I have been working my way through Plan A after dealing with an affair. My WW, and I have been together 17 years and married for 13 years. We have 4 kids, aged 15, 10, 8, and 7. I started the Marriage Builders program 5 years ago when my WW first had an affair.

I have had issues with depression and social anxiety and that created an environment for this to occur. I�ve been a long term Love Buster factory, but I�ve had a good past month with only a couple slip ups. I am personally on a strong road to recovery and haven�t felt this way since I was in high school when we first started dating.

OM #1 was one of my soldiers when I was in the army. I was struggling with work and depression. We lived overseas and I was withdrawing and not meeting her emotional needs. I brought him home the day before he was to separate from the army to take him to the airport. They had a conversation after I�d gone to bed and the EA was off and running in 2009. It only turned into a PA once I made the mistake of letting her attend a nascar race with him, foolishly not understanding what was going on. I got counseling for myself and started Plan A, and we reconciled August 2010. However, I didn�t keep on with the program and recovery was incomplete. I never managed my resentment and it turned into a string of Love Busters, and before long, we were right back where we started.

OM #2 and my WW started talking after meeting at Oktoberfest in September 2014. This was an EA and lasted until December 2014 when he took back his ex-wife. They still texted regularly and were friendly until I blocked communication in early June 2015.

OM #3 was the response to that breaking off. My WW was seeking out all the men she had ever had contact with and started texting and calling him in January 2015. The start of the PA was in March and it lasted until the end of May. We had a deep conversation about life and that ended the calling, but they stayed in contact until I also blocked phone communication.

I have exposed to all relevant people, however, there are still so many walls still erected. My WW has stated that she has broken off all contact, as OM #2 and OM #3 are relatives of her brother�s girlfriend and could destroy their relationship. She�s in pretty hard withdrawal and meeting her needs is so hard. We�ve gone on a number of awesome dates and I�ve made as many Love Bank deposits as I can, but I still struggle with patience and paranoia that something is still going on.

I am fighting the good fight for my wife, my kids and my marriage. I�m coming here to hopefully get some good advice and support from all the awesome, experienced people here. I have to hope and believe for the both of us, because right now she has no interest in continuing.

Hi Biovouac, what was your former posting name?

I have been digging through old threads trying to find it, but I just don't remember. It would be informative to see my state of mind back then.

Your depression and anxiety is very likely connected to the abusive environment in which you operate. People who deal with adultery too long experience serious physical and emotional damage. Living like this will continue to affect your health in a very damaging way. You will reach a point where you can't recover.

I think you should accept that your wife is not going to change. Oddly, you imagine that you are the CAUSE of her serial adultery, but multiple affairs indicate a spouse who is looking for action. So her affairs have nothing to do with unmet needs. She has them because she is actively LOOKING. And will continue to do so.

As she seeks out more and more affairs, your physical and emotional health will continue to erode. Your best bet is to separate and go into Plan B.

All these affairs did not happen as a result of anything other than your WW's poor boundaries. Often we see BH's want to absolve their WW's of responsibility for having an affair/s and blame themselves.

Your WW is a serial cheater and that this is going to much different to turn around than a regular one-time affair situation - if it is even possible. She would have to dramatically change her lifestyle and make cheating and a SSL and OS relationships impossible. Do you realize this?

Unless she is willing to make a radical change in her lifestyle you are not safe with her. Will she make a radical change in her lifestyle and stop trolling for action? Will she adhere to this checklist?

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.


Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____ Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.

I am not trying to make excuses for you, but it would be pretty hard for anyone to exercise control when they are abused for year after year after year. One of the reasons Dr Harley tells people to separate [Plan B] from cheating spouses is because the longer they are within such an environment the harder it is to control love busters, making it much less likely to ever recover. Your marriage may never recover, but separation would protect you from more harm and protect your wife from your love busters.

Plan A for men should last around 6 months and you have been at this for YEARS. So Plan A is no longer appropriate. Plan B would be appropriate. I would visit an attorney and find out your rights and file for divorce.

Have you told your children about their mother's infidelities?

When I say that OS relationships would have to be impossible, I am saying that literally. You cannot bring male coworkers home around her and she cannot go outside of the house for drinks or errands etc where the possibility for male interaction exists. That is too risky for a cheater like your WW.

Your situation reminds me of another poster we had a few years ago who also blamed himself, didn't take EPs seriously enough and his WW went on to have more affairs with people like the mechanic that she only had minimal interaction with. That's how you should view your W.

For myself, I was raised in a shame-centered household. This has all become clear to me through my new counselor I�ve been seeing. I never dealt with my shame from the time I was young until I had a revelation on May 30. I actually missed out on a job I�ve wanted my whole life and I was able to let go of all the baggage that was holding me down. Personally, I haven�t felt this good about myself, in spite of what�s going on right now, for most of my adult life. I�ve established a new foundation with so many people in the last few weeks that I�m feeling really encouraged by myself right now, no matter what the future holds.


I�ve been the primary caregiver for the last 5 years. A couple of my faults were that I withdrew into the house and the kids too much and didn�t prioritize time with my wife. I have so much fear that I am going to irreparably hurt my kids if I walk out right now without giving Plan A a solid try.


For most of our relationship, I have not had the courage to establish boundaries with her. My social anxiety has kept me locked in my little room, but I�ve come so far lately that I�m not afraid of doing the hard work to keep her safe from her weaknesses. We do need to change our lifestyle and eliminate the dishonesty and independent behavior that has been going on.

We have had some pretty good years with each other until the last few months. I might over play my resentment issues because of the current situation. I have dug deep and there is no sign that anything was going on until last September. I kept my snooping up, but I got sloppy and missed the signs until intimacy started to suffer recently. But, maybe it's all an act and I've been an enabling pawn. Perhaps I need to consider more options than the path I've been taking.

Thats really cute, but I am talking about the present. Of course you don't feel good about yourself: you are living in an abusive, traumatic environment that you seem to enable. You would feel much better if you left the past in the past, focused on the present and separated from your wife.

Exploring your childhood will not help you make adult decisions and is a needless distraction at a time when your life is in chaos. You can choose to make good adult decisions. IT seems like you are avoiding the trauma of the present by focusing on the past. That is why you are in such a toxic, destructive relationship.




Plan A is over. You have been doing it for years. Plan A ws not meant to be a way of life for conflict avoiders. You should be in Plan B.



Yes, your plan does not work. It is time to accept that and do something about it before your wife destroys you completely.

I agree.

What you are doing is putting yourself in a dire position where you won't be able to parent your children because you will be hospitalized. Removing yourself from this toxic situation, and possibly taking your children with you, will be the safest scenario for you all. If you end up out of commission because of health reasons, your wife will just bring in a revolving parade of men.

You need to protect yourself for the sake of your children, because you are all they have.

Please read this Serial Cheaters