<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>As I stated before, I guess I am different from most people here,<hr></blockquote>
Well, FA, not at all different from me. I related entirely to your feelings after dday. I also expected the A's to end immediately and they did. My W very willingly gave up all contact, and became accountable for all her time. <p>It was enough dealing with all the emotional turmoil. I looked at her behaviors as an addiction that you must stop cold. If she had wanted to continue anything, like you, I told her where the front door was.<p>I also admit that I let my anger out. No, I would never hit her, but I yelled, and called her names. It's hared to explain to the plan A proponents, but at least in our case, the venting of the anger served a useful purpose in our recovery. It's like a test really. After the damage the WS has done, they must withstand some of the repercussions, and stick around. Kind-of a sign of love the BS desperately needs. This issue is covered a bit in "Torn Asunder". If she had left over my angry outbursts, I would have accepted it as what was for the best.<p>David

Paul,
I believe your W will see him for what he is in time. I think it will just take time. It could be a loooonnnnggggg time, and it could happen as a result of a Plan B, when it comes time, because she will be relying on OM completely for all her EN's, and he will fail miserably.<p>Does your W have a history of being in abusive/violent relationships? (I'm not saying that YOU are this way... but possibly other relationships before you were married.) It could be that she thinks his behavior is ok.

Paul Bradley <p>Violence is never ok. You made an interesting point. The OM is not violent to your wife, yet. If they stay together long enough he will be because that is his way of dealing with frustrations.<p>As for the thought that you might be too laid back. Plan A is not meant to be long term. During Plan A there are few boundaries set for the WS by the BS. So it cannot go on long, it is inhumane to the BS. If you read the MB material, Dr. Harley clearly states this. <p>The entire point of Plan A is to get to a point where the BS and WS set boundaries for their relationship, the WS agrees to no contact and to work on the marriage. If this does not happened then the next step is Plan B.<p>I think that people often misinterpret Plan A and the MB material to mean that the BS puts up and shuts up. This is wrong. Remember radical honesty? It important that the BS tell the WS exactly how the feel and what their limits are. <p>There are very, very few marriages that recover after a long term Plan A.. at least that’s my observation. <p>In my case, I did hit my H a few times on d-day and right after. None of the hitting was hard enough to even phase him… I’d need a 2x4 to start to make any physical impact on him. I also threw a few things. I was so hurt that I lost it. If he cannot forgive me those incidents then how can he expect me to forgive him 2.5 years of lying and cheating? <p>I was very firm with my H. From day one I made it clear that there had to be no contact from that moment on. Any contact meant the end of our marriage. He was the one who Plan A’d me because I had no interest in saving our marriage. I wanted him out of my life. My concerns were more how to tell everyone that my new marriage was over and how to get him out of my home without hurting our children too much. I was also worried about the physical well being of his children as they cannot go to their mother and I could not see how he could keep them any longer.<p>I do not believe in tolerating any out of hand behavior for even one day. And I feel that the success I have experienced to date is because of that, not in spite of that. The more tolerant we are of people crossing our boundaries, the longer they will do it.<p>Loosing a WS is not the worse thing that can happen to a person. I wish I could have divorced my ex-H long before I did. I plan A’d that man for years. He simply used it to walk all over me. I’ll never do that again.<p>The trick is that a person can stand firm in their boundaries without love busting. There is no need to yell, holler or be physically violent. If I had done that I would not be married today. <p>But I have told my H, in a very calm, gracious tone exactly how and feel and what I need.. from day one. Tough love is the only thing that works. And MB is a tough love concept.<p>If he ever cheats again, it would be end of our marriage. Period.<p>Perhaps you could make an appointment with Dr. Harley to get his advice on your situation.

Well , I don't know. No, there's no benefit to violence. But I have no golf balls to smack and I haven't played tennis in years. I have kids at home and I need to be as even keeled as I can. A big part of my job is smiling at and getting along great with dozens of people every day, all day. (I got in trouble once when a guest sitting at my bar complained that during an extremely busy Saturday night during the holidays, and while I was making upwards of three drinks a minute, I didn't smile at him enough.) <p>It can assure you that throwing a few things around can be a great release of pent up anger and frustration. I did it a few times. I guess I just don't care so much about my "stuff". If it broke, it broke. Otherwise I cleaned it up. I'm well aware that it was possibly the second-worst way of dealng with it. But it did happen and it did help me cope at a time when I could see no other way around it. Live and learn. <p>Snow

Paul,
Here's a link to some info regarding domestic violence.... it may or may not be of interest to you.<p>http://www.marriagebuilders.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=37&t=011045