Good job for exposing to OMBW. What has been done on this?


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.

This is great work because you've busted up his 'I'm getting divorced - wait on the backburner' juggling moves. You've also forced your wife to see he will always dump her when push comes to shove for his own wife.

You have done the poor woman a favour, as much as possible, by giving her at least some tools to defend her marriage against resumed contact. She's on her third DDay because she prefers plan blind-hope and trust over effective destruction of the source of addiction.

Do every item on the checklist! No scrimping!

Your wife is changing contact details too right?

Again...we are not married. We live 2 hrs apart. Both work full time a juggle our kids. I realize a lot of this material is not going to apply or work for us given our situation.

Right now i am at a low i have never felt. I have a counseling session tomorrow. I hope this lady is ready for whats on my plate.

For those who have followed i will give an update. Maybe you can offer good advice. This past week after i finally was able to contact the lovers spouse this turned for the better. I had confronted my ex wife that i knew she was still making attempts to talk with him and planted enough information to make her realize any attempt she makes will be made known to me by the lovers wife.

From there i had been gifted a bad experience that presented me the opportunity to make new love deposits and show her that i was a good option. One of our kids had a surgery that turned bad last weekend. I took 4 days off work and made several 3 hr trips to be with them in the hospital. So i followed plan A and showered her with support and met a lot of her needs.

But she was still resisting a lot of things that bothered me. She had no desire to earn my trust. She said once we were friends again i could see her phone email fb everything. Then a few days later told me we were friends but refused to hand over her phone. She kept saying things that made me think she was looking to buy herself time...a clue she is still doing things with other men and trying to juggle us.

So i snuck in a look at her phone. Nothing horrible but i saw conversations with other guys about going out and partying. So last night i confronted her in a nice way and made it seem that whatever she told me i would be fine with. She confessed to sleeping around with other guys after our divorce.

It still hurt me. A lot. I went in another room and cried. She came in and started yelling at me. Stating excuses that it shouldn't bother me because we were divorced and it was not of my business anyway. I cried more and tried to leave. She faught me so hard on leaving. Stood in the door crying and begging me to stay to talk. After a while she let me go but i saw that her ego stepped in and she was now mad at me. After i left i tried coming back i thought i made a mistake and should have talked with her. But at this point her ego and anger would not allow me back. So now we are not talking. Please help

If you are not here for the advice of this program why are you here? We can't offer anything else. Personal opinions are deleted.

Besides it does apply. The marriage might have ended but the affair never did. A typical MB affair recovery often involves a remarriage after a divorce obtained by deception.

You all have experience and i trust that. Iv never been through this before...i dont have the ability to see my situation from the outside like all of you. If my situation still applies please help me see how...and how to make use of these books.

I am about all frazzled out. Just when we start talking she releases more truth that cuts me back down. I know he suggests plan A be 6 months for a man but wow how can i do this?

Would you want to remarry?

At this point i dont know. Its like reliving the day she told me about the affair. I question her as a person with any moral ethics and feel sick one minute for this being the woman i had loved married and had kids with then the next minute im ready to forgive her just to have project hope of a better relationship and marriage

Ok. Well you've done exposure which is the most critical step - for your own personal recovery even if not for marriage recovery.

Now you have to decide which side of the train tracks to jump off to. You can't stand in the middle indefinitely it's what Dr H calls 'plan confusion' - marital contact with an unremorseful wayward with no plan only breeds conflict.

I know you're both legally divorced but she wasn't legally entitled to divorce for her own adultery - which is what she did. You can let the divorce stand if it suits you but dont swallow her nonsense that she's free and clear morally. You are her only redemption route.



It's up to you.

Remember you've just gotten a massive dose of trickle truth about further adultery which is very traumatic. She would object to that term so don't use it, but your heart knows.Also she came running home to the man she still sees as her husband when OM dumped her. You may feel better able to take up plan a in a few days. I would strongly urge anti depressants during this time.

I'd reveal the boyfriends issue to close family too as part of your exposure pleas for them to persuade her to work on the marriage. She's clearly very embarrassed and ashamed of that, which is promising.

Even if not plan Aing I would see a lawyer regarding what you can do to protect your children from male callers. That is a serious safety issue and she is not her old self. Dodgy men prey on single mothers.



Ethics have nothing to do with affairs. The more a person prides themselves on them the more likely you are to have affairs. Anyone who has a close rewarding OS relationship will eventually fall for them and this will seriously affect their judgment. This process is reversed by having her come to lean on you instead.

Dr H says use logic to decide if the plan is worth it. Children make a strong case for logic but you don't have to recover if you don't want to.

Is plan B an option for my situation. Because right now she will not speak to me. Im expecting her to withhold my time with the kids again as a way to punish me. I dont see her giving me even a chance within the next month to meet any of her emotional needs. But i feel like in a few months time or so, with no contact from me,she will be reaching out again needing me. But during that time she may also pick up more guys. How do you go about meeting someones needs when they resist it?

I also felt the same way about our divorce. 2 wrongs dont make anything right.

No one reached out to her during my exposure. People gossiped which greatly got to her but no one said anything supportive to her face. Her family supported the affair and they believe a lot of her lies. Her dad is non existing, workaholic,and rarely says 2 words. Her mother is the iron fist of the family and believes her children walk on water. The last time she called and yelled at me she told me she didnt care what her daughter did she would support her cause shes her daughter.

Resistance is always the case in Plan A. If there were no resistance, it would not be Plan A, it would be recovery. However in spite of a choice to refuse Plan A- it is impossible to refuse lovebank deposits because they are unconscious. It's why most of us love things (like doughnuts or affairs) that are not good for us. We simply don't have a choice. What you do is you make deposits that she DEFINITELY will continually refuse. But just the offer, the persistence, the sense of someone utterly there for you in spite of everything is what wins out a WW over time.



I am a huge fan of Plan B and it saved my life - but it does absolutely nothing to recover a marriage - it is for the purposes of protecting your health if the A starts to affect you.It has a side effect of protecting the marriage from harm (if the BS starts to have a break down and become unattractive they will also harm the marriage) but it doesn't actually repair anything in the marriage.

It is especially ineffective on women because women require a great deal of needs meeting and will go to the person who has shown or offered them the most care. Men tend to have more resilient lovebanks which can withstand a period of neglect.

Dr H tells men to Plan A as long as possible. Her not talking to you is not a big deal; your only job is to offer needs, not enforce them, like offer of water in the desert. This makes you attractive no matter whether she drinks. And the longer she thirsts the more attractive you get. Besides her not talking to you gives you a chance to take breaks - and this is a marathon, not a sprint.

Only Plan B if you have hit a wall and can't be attractive any more.



Then essentially you care more for her than anyone else. You are fighting for her, others are quite happy to give her up to whatever scum wants her so long as they personally don't sufffer any awkward, difficult or unpleasant experiences.

Your bravery and selflessness will prevail and there will come a time when her mother's willingness to sell her to the highest bidder for selfish, lazy reasons will not be fondly remembered by your wife.

Thank you for the help. I never saw plan A in that way. This gives me some hope. But it will be hard. Her main emotional need is....conversation. She also loves gifts, surprises, notes, cards...etc. I am also very aware of her need for help with the kids. Her family helps her a lot but get sick of helping her. I wish i had the kids all the time. Im sure if she even speaks to me on my next days off she will tell me if i want the kids i have to drive all the way to get them rather than meet. Should i do that or hold firm to meeting half way? She would object to meeting and be forced to find last minute care for them.

I would even go as far as getting a tattoo...which she really likes. Iv been wanting one anyway. Iv also been losing weight and working out again and dressing nice in new clothes when she sees me. My body got lost in our years of marriage i know that was one thing she initially loved. Our first date was a blind date. Later she admitted that she was really intimidated by my physique.

Could you meet her and invite her along to an activity? It could help your plan A.

How far are you living from her?

We are 2 hrs apart. Right now she wont speak. Im not to the point of being able to invite her to anything

Inviting her on somewhere with the kids is a good Plan A starter. For example, would she want to go shopping for kids Christmas presents with you or tag along to the zoo, etc.

Plan A is crazy hard. There's no visible encourament at all and your wife will be viciously hostile. That's why ADs are required.



Then simply be available for conversation. If someone is prone to being thirsty they'll eventually drink. Mug up on topics she's interested in. Ask about her problems. Remain available shutdown after shutdown.



Plan A means having no expectations. Why would a WW want to help you out? You can't expect consideration until her love bank is considerably softer. If you go out of your way you'll make automatic deposits, she'll start relying on you and you'll get to see them a lot more.



See how plan a goes first. I think this would be a cool and flirtatious topic of conversation though.

I want to thank you guys for helping me. Today i saw a counselor. I went with expectations that she would not have the proper tools or experience to deal with my situation. I was right but she is very experienced and can help me heal and become better just for myself and my kids regardless of my relationship status. It was great to just unload to someone. I informed her of Dr. Harley and his book. She was very unsure and surprised at this whole approach to an affair but she herself wanted to look into his material. I plan to make this a regular way to deal with my depression as i dont wish to use medication. I have seen medication work well...and fail horribly. Id rather take this approach and heal by building new habits and a better life...something i wont have to quit one day like medication.

So thank you for the help. I am going to do my best at being my WWs best option. And even if it fails i will be in a better position to deal with moving on.

This counselor will be a detriment to your recovery. The road to recovery is a very narrow one, and any deviation leads to disaster. The last thing you need is a counselor who is "unsure."

Just as an aside, I found it extremely easy to quit antideprssant medication after my marriage was better. I had to take it for awhile at the end of the recovery process because I was just so absolutely out of motivation after trying so hard for so long. My emotions told me to stop and the medication allowed me to think rationally and follow a plan that I knew would make things better even though I didn't feel like following it.