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I didn't mean to say that anyone's advice was wrong, but I will tell you that slinging mud at someone who is going through this, or making a betrayed feel like it is their fault that the affair took place is not part of the healing process.

The way it was explained to me this go around... You have to recover from the initial affair and set up the proper EP's and have the spouse want to carry them out for their own sake and protect the marriage above all else before you can even start to apply MB principles.

If I had taken straight MB advice I would have gone into Plan B to D immediately after this 2nd FR. And if I had gone into Plan B and then D, many of you would have been applauding because I was following the program.

The plan I recommend for recovery after an affair is very specific. That's because I've found that even small deviations from that plan are usually disastrous.

The plan I recommend for recovery after an affair is very specific. That's because I've found that even small deviations from that plan are usually disastrous. But when it's followed, it always works. The plan has two parts that must be implemented sequentially. The first part of the plan is for the unfaithful spouse to completely separate from the lover and eliminate the conditions that made the affair possible. The second part is for the couple to create a romantic relationship, using my Basic Concepts as a guide.

I'll describe these two parts to you in a little more detail.

The first step, complete separation from the lover and eliminating the conditions that made the affair possible, requires a complete understanding of the affair. All information regarding the affair must be revealed to the betrayed spouse, including the name of the lover, the conditions that made the affair possible (travel, internet, etc.), the details of what took place during the affair, all correspondence, and anything else that would shed light on the tragedy.

This information is important for two reasons: (1) it creates accountability and transparency, making it essentially impossible for the unfaithful spouse to continue the affair or begin a new one unnoticed, and (2) it creates trust for the betrayed spouse, providing evidence that the affair is over and a new one is unlikely to take its place. The nightmares you experience are likely to continue until you have the facts that
will lead to your assurance that your husband can be trusted.

An analysis of the wayward spouse's childhood or emotional state of mind in an effort to discover why he or she would have an affair is distracting and unnecessary. It takes precious time away from finding the real solutions. I know why people have affairs: We are all wired for it. Given certain conditions, we would all do it. Given other conditions, however, none of us would do it. So the goal of the first step is to discover the conditions that made the affair possible and eliminate them.

After the first step is completed, the second step is to create a romantic relationship between you and your husband using my 10 Basic Concepts here
as your guide. While your relationship may be improving, it won't lead to a romantic relationship because you are not being transparent toward each other. Unspoken issues in a marital relationship lead to a superficiality that ruins romance.

In my ramblings in a journal a bit ago I just came up with an idea of making a "No Contact Contract" for him to sign for me after he sends another no contact letter to POSOW. One that states that if he ever contacts "She Who Must Not Be Named" again that he has just filed for divorce. It won't be tolerated and there will be no "get out of jail free" card or "passing go" to collect his things. Maybe it is the only way I can get him to realize that I am dead serious about this and this crap won't be tolerated.

The way it was explained to me this go around... You have to recover from the initial affair and set up the proper EP's and have the spouse want to carry them out for their own sake and protect the marriage above all else before you can even start to apply MB principles.

Just lighted here to do an update. We had our 6th and 7th sessions with Steve last week.

I need to give some feedback here. When someone is coming here with a false recovery as devastating as this, please don�t start throwing stuff they know in their face and pounding them with it, especially when they have asked you nicely to stop. We don�t want to hear what idiots we are and what we did wrong. We want support. We�re also trying to share our stories so maybe some lost soul later will find the thread and get some help from it.

The facts are as follows: Since the October 2011 broken contact: WH had a business trip in Nov 2011 that we made into a one day trip so he would not stay overnight. He had one 3 day trip in February that frankly brought us a bit closer together since we got to talk on the phone and email/text more often than we do when he�s at work... And we did �pillow talk� both nights until one or the other fell asleep. There was a one day trip again March of 2012 with no overnight. Other than that there has been NO travel up until late August. Travel IS NOT our #1 problem. It is still a �travel job�, but it is SO much less in this past year than previously � because we�ve pushed for that. We did put that EP in place after October. This trip in August was supposed to be a one night trip, but he got �bumped� on his way back and �had to spend the night� to catch a flight the next morning. I smelled a rat and confronted him when he got home� But not before the deed had been done. However, contact was made in July and they had a month of disgusting love emails/texts/phone calls that was just as damaging, if not more, and led to this. As a matter of fact, I did find out that she had planned to come up here a couple of weeks prior, but my WH told her then that I would have to know. That stopped that from happening.

Our #1 problem is this � WH put EP�s in place but never bothered to see that he needed to protect his weaknesses, which meant he also failed to protect me and our marriage. Was I meeting his ENs? Doesn�t matter because he was still addicted and had never come to the realization that there was no way to resist this if he as much as let the phone come to his ear or press the �send� button. This affair was rekindled twice because of that. He had no clue the severity of this addiction and how that �just one more hit� could blow everything completely up. He supposedly gets it now, but I�ve got to tell you I am worried about me sanely making it through 2+ more years of �recovery� at this point.

POSOW started this affair to �seek closure� on how things ended between them 30 years ago. She wasn�t going to quit until she got �complete closure�. And he was able to resist temptation for long periods of time (1 year the first time and 8 months the next). She sent him little texts or emails every few months � just to throw the line out to see if this time she�d get a bite. (We don�t know how many she did in-between as she had to do some sleuthing to find that she was sending to the wrong email or number and find the new one) He would tell me about it and we�d delete them together� but she managed to find him twice where he was weak in his resolve to protect his marriage (if we don�t count the first time � which I don�t count because there wasn�t a no contact plan in place at that point and we knew nothing about MB and having no contact with former lovers�)

So, my biggest issue is not travel. It�s that I have a WH who is so good at lying and compartmentalizing that Steve thinks that a lie detector would be a waste of time because he�d pass � because WH believes his own lies that well. RH is going to be next to impossible. He claims that the thought of the POSOW disgusts him at this point. Seriously? It�s only been 4 weeks. We rushed to recovery too quickly last year. It�s not going to happen again. I�m in no rush to recover this time because I need to know for a fact that he understands every little piece of MB and doesn�t skip a single morsel of info.

I�m staying strong, but only because I�m following exactly what Steve tells me and not straying from that. I talk to him and he gives me guidance. Then he gives guidance to and grills my WH. My WH�s comes out of it saying the right things and for the first time is actually listening to me, holding me when I�m suffering and saying the right things and laying things out without me �finding� them. I don�t have to pretend to be strong and put on a happy face. Steve has made me relax for the first time in 3 years. It is not up to me to recover. He�s set that fact squarely on my WH�s shoulders.

Steve thinks we can get through this and I believe we can if he really can get WH to understand this addiction. I do know that without his help at figuring this out, and if I was taking �advice� from the boards, I would have thrown him out and filed for D the week of August 27th. Truth was that I was meeting his needs as best I could, but even with his needs met and EP�s in place, he still had an addiction that he couldn�t resist �just one more hit� on. He finally gets it � or at least seems to.

My advice for anyone now dealing with a WH that has little remorse is to get them on the phone with Steve. If I had done that last October I think he may have gotten him to this point last year and it would have saved us from this latest mess. I just foolishly thought that I could train the dog myself after reading all the books. Nope. This dog had to want to do the right thing for himself, not for me. The no/little remorse was my red flag. I needed someone else to get him to understand. It couldn�t be me.