I've been thinking about this topic for some time and decided to start this thread due to a few discussions about ultimatums I saw today.

How do you define an "ultimatum" with respect to its affect (or lack of it) in dealing with infidelity?

Do you have personal experiences with such and if so, what did you do? (Or what did your spouse do to you?)

Did it work (have an impact on ending infidelity)?

If so, why do you think it worked?

If not, why not?

I have some thoughts on why the ultimatum I issued worked for us but I'm curious as to how it worked (or did not) for others.

I 'sort of' had a couple.

During plan A I wouldnt allow H to discuss OW, and reemed him out for suggesting we all go meet her.

Then I gave him a plan B letter (an ultimatum in itself) and told him he could choose to have no contact with her, or me.

Did it work? Well I never had to hear much about her, and sure as shinola didnt meet her. Didnt end the affair tho. Didnt make the affair unrewarding enough.

I only had a 16 day plan B. That seemed to help end the affair.

In reality, an ultimatum is nothing more that the STATEMENT and DEFENSE of our own personal boundaries.

As an example:

"I will not share my W" ... "Therefore, you have a choice to make, me or him, but it will no longer be BOTH".

There is no magic to this, and you know exactly where you stand right now ... not waiting months or years in LIMBO. You just have to be willing to defend your boundaries.

It worked for me, but we had a good M pre-A, and her actions were out of character. If the M was bad pre-A, it will be bad post-A, and would probably be better disolved to allow the partners to find more suitable mates.

Plan B worked for me, kept me from putting my kids through the wringer having their dad in and out of the house as I see with other families.

I didn't issue an ultimatum of any kind - we didn't have a standard situation, and my marriage didn't recover, and wouldn't have if I had issued one.

I completely agree with MyRev that an ultimatum is really only a statement of your personal boundaries. I don't think one should ever be issued unless you plan to back it up, because you will lose all credibility if you don't, and I think you should think long and hard before offering one. It isn't wise to go straight to an ultimatum if there are other boundary consequences that can be put into place that will meet your personal convictions.

The ultimatum is the last resort of "I am not willing to live with X situation." and protecting yourself.

I was thinking about this today as well.

Caveat - my wife did not have an affair. However, she skirted on the edge of one via a "friendship" with an ex-boyfriend that veered into some dangerous territory and had the potential of becoming an A. However, when he propositioned her, she said no.

When I found out how my wife felt - how unhappy she was in our marriage, and how she wanted a divorce - and I saw the emails to her ex-boyfriend, I could have responded with an ultimatum. Sort of. I could have demanded she stop talking to him (at the time, I wasn't sure if it was an affair or not). And I could have gotten angry that she was airing our problems with all of her friends.

In my case, I think that would have been a disaster, because my wife was truly unhappy with me and it was my fault.

It was not a great marriage, pre-discovery. However, it has become one since then.

But the epiphany I had was that I could not demand she stay in the marriage - and I could not argue her into staying, either. I realized I had to give her a reason to WANT to stay, and I realized she wasn't anywhere near that point, so an ultimatum would have been worse than useless.

Again, I wasn't dealing with a wayward spouse in the middle of the emotional entanglement of an affair - but I didn't know that for sure, and I did see borderline inappropriate emails to another man.

If your wayward spouse is having an exit affair and, therefore, running away from you moreso than cake-eating, an ultimatum is unlikely to work in your favor. With an exit affair, if you were viewed as an attractive choice, the affair wouldn't be happening.

Defining your goal and strategizing your overall approach is crucial. I wouldn't issue an ultimatum until you've done your research, developed a plan, and identified the type of affair in your marriage.

I issued an ultimatum with my ex. If he spent one more night at OW's house, he never came back into mine. (And: Yes, it was my house that I purchased before the marriage. He had established residency somewhere else in the legal sense. Therefore, I had both the right and legal authority to bar him from re-entry.) It worked. It utterly failed - as did other subsequent approaches - to address the problematic and completely unacceptable dynamics of the relationship.

An ultimatum - delivered calmly and confidently - may end an affair. It may not. However, it does nothing whatsoever to repair the broken marital relationship or address underlying dynamics that lead to the marital crisis.

So Flick wanted ya'all to meet up, too, eh? When I suggested to my H that all 4 of us meet, he looked at me like I had 6 heads. BS Fog is some kinda state of mind, isn't it. (Rhetorical, of course.)

I'm familiar with Plan B but I don't get the "16" part. Did your plan B have 16 conditions? 16 boundaries? 16 Days? Sorry so dense.

I agree, MyRev and IMO the parts of your post I've bolded are often magical in producing positive results.

1.) Knowing exactly where you stand is the key.

2.) Defending your boundaries is the foundation of the ultimatum working.

I'll add a third reason our ultimatum seemed to have worked for us:

3.) My H saw my confidence and knew that I would continue to follow through today, tomorrow and forever. Period.

One of the biggest compliments he paid me was equating me to the character who played Rocky's wife Adrienne when she confronted him on the beach and he asked, "How'd you get to be so tough?"

Unlike you and FogFree, however, our M was miserable pre-A....and had been for decades. We had no where to go but up.

P.S. Say Hey to FF

Glad your play B protected your kids and you, NED, and helped you prepare for a better M the next time around. Good for you!

I totally agree with what I've bolded in your post, CR. In order for an ultimatum to do more good than harm, it must be well thought out and the conditions must be rock solid...no wavering. For us, my ability to project the confidence to follow through in defending my boundaries was key to my H "getting it" fairly quickly.

I recently asked my H why he decided to quit lying and his answer was simple: "I decided that having you and the kids in my life was worth more than any benefit I got from lying."

My boundary created his choice. If he had chosen to continue lying, I was prepared to start over and go it alone....and he knew it.

I sorta know what your wife experienced, GS. I had "almost EA's" in order to survive...for years. But I always told H about the guys I'd talk with and he was glad because it meant he didn't have to bother talking with me. When we existed as roommates barely speaking with each other, it was comfortable because there were no fights!

I can see how there's no place for a ultimatum in that scenario. You chose wisely and I'm glad you were able to turn things around.

I totally agree, AR. Research, Planning, Goals, Strategy, Calmness and Confidence are all huge components to an ultimatum being effective.

On our 4th D-Day, 6 months after the first, I gave up. W?H said he'd leave to go live in his truck and I said, "fine, I'll cancel our vacation and use my 10 days to get the house ready to sell." (Surprised him because on previous D-days, I caved - - - said I needed to keep him around for sex )

I had been planning for 2 years to leave, getting my ducks in a row and hoping H would cheat to give me a justifiable reason to get out. He cheated, he was busted and confronted by both 20-something kids, he confessed (under duress) and said he'd give me everything in a quick divorce and I ultra-calmly said "fine."

We'd be divorced today if our newly married son hadn't begged us to "fight first for our family" before giving up.

AR, even though you say your ultimatum failed to fix the dynamics that doomed your M, at least you could say you did your best. That's the main reason I agreed to try to recover; to be able to say I tried everything before admitting it didn't work.

To my surprise, after issuing that 10 day ultimatum that H prove to me he could go NC cold turkey, stop the anger and quit lying, he actually began to follow through and we began recovering towards a much better marriage than we had for the first 32 years.

The MB program gave us the boost we needed but we used other resources and had a very tough MC to begin making progress.

I know that our scenario is far from typical but it is one example of recovery based on the issuance of an ultimatum. Like MyRev said, it is simple....but for many it is not easy.

Ace, that sounds very similar to my wife. I knew she was in touch with the ex-boyfriend, she often spoke openly on the phone with him. I was surprised at the extent of the email, but the communication itself was no secret.

I also believe that she did have feelings for him at one point, although she'd "gotten over" them by the time I found out, and she'd never acted on them. She never told him how she felt, and she rejected his proposition, and those EA-type feelings were gone before I ever knew about them.

missed a word - 16 day plan B. I sent the PBL, 16 days later I got the 'I will do whatever it takes' message.

Textbook.

16 days may not seem like much but I'm sure it was an eternity for you.

I think the "I'll do whatever it takes" speaks to the seemingly quick recovery you and he have experienced. Any chance Flick might share his perspectives here? It'd be great to hear some of his thought processes that evolved over those 16 days.

This would be a great scenario for a "What IF?" type of thread. What if she had NOT rejected him? I often think "what if.....like what if I had paid attention to the little signs and discovered the A sooner?" Of course, I'd never have signed up for MB and most likely would not have met all you fine folks!

I've thought over "what ifs" quite often since then. I know one thing for certain, both of us would have regretted it, especially if she had actually left me for him. Turns out while he was seeking to cheat on his wife with my wife, he was already cheating on his wife with a boyfriend - and he is currently living with this boyfriend. So, he had a lot of secrets going on beyond his designs on Mrs. G.

Yes. I don't have any regrets or lingering doubts about anything.

My point is that an ultimatum can be very helpful as part of a plan, but an ultimatum itself is not a plan. It is simply one action a person can take (or not) as part of an overall strategy and plan.

What other components would be part of this strategic plan? (If there's a thread on this already, please link here.)

I've never done a thread on the strategic plan. I wouldn't give a generic one, as everything depends on quite a lot. I don't know if someone else has done a thread on a plan that encompasses this action or not.

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't plan B contain an ultimatum? As far as I can tell, it is saying "These things need to change, if they don't, don't come back". Or do I have this wrong?

Less an ultimatum than a personal boundary enforcement:

"As long as you choose to continue your affair *I* don't want anything to with you."

Of course, a wayward will react negatively--even scream, "You're trying to control me!" --in response to ANY statement that doesn't signal acceptance of their affair and their right to maintain whatever benefits of marriage they don't want to give up.

I'd wager that most people who've executed a dark Plan B have seen doing so more as an ultimatum they issue to THEMSELVES than to their wayward spouse.

Thanks for clearing that up for me!

Well, that's just my take on it. A WS, of course, would likely not agree.