SM, have you ever read any of Mortarman's threads? [now in a recovered marriage] I will never forget one time his got his wayward wife on the phone with Steve Harley. She got on the phone in the basement for her segment and Mortarman was upstairs. MM said he could hear his WW screaming at Steve in the basement!

Don't be thrown off if she has gone physical with him. Most waywards would deny it even if caught in the act.

To address the confusion about whether to talk about the relationship or not in plan A.....I think I have it figured out and will share my thoughts on that.

You don't try to educate the wayward about how what they are doing is wrong.
You don't keep saying "I love you" over and over again since they are deflecting that and it isn't adding love bank units. You simply show loving feelings like giving a smile, a wink, a touch.
You do say "I want a monogamous relationship and will not accept anything short of it to stay married. I want to be married to you but will not take less than 100% of you." Factually where it fits in a conversation.
If they start talking about the marriage and how it sucked, you redirect and say "I agree, a sucky marriage is not acceptable. I want to create a fulfilling one together for us both."

So.....you try to do enjoyable things in plan A.
You show you can be one heck of a person to spend time with.
You don't try to educate them but you are honest about how less than a monogamous relationship will not be acceptable.

An important part of Plan A is to continually express your devastation about the affair. To avoid that subject is unnatural [weird] and gives the impression that you don't care very much. It also tells her that the affair isn't that big of a deal to you.

Therefore, it is your job to convey to her how big of a deal it really is. And one of the ways you do this is to tell her that it is inappropriate for your kids to be exposed to the OM.

Love this ML - this is so spot on ... NEVER EVER be okay with the adultery ... please pass the cheese you lovely wayward!!!

Totally agree with ML! Continuing to communicate this point with WW without love-busting is important to help her to see things in the proper perspective, it also helps her to own the responsibility of her actions. Your willingness to work on the M does not mean she was wronged (she believes that her A was caused by the misery she suffered in the M).

Also, to add on: if you can't effectively do that on your own, counseling with the Harleys will help tremendously.

In general, WS's often fail to grasp the magnitude of how their actions affect their spouses, once they want to work on the M, they have the tendency to sweep all under the rug and "move on". That does not help complete healing and recovery and protection against future A.

Steve Harley did an excellent job to help my H understand how badly his A hurt me. He jump-started the process, prepare my H to be receptive so when I spoke to my H about this subject, he was willing to hear and to understand, thus helped both of us to move along much quicker in our process.

Also, in your case, I believe there needs to have a NC letter written by your wife and mailed by you to the OM. I believe it's important to completely put an end to the A. The NC letter in the book Surviving Affair is excellent!

I filled out all the internet process tonight to get an appointment with Steve. I hope they call tomorrow and get an appointment set up. I think my wife is at a weak point and this would be a good time to start.

Yes a letter will have to happen and a totally open relationship with access to everything. Might be a good reason to drop facebook which I'm starting to feel like it's the devil.

I have seen very few success stories reading the forums. Maybe I haven't looked deep enough yet.

There are lots of us! You just don't see as many of our threads because once the marriage is saved, they quit posting because they don't need help anymore. You have just as much chance as anyone else.

ML is totally right. I've seen more than one recovered BS leave because they no longer needed help.

Yes, for a very short time being here (2 months), I already saw a few who left after they succeeded. They no longer needed help nor the support from this forum so they either quit or moved to other forums on this site.

The road to recovery is narrow and most marriages crumble after adultery; however, if you can ruin the affair and run off OM, that's the first step.

The next step is to work the MB plan, for this is, from what we have seen and experienced ourselves, the best way to restore the love in the marriage AND to avoid future affairs.

There are successes, but it takes a plan and it will take both of you to be fully invested in the MB program.

First step, WW becomes a FWW.

I think MOST marriages survive; however, the people that show up here are not representative of MOST affair situations. Often (not always) people turn to the internet (and a discussion forum such as this) after having tried to fix things on their own for quite some time. MOST affairs are one-night stands or old affairs discovered and as such MOST marriages survive infidelity, however, few thrive after infidelity is discovered and that's where, for me...the "narrow path" of Marriage Builderes really is the only way.

Dr. Harley guestimates that only about 20% of all marriages are really loving successful marriages.* He studied the behavioral practices and habits of that 20% and created a program for us to learn how to copy/mimic them. I told my wife early on that we were going to be one of that 20% or it wasn't even worth "recovering". I refused (in 2005) to remain in a loveless marriage...for long.

Point is...staying married might be the easy part. "Recovering" and rebuilding a loving marriage of extraordinary care is the tricky part. The people that leave this forum after merely busting up the affair and getting their spouse home are missing out. They may have/are completely missed/missing an opportunity to REBUILD using this program. IMO...you've got to implement a program ASAP. If you snooze on implementation it'll be too late a year or two down the road as the wayward will presume it's been swept under the rug and hesitant to work anything. Unfortunately, absent a program far too many end up right back here with another infidelity situation months or even years down the road and often it's the BS who becomes a WS and their spouse shows up here. The program is important for BOTH spouses to implement.

It's been 7 years since Dday for us. My wife went away this past weekend with my DD12 to visit her brother and their new baby out of state. We haven't been apart often the last 7 years and I missed her to a shocking degree and worried about them. I am more romantically in love with her TODAY than I ever was before in our relationship and she me. Dr. Harley's program (and website) truly saved our marriage.

Mr. Wondering

*As I recall he estimated the percentages of first marriages
40% divorce
20% separated
20% Co-exist to varying degrees of disdain & care
20% Successful loving marital relationships

I just filled out my questionares for Steve. We have an appointment for tomorrow. I feel it's a start to recovery! I hope she feels the same way after tomorrow's session. I hope she considers the kids heavily on us staying together, I feel that is my only hope right now.

Everything went to [censored] tonight. We had a huge blow up! I told her that if the kids were ever around him I would get nasty! I told her I had talked with a lawyer and would get a court order for the kids to be with me and she would get supervised visits only. I also told her that the lawyer told me I had a very good chance of getting full custody of the kids.

I didn't realize her mom didn't know her feelings towards him. She called her while I was there. I'm not sure how her mom will take it? I think she will stick with her no matter what.

She is now calling it blackmail that I won't divorse her. I told her I do marriage not divorse! I told her for us to have her perfect divorse she had to goto these counseling classes with me. She said I've never felt it before but I HATE you now.

You did really, really good telling her that it will not be pretty if she tries to divorce you and/or drag your kids into her sleaze! The only thing I would watch, my friend, is fighting with her. It is OK to be firm and let her know you won't cooperate with divorce and won't let her harm the kids, though.

You did VERY GOOD!

That "hate" will turn to RESPECT soon enough. She hates you because you made it clear you won't allow her to take you and the kids down in the sewer with her and the OM. She will thank you some day for standing up for your marriage and your children.

Yup. Watch the angry outbursts but ........you did good.

Yes, she will admire you later for having done this for her and your kids.

I was pretty calm the entire time! She is the one that blew up and started yelling and crying. I came home and talked with my 2 oldest kids. I told them everything. I also told them she was going to say stuff about me getting full custody and they would never see them again. I had to tell my daughter all of this because she loves her mom so much. I explained to them that mom is in a fog right now because she loves another man and that it is 100% wrong for her to do that. I also told them they should hate him if they ever wanted us to be a happy family again. Its not a problem for my oldest its my 11 year old daughter that has a problem with it.

I told her if she tried to move and take the 2 youngest kids I would have a court order that day and the kids would be mine and she might goto jail for leaving area with my kids.

She kept telling me this was family stuff only and I kept telling her everyone needs to know the entire truth. She said fine I'll let everyone know that you have been a bad husband and have not showed me the love I have needed for the last few years. I told her that was good the truth needed to be out for everyone to know.

Needless to say I don't have a date with her tomorrow. She is still going to listen to Steve with me, that might change by tomorrow though. Right now I think she will still listen to him but she says I will tell him everything I feel and I told her that was good that's what we need to repair this. She said it'll NEVER be repaired after what you've done now.

I'm starting to realize I have nothing to lose and everything to gain so I might as well get nasty.

Is what I'm doing blackmail?