Did you have a question about the program?

I am sorry for interferring, but I couldn't help my self. I was in the same position like you. I was resisting exposure advices and I made my wifes emotional affair go physical. You have no idea how far the affair can go if you are late for exposure. Please listen to advices. Please don't do the mistakes that I have done. Read everything CARREFULLY about exposure and Plan A. And act ASAP. This is a very narrow and painful road. But I believe it is essential for your marital recovery. The later you act the more they go far and the more pain you experience.

I like the success stories, but I can't get myself to pull the trigger. It just feels wrong. It might work, but it might also go sideways and backfire. I don't think I'd be able to look at myself in the mirror. I cannot use the ends to justify the means. Maybe I could tell a few people: I've already told her immediate family, I could possibly tell 2 other of her friends, and maybe the OM's parents, but that's it. But I'm afraid that there are equal number of success stories for every terrible story. I'd like to pull the trigger and tell people of the affair, but I won't feel right. I'm sorry.


p.s. I can't even get myself to snoop on her text messages, even though I want to. I'm afraid what I'll find and I'll start hating her.

Don't be sorry to us, we are in recovered marriages (or have personal recovery). You are the one who is willing to suffer through enabling an affair indefinitely. We are sorry to hear that you are an enabler who makes decisions based on fear and not reason. We know it will bring you death by a thousand cuts.

First off, feelings are not truth, but I suspect you don't know the difference. You are very driven by your emotions and typically, folks who can't put aside their emotions and follow a plan don't make it. I would suggest you are in that category.

And no, a trickle exposure won't help, it will cause more harm than good.



Would you agree that you are very driven by your emotions? That is unusual in grown males and will be a major hindrance to recovery.

My suggestion would be to make a decision to put aside your emotions and allow your logic and reason to dictate your thinking. Your emotions are not serving you well.

I am very much driven by logic - much to the the consternation of my wife, actually. Logically, I am thinking that there are many instances on this forum where people saved their marriages using the Plan A/B model. But logically there has to be many instances where Plan A/B didn't work. What is the percentage of the plan working vs not working? Logically I am thinking if this doesn't work, it would make sense that friends/family/my wife would see my actions as immature. It may complicate co-parenting and make the divorce that much worse. I am also worried that this plan may work for many people but it may not be tailored fit for me and my wife and our personalities.

One of her complaints of me was that I didn't listen to her - that I always thought I was right and had to get my way. That is true in many instances but that is partly because she didn't speak up. Plus, I think the affair fog has made her think that things were always like that and I didn't care to make her happy and that's not true. I've told her that that now that I know what she was feeling, I would be a psychopath not to take steps to ensure she has more of a voice in the marriage. If it weren't for the affair, then she might agree.

However, if I were to do Plan A/B, then it may solidify her thinking that I must have everything my way - that I don't listen to her.

Logically, I feel like I don't have enough info. What are the rates of success and failure. What does failure look like?

Also logically, I don't even know if the affair is still going on. Maybe she already came to the conclusion that the affair wouldn't work out. In the summer, he (36) had expressed a desire to eventually want kids and she (39) wasn't sure if she wanted more kids. So maybe the affair is no more. I don't know. I could probably do some snooping to find out for sure, but I'm afraid of the other things I may find which may affect how I look and react to her. This last point is probably driven by emotions.

The chances are 50/50 for Plan A and 100% for Plan B. However, your odds of success on your current path are extremely low as you can see. Logically you can see your own path has not worked.


Logically, our objective is to save your marriage, not to gain/lose approval of those who have no investment.


Enabling her affair is more likely to lead to divorce. Our goal is to save your marriage. You are obviously not the best judge of what should be "tailored fit" for you and your wife.

You have no experience or expertise at this and have impaired objectivity. You are the least objective person on this thread.

Anyway, if you decide you want help, fine, we are here. If not, then I wish you well.

What is the percentage of success of your current plan?

I am seeing what MAY be improvements while I am following my current plan. She is allowing me to hang out with both her and the kids more. Before she was concerned if that was giving false hope to the kids or me. She is allowing me to joke around and talk to her more. It's very small improvements. I still feel her being guarded and having her wall up. But little by little I feel like I'm chipping away at her wall.

You are right. I'm not very objective. That is why I am seeing answers outside of myself. Everyone has their biases. I asked my coach about her plan versus the Plan A/B plan and she herself admitted that she is biased. She has seen more success with my current plan and she has seen things go sideways with a plan like Plan A/B.

Right now, the current plan seems like it may be working. It's possible it's not. In the back of my mind, I fear that I'm falling in the friend/co-parenting category. I try not to fall into that category by every once in awhile making a sexual innuendo, or a comment that a friend/co-parent would not make but a husband would.

Here's the thing about which plan is successful or not, you need to define 'success.' If you define success as simply staying married, it is possible that her affair die a natural death and she simply decides it is easier to stay married.

But Dr Harley's plan includes marital recovery from affairs. Staying married isn't even the half of it. Recovering from a devastating affair and having a healthy loving marriage is not an easy task, and there is a very narrow path to follow to achieve that successful outcome.

It starts with exposure. Even if you just kept being nice and enabling, and her OM left her or their affair died a natural death, the end result would not be SUCCESS. It would just be marriage at all cost.

Your enabling in that situation would allow the deception to continue, as you continue to keep the secret of this devastating situation to everyone around you. This enabling of deception doesn't just perpetuate her affair. It also perpetuates her wayward state of mind. The fact that she never had to face up to the affair will allow her to continue in the affair fog, long after the affair is over. This makes it easy to start another one, and definitely makes it next to impossible for you to recover from the affair or create an integrated loving marriage.

Furthermore, the plan for recovery is a narrow path, which includes putting precautions into place that would prevent more affairs. Things like never having contact with OM again, having full transparency. If you just simply sweep the affair under the rug, how willing do you think she will be to follow a recovery plan?

So I challenge you to rethink your definition of success. EVEN IF your inexperienced plan leads to staying married, when there will be no actual affair recovery, is that success to you?

You are posting in the divorce section.

We don't view this as improvement because we understand the dynamic of infidelity. Every wayward wants to be "friends" with their spouse so she wlll feel less guilty about her destructive behavior. Our idea of "improvement" would be a reconciled marriage with a plan to a) affair proof the marriage and b) create romantic love.


Then you don't need our help, do you? Best of luck to you.

unwritten: that is a fair point.

However, my plan does include a recovery from the affair. We will need to work with the coach. She will need to quit her job. Most likely, we may end up moving. Her siblings and folks already know about the affair, so if we move, then her coworkers and friends do not need to know since they will not be major influencers at that point.

In the end, I define success as getting my wife to start to date me, having her fall back in love with me, having her move back in with me, working together and with a therapist to improve our communication skills, setting up a plan to continue to date my wife on a daily/weekly/yearly basis. I have learned a lot these past few months on what I should have been doing all these years. If given the opportunity, I firmly believe we can make our marriage stronger. Statistically, that is usually what happens after an affair happens and the couple decides to reconcile.

Just a suggestion, why not write Dr Harley at his radio show and get his advice? (It is free) He would completely oppose the plan put forth by your marriage coach and he can explain why. He would tell your coach that "it's hard to save a marriage when you are an enabler." This had been our long experience on this forum. It won't hurt you to get the perspective of an experienced professional. His email address is mbradio@marriagebuilders.com

P.s. You will find that your wife will do none of those things you wish for as long as there is an active affair because her lovebank is closed to you. As long as that is the case your efforts will avail nothing other than a "friendship." I am certain you have detected that her lovebank is closed to you.

The MB program is the most logic plan you will find (if you find a better one please inform me, I love logic).

The goal is to recover from an affair with the smallest amount of damage. The goal of exposure is to kill the affair. The alternative, waiting for the affair to die a natural death, will do more damage.

It might succeed eventually, but there will be more damage to recover from. Every step of the program is better than any alternative.

Why are you here if you want a "tailor made" approach and don't agree with Plan A/Plan B? Sounds like you have a good cheerleader "marriage coach" for doing your current plan (which has led you to divorce).

What is the point?

Before I started to seeing my marriage coach, I was doing everything wrong. I was using logic to explain it makes sense to stay together, why she'd eventually fall back in love with me if she were to try. Basically I was telling her that she was wrong and I have the right answer. She didn't want to hear something like that. The marriage coach helped me to stop the bleeding.

I agree that if the affair is still going on, then her love bank is closed to me. The plan is to wait out the affair, but I agree that the danger in that approach is that I'm enabling her bad behavior just as she had once been enabling my bad behavior by not saying anything. That is why I am here. The Plan A/B does have some logic behind it. Both approaches make sense. That's is why I am conflicted.

p.s.
If I were to do Plan A/B, then I would 1st need to confirm that an affair is still going on. I could snoop on her, but I'm afraid I'd see her talking poorly about me behind my back and the conversation may be just a snapshot of what she thinks but she may actually think other (positive) things about me which she may not express over text.

I could hire a PI to tail her, but that could be expensive. Plus if I pick the wrong week to tail her, then she may not meet up with the guy that week and I'll have a wrong sense that she's no longer seeing him.

How would you propose I verify that she is still seeing him?

Dr Harley's Plan A for men recommends filling EN's and avoiding lovebusters and being the better option for 6 months or more. The difference between this and your enabling approach, is that it is coupled with fighting the affair.

You should be doing everything in your power to run this dirtbag off and end this affair. Sitting by the sidelines while your wife runs around with another man, not doing everything you can to stop that destructive behavior, just shows a complete lack of care for her. I would feel very uncared for if my husband just sat back and watched me walk out the door to another man without fighting for me.