinks they�d question what he was doing trying to reconcile). Although you all might have a better answer for that.

Our friends haven�t said anything to him, but they are the people who have seen us trying to reconcile so I think they�ve just been giving us privacy and space. This week I started asking them to confront him. However, part of his mid-life crisis crap is that he is rejecting everything in his life: his family, friends and of course our marriage (also said he hates his work, but he can�t do anything about that for at least three more years). He has avoided all of our friends except one (who I have been in a lot of communication with the past couple of weeks and who is waiting for a chance to confront him, but hasn�t seen him recently). Another close friend asked this week if I thought her husband and his other male friends should confront him and I told her yes, but again, they haven�t had the chance. He avoids everyone and hides in his apartment when he�s not working (or he�s over here).

I am drafting a letter to her superiors (as she was on a work-paid trip when this started) although I have some legal concerns. As I mentioned, she works for a major government agency, so there are issues there. I�m also concerned about libel/slander.

I haven�t exposed to his work yet. It�s actually a side job, not his main job, that he travels for and that he was on the trip for when this started. This is part-time work for an outside agency, not his �real� job, and I�m embarrassed to admit I don�t have a lot of contact info for it. It�s out of state and everyone who works for them are basically considered independent contractors. But I�m looking for info.

Suggestions?

Stop for the time being checking up on him and his contact with her. Assume it is happening but don't look in order to keep your head and not get more aggitated.
Go to the 'date' with him and be an actress who is as appealing as possible, knowing you are still part of the competition, for now (til you go to B). Bat eyes, show goods (IYKWIM). Know it will be blocked by him but his subconscious will soak it up and take it in. Know it is simply laying groundwork in your favor and nothing more. No expectations.
Know he is a cad.
But, guess the heck what? He is still playing you because you are still in the ring. LOL (you gotta at that). His massive calls to her are probably not all lovey dovey. She may be demanding and lovebusting him during them. Again LOL.
Just keep plan Aing. You did tell him the score about continued contact with her creating a life minus you. Now, plan A and don't keep mentioning it but prepare to go to plan B and when you do......close the door to the drama and heal.


edited to say...I was typing my reply when you added your last post on exposure questions...I'll let others address that...not my best MB skill. I did it but your nuances are diff from mine.

Thank you. I've been toughing it out (my original Plan A ending date was supposed to be end of Feb), so I guess I can continue a few days longer.

But here's the thing... if I make a pass at him at the end of tomorrow night, he WOULD take me up on it. One time recently he took a 10 minute call from her while I was driving the babysitter home (I didn't find out until days later) and then when I came back to my house where he was waiting with the kids asleep (so I could drive the babysitter home), he... ended up spending the night, IYKWIM.

He IS a cad. LOL

Then you are super in the ring still!
Anyway, show the goods even if you choose not to go the whole way since SF is obviously one of his five emotional needs. Allure even if you plan to leave him with a peck on the cheek and nothing more for the night.