I know I shouldn't feel guilty but I think that the reason I do is because in WH's mind he's doing a great job at being a wonderful husband and has even *gasp* read 5 pages of SAA and *only* had an online fling, which "isn't even infidelity." He actually said to me "You are blowing this out of proportion -- just think of all the things I could have done that are worse -- like having a secret baby somewhere." What?? Yeah, I feel like the luckiest wife alive WH!

I know the way he thinks and I believe that, in his culture, he's considered to be an almost perfect husband and what I'm asking him to do is unreasonable and selfish. I think he honestly believes this. Maybe I'm kidding myself but I really think that he believes that there is almost nothing wrong in our relationship and he just made an honest mistake. So if I do plan B, he will see it as me leaving him and giving up on our marriage, just when he had made so much of the effort I had requested of him.

He also is still very much in love with me so this will break his heart. Ironically, not enough to meet my conditions. I should chew on that for a while, maybe it'll fuel my resolve to have a real plan.

You're being gaslighted.

One of your EPs should be similar to the one SexyMamaBear requested 'show remorse before me, before our family and before god' I think it was. If that suits you.



What he thinks is not important at all!- he's a wayward and they're all fruit-loops!

If the plans hinged on what waywards think, we'd all be toast.

YOUR plan is to decide what actions YOU need and to stick to your guns. To have healthy boundaries for what you expect from a marriage. To enforce those boundaries.

One good action is to INSIST on what Dr H sggested and that he write to him. Id make it clear he doesnt have very long to start impressing you.

Dont tell him about Plan B or your timescale, but start preparing. You cant control him, but he may come to his own realisations in Plan B.

If not, you will have saved yourself a world of hurt from someone who has no intention of change.

But what does he love? You or the renter relationship he has with you? Does he sincerely love you and if it came to changing or losing you, what would he do? Plan B leaves the door wide open for change and for true love.

He may well be in love with a relationship where he gets to have very nice Hoping-cake and to have whatever side-dish he likes too.

Didn't Dr. H say if he doesn't change you need to prepare for Plan B?

How to Plan B properly
Plan B sample letters

We can help you prepare. Give this some thought.

Why do I feel so guilty? Everything you all say rings true, then I talk to WH on the phone and he tells me how much he misses me. I believe him too, I don't think he's lying, he really misses me and it makes me feel like crying for both of us.
After talking to him I feel like I am the one betraying him because I'm planning to do Plan B without telling him and he thinks everything is fine. Today has been a huge low for me. Waiting for an upswing...

This is how you need to look at the situation. A cake eater is the best to do Plan B with because they "NEED" the EN's met.

This is your WH today ... He has two great choices

You: Bollinger Blanc de Noirs Vieilles Vignes Francaises 1997 = $650/bottle

Whore: Cocaine, cheap and nasty

Whore gives him this HIGH that is so powerful and crazy he doesn't care it is cheap and nasty ... the HIGH is better than a fine glass of Bollinger Blanc ... he doens't want to give up the Blanc because it rewards him in every other way.

Although it isn't as powerful of a HIGH as the cocaine ... it is still a nice, refreshing HIGH.

What you are going to do is tell your lying, cheating addicted husband that he no longer gets to drink from the fancy nice well ... instead he is going to have to crawl in the gutter with cocaine whore and all her nastiness is what he is going to have to live off of now, and by the way you will be taking 1/2 his paycheck to keep up the maintenance on Bollinger Blanc.

Since whore's HIGH is really powerful right now he will climb in the gutter with her and try and make it work.

With time ... he is going to miss his fancy old life and his whore's skid row friends will crash their party here and there ... she will just keep getting nastier and nastier as time moves on ... BINGO ... Mr. cheating pants will begin to miss what he had so easily destroyed (his heritage)

Your goal is to make sure he gets one last taste of your expensive flavor and then you cut him off cold turkey. Let him rot on skid row for a while, and then once his adultery dies its natural death ... he will want to come back to his home ready to do whatever it takes to get his lovely wife back.

Did you try practicing any POJA? Talk about the living apart?

When he says he misses you have you asked him what EP's he will give you?

I believe him too! I am sure he does miss you. I am sure you are a fantastic wife who meets most of his key needs.

But he is not willing to do the same for you. He wants all his needs met, and only to meet yours when it's convenient.

He left you and wanted you to follow him because that would have been a good indication that you were willing to put with being put second to his needs and decisions. It is very important to him that you agree you are not a priority.


To a man who believes his wife feelings are not a priority, everything is fine. And as for 'not telling him'....

You feel guilty because you're not telling the addict how to get his share of cake from you? Remember that he only misses the share of cake you give him, he doesn�t miss a marriage where he puts his wife first because he doesn't want one.

Besides which, you should be telling him. Tell him things are NOT fine.

Not that 'I will be cutting all communication on x date' but just tell him he is in real risk of losing you, and soon, without verifiable actions. Tell him his affection is not enough without actions and being actively cared for. Give him the list of actions you need to see and tell him not meeting them will see you consider his attitude to the marriage as less than serious.

Insist.

And then when you go into Plan B, you tell him again about your plans.

The Plan B letter is more than just information, you are giving specific directions on how he can reach you and how he can have a great marriage with you. In his shoes, wouldn�t you LOVE to get a Plan B letter so you could tell the IM you are ready to have a great marriage?

Plan B is not sneaky or underhanded. It is very upfront. You can be easily reached by a sincere husband, so you are not hiding or even cutting contact at all. It is the wayward who decides to not make contact by not giving up IB and addiction.

You feel guilty, because you think you should stick around to take continual abuse from someone who is not sincere... and that is because you have been gaslighted for a long time into believing that is what your role 'should' be.

Thanks Indie, you always hit the nail right on the head!

That's the problem I have with this site -- my WH doesn't have a current "OW" per se, he just doesn't want to put our marriage first and that's my main concern. I always think that because he doesn't have an OW meeting his needs that the concepts here may not apply but that doesn't change the fact that he's insisting on me continuing to be his cheerleader while he puts his life ahead of our marriage.

That includes past infidelities, refusal to follow POJA, and LBs, which I'm starting to realize are probably enough for me to do Plan B, even if PB isn't meant specifically for these reasons. It's also enough for me to just end the marriage, but I don't want to do that. I want to give WH a chance to come back to the marriage, IF he's willing to change.

Still feel guilty though, *sigh*. I believe the guilt will also pass if I go into PB.

My plan for now is to be more clear with him about what I need from the marriage and to test his claims that he is willing to follow POJA and EPs. He called a female friend of his the other day that lives here with me in Minnesota and I still haven't confronted him on it. Either he doesn't understand that EPs mean he can't even call long distance females because that would mean maintaining a female friendship or he agreed to that too but is still just doing what he wants.

And YES, if I were in his shoes I'd be delighted to receive a PB letter. Unfortunately, my WH's mind is world's different from mine.

He's the very creative, abstract, musician and poetry type and I'm the concrete, science, math and medical type. We complement each other so well but then can't see eye to eye on many things because I'm left brained and he's right.

Well I'm off for a run with my sweet puppy and then to brunch with a friend. I was so glad to see your message this morning because it was spot on in understanding my situation. This was a real pick me up for me after lying in bed till nearly 10am brooding and feeling low. Lying in bed is a BAD sign for me. I usually hit the ground running on my days off and that's the way I thrive. I need to stop moping and begin my day!

He gave you crumbs ... you believed you had a loaf of bread. The key here is to step away and work on yourself until you believe within yourself you deserve an entire loaf.

I am sorry he is such a crappy husband ... life is very lonely in his world ... he won't get far being intimiateless with people.

How is your Plan B preperation going?

You saw my post on how to Plan B properly and Plan B sample letters?

Not at all. Plan B was designed specifically for your situation. Spouses with a partner who refuses to POJA (but has never had an A) are advised to Plan A six months, Plan B up to two years because failure to follow POJA is relationship cancer.

When infidelity is linked in to the problem, the BS is advised go into Plan B much sooner, simply because the pain is more acute.

The reasons for going into Plan B are refusal to NC the OP or refusal to follow a recovery program in full - which includes POJA.

So you are exactly in the 'needs to Plan B' category, you are not a special case at all! Many waywards ditch their OW but dont want to recover properly. They all needing to be Plan B'd.



Honey, no. I was the creative abstract type in my realtionship. I can paint, I write fiction, I can quote you reams of poetry...but I struggle with basic math, being on time and generally being organised. None of which has anything to do with my boundaries around men.

My H is a physics whizz, logical to the core, but when his addiction to a woman who fed his admiration need bit, his logic went out the window.

Pretty bad day today. I tested the waters on renegotiating where we will live, making it very clear that I was not demanding he live in Minnesota, and WH got upset and said no he couldn't do this. He likes where he is, his dad is there, he has a job. Then many truths came out.

He told me that he wouldn't give up anything he loved just because I'm not enthusiastic about it. He said he's sick of all the "games" I've been playing (the recovery plan) and will not go through with any of it until I come to be with him in Texas. I remained calm and told him I would love to come be with him just as soon as he met my conditions for marriage recovery (including agreeing to POJA).

At least he's being honest now. Before he said that he agreed to POJA but I could tell he was reluctant and when tested he showed me that he'll only follow POJA if it's not something that's important to him. Now I'm having doubts about asking him to renegotiate where we will live. Maybe this was too much? I guess it doesn't matter because he also said that he will not play softball (instead of baseball so I can be on the team too), rent a sailboat (instead of buy) and will go into business with his cousin (who is a former drug dealer so I obviously object). Before he agreed that we could negotiate these things but was vague and I didn't think he was being genuine. It took me bringing up where we will live to break through that I suppose because it's hard to be vague on that point.

Well I guess this means I have to prepare for Plan B, unless he changes his mind. What's the point of drawing this out if I already know that he won't follow POJA, not to mention he still refuses a polygraph. I'm so sad -- I really think this means the end, although I guess there is some hope that Plan B will draw him out of his refusals. I took down all our wedding pictures today and just feel empty. I have tickets to go visit him May 1 but I don't think that will happen now, unless I decide to do Plan B afterwards. I don't think I can handle seeing him again though when I know it's probably over for us. It will be so incredibly sad for me and I'll feel guilty and awful if I attempt to use that for some additional Plan A.

I can't believe my marriage may be ending over an internet affair only to come to the realization that my marriage problems are serious and my husband is not willing to change for this m. I never thought this would be me, never thought we'd be without each other.

You could easily start your Plan B when you come back from the trip. You know--do a super Plan A, and then go dark once you come back.

It's going to be difficult. It's going to hurt. But you have to do this, for you.

He needs to learn that you will not cave.

Have you told him you will not stay in a marriage where you dont have an eual say in where you live? Where you dont have the full truth of a poly? Have you spelled out that it will (eventually) lead to a divorce?

If you've demonstrated that you can meet ENs, and you have stood up for yourself and insisted on a full recovery, then there is nothing to feel guilty about. You offer a great marriage and he refuses because it would require work on his part.

If he DOES understand it's an ultimatum, then he has chosen this.

Remember a lot of people in your situation would go straight to divorce and not offer any chances.

Plan B is not necessarily the end. It gives him a chance to test drive his choice and see if it fits. Two posibilites are a result.

a) He misses the needs you meet. But he is so lazy that no amount of mising you will get him to agree to a relationship where he has to behave like a buyer.
b) He misses the needs you met to the extent he agrees to care for you as you care for him.

Sometimes people choose a bad pair of shoes. But they have to walk a few miles in those shoes to really 'get it'. Let him have his cheap shoes, that he didnt have to work very hard for, and see how he likes them.

Did you ever talk to your H about emailing Dr. Harley like DR. Harley suggested?

Yes I have spoken to him about this several times. He says he will email Dr. Harley but he hasn't gotten around to it yet.

Then that is definitely a sign bigger than Dallas, to move to Plan B like Dr. Harley stated.

So how is your Plan B preposition coming? You find an IM? Write the Plan B letter yet?

I'm going to give him a bit more time. I know I shouldn't, but I feel strong right now and want to see if I he changes his mind.