I figured that I'd start this discussion in T-Dome because that's where it will end up anyway, as there are some very strong ANTI feelings about it.

I have never considered Plan A as to the benefit of the wayward spouse.

Consider this: when a betrayed spouse first finds out what is the TYPICAL state of mind?

It is likely one of two tracks -

1. confidence enough to say I DON'T DESERVE THIS and get the hell out! This person recognizes that they've been a good enough spouse to warrant honor and respect and won't take the abuse that infidelity is.
2. inadequacy, self-doubt, and remembering all of the emotional withdrawals over the years. Sometimes this person has been deliberately and intentionally gaslighted by the wayward spouse but for whatever reason, they do not see themselves in a position of laying down conditions or taking a stand.

Plan A is ideal for the #2 person.

Here is the primary problem with Plan A as it is taught. The concept is incomplete. Plan A's primary purpose is to help the victim of infidelity stand up and say I deserve better. It is designed to be an intentional process, not a doormat process. But the way people typically read it, they do not see this - and they behave Plan Doormat. I believe this is the cause of the very strong opinions against Plan A.

But consider this. Plan A behavior must be accompanied by some strong mental toughness - being your best self, working your personal plan rather than living in reaction is the only way someone who has lived Plan Doormat is going to recognize the balance between strength/self-respect and behavior where that self-critical part of the brain that somewhere cries I guess I deserved this shuts up and recognizes NO! I don't deserve this. This critical point is where someone is able to execute the prescribed Plan A and Plan B steps. The kind where Plan A only lasts a few days or weeks at a maximum - not months or years on end.

The best Plan A/B bios I've read sometimes took a while of Plan A to help the betrayed spouse realize who they are and what they truly deserve out of a spouse and the status quo is no longer tolerable. I could start naming names of the women who NEEDED more time in Plan A because they simply weren't ready to accept that they were strong enough to live without the man! But then there'd be one more and then one more stand up and say - Plan A is something I NEEDED to do. I can't count them all that have had this transformation during a prolonged Plan A. I'm sorry that it took them that long!

Others effectively saw that they deserved better from the get-go and kicked the jerk out and went immediately dark - LadyLongLegs comes to mind. She was a rare woman who already knew she deserved fidelity and had done NOTHING to deserve the ill-treatment by her husband.

Confidence doesn't grow in an unconfident person without strategy. Plan A and Plan B provide that strategy and would only be more effective if some mental toughness training were injected right from the get-go. Unfortunately Harley doesn't have that component explicitly spelled out in his program. Without this, Plan A will fail a large number of individuals trying to incorporate it.

First, Marriage Builders' (MB) Plan A is not Plan Doormat. A true Plan A does not allow the wayward spouse (WS) to do whatever s/he wants without consequence and anyone who implies that doesn't know what Plan A is.

Along with other prescribed acts, Plan A clearly states the betrayed spouse (BS) is "To insist that the wayward spouse end the affair should not be made with the threat of punishment ("I'm make you suffer if you don't end it"), but rather with the simple fact that it's the most painful experience you've ever had in your life, and if the affair is not ended, your relationship must end with either a separation or divorce."

Plan A is not being wishy washy, mamby pamby, needy, clingy, insecure, or under-valuing yourself. It is about being the best spouse you can be for your spouse AND making it clear that you will be in only an exclusive relationship with your spouse. It includes making clear what your boundaries are and what your actions will be if your boundaries are breached.

You say you're familiar with MB, Drowning, but for those who don't know Plan A is, please don't mistake it for other plans, projects, or philosophies. You can learn its definition and read a discussion about it on MA here -- http://www.marriageadvocates.com/ubbthre..._the_f#Post3726

But you're pretty certain the A is over, Drowning, and what you're looking for is how to go about recovering your M. Of course whether or not your W decides to join you in that recovery is up to her.

When I finally accepted that I could have no expectations when it came to improving our M, that was a big moment for me. Adopt and embrace this mentality as quickly as you can.

Do all that you can and have no expectations.

Drowning, if you want to try to recover your M and have a healthy marriage, before you tell her she's either "all in or all out," you better make sure you're the best option and worth committing "all in" for.

You said your wife filled out the MB Emotional Needs Questionnaire (ENQ) under protest. So she didn't enjoy it. Whatever. The fact is that she did it, right?

Now, what are you doing with the information she provided in that?

FWIW, I'm a woman and I filled out an ENQ within a couple of weeks of Discovery Day (D-day). It took my H two years after D-day to fill it out, so I was guessing at his ENs for quite a while. If you know what her ENs are, you're ahead of many.

Are you working to meet her ENs and meet them in the ways that she wants them to be met?

I ask because when I read your list of things that you think are weird, I can see why that raised red flags. But it could also be deeper insight into her ENs. Maybe not, but maybe? For example:

* Quit birth control this month -- could this be about Family Commitment (FC)?
* Look at houses in her home town as a cottage -- maybe also about FC as in having connection to her biological family; or Domestic Support (DS) as in the chance to create a second home for the family to all share in, especially if it needs all of the work that you're referring to. Maybe it's as much a family project to her as it is a neat place for y'all to escape to.
* Worried about money all the time – we are fine! -- "fine" is something that lies in the mind of the beholder. Financial Support (FS) might be very important to her. In my M, my H is often much more wound up about money then I am. I often think we're fine while he's re-checking Quicken over and over.

Regarding contact with an old boyfriend on Facebook (FB), I'm assuming you're friends with your W on FB. You should be able to see who her friends are. Tell her with whom you are not comfortable being her friend.

Having contact with an ex raises eyebrows around here because we've seen the pattern. She may not feel that it's inappropriate and because you felt that way yourself, how is she to know now that it bothers you? You have to tell her what you need. Do not expect her to know.

How often do you talk about your marriage (M)?

Have you sat down across from her and shared with her the deep devastation that her A had on you? Have you clearly stated what you need to have in order for you to stay in the M with her?

Have you identified what your boundaries are, determined how you will implement them, defined them clearly to her, and then enforced them?

I did my best to meet my H's ENs (I was guessing what they were, remember?), I removed almost all LBs, I was living the Policy of Radical Honesty, and my H still would not commit to working on our M. It was an unhappy and crappy M before the affair and after the affair and yet my H wouldn't change.

Meeting the ENs and removing the LBs made it easier for my H to want to stay with me, but I know it was finally the identifying and then consistently communicating and enforcing my boundaries that got my H to see that we need to do some serious work on our relationship if we were going to remain married.

So when you ask how can you get her to "buy in" to a plan, first, you can't. That's her choice. No expectations, remember?

But you can come up with the things that you need from her in order for you to stay married to her. You present those things to her and you tell her what you will do if she follows through or doesn't follow through on those things.

You wrote:

Did you ask her if she thinks the ideal situation is for you to love your child's mother?

Finally, this post has gone on way to long (I have too much to write!), but I was coached by Steve Harley and here are some quick bullet points I got from him for you to consider:

* Do not focus on the plan (like whether or not to use MB, MC, books, etc.) but on the goal and work with your wife to find a solution.

* Your W is responsible for you to be in love with her, just as you are responsible for your W to be in love with you. You can't make yourself fall in love with your W. She has to make you. Just as you have to make her.

There is an exception to this, however. Even if one is perfect and doing everything right such as meeting every EN perfectly, not LBing, perfectly applying the Policy of Joint Agreement (POJA), etc., choice is still involved. And that is the choice of the recipient. The recipient has to choose to let one's actions in -- they can choose to shut out someone who is doing things perfectly, to shut out that person's love. Or they can choose to accept them.

* It's not just the changing of behaviors that are needed to repair a broken M. (Which is what many MCs focus on.) It's the changing of beliefs.

If you don't think disrespectful judgments (DJs) are a bad thing, if someone makes you aware of them you can change your behavior temporarily to stop the DJs. But if you don't change your belief that DJs are bad, your behavior will eventually reflect that belief and the DJs will return.

So, if you want your W to stop a destructive behavior then you need to not only tell her what that LB is but why and how it hurts you. Hopefully she will see and believe that doing such an LB is a bad thing and will choose to change a belief and thus change her behavior. Or she can choose not to and keep her behavior.

Until one's belief system is corrected (and thus the behavior is legitimate and going to stick), you "need to be a bit guarded," according to Steve.

The point of Harley's Plan A in fighting an affair is to show a willingness to address those things that the WS might have in the way of complaints about the BS. And I think there is a distinction between a WAS and a WS. One is moving away from the LBS while the other is moving toward the affair partner. The psychological distinction is pretty profound to me in that the WAS is trying to get away from the person who has become his or her source of unhappiness while the WS is gravitating toward a strong source of happiness/strong emotional response bordering at least on the obsessive or even addictive.

Harley's way of approaching an affair is to show a willingness to overcome those negative aspects of the relationship and that a willingness is there to provide those things the WS needs from the relationship in order to be attracted to it.

But at the same time, that does not mean being alright with a continuing affair or accepting it as something that will be a part of the marriage going forward. During an affair, the WS is not the enemy of the marriage, the affair is. Things can be done to make the affair less attractive to the WS while at the same time making the BS more attractive and though following them around begging, whining, pleading and constantly talking about the relationship is not only nonproductive but damaging to the way the WS sees the BS, if the BS simply acts as if the marriage over, it shows no indication to the WS that they even want to engage in the relationship.

It does not require being OK with the affair to show that you are the better person as opposed to the affair partner. It also shows a willingness to change to eliminate the activities and actions that originally made the WS unhappy to begin with.

Also keep in mind that the premise of Plan A is that it is to be short term followed by total separation to accomplish two distinct goals. One it forces the WS to get all needs met by the affair partner. This is because in most cases at the beginning of an affaior the WS really has no intention of walking away from the marriage. Most are quite happy with the idea of getting needs met by two people. Most often, the BS meets some of the needs qquite well or they would have left long ago. But the human tendency to foucs on what we are missing can cause a strong desire to keep getting a specific one or two needs met by the affair parnter.

The second reason for Harley's Plan B as he calls the separation is to stop the affiar from being shoeved in the face of the BS while the affair burns out. In most cases this will happen within two years of discovery and in more cases than not, the WS will look for place to land. If the WS has made it clear that they are willing to work at reconciliation depende3nt upon the WS doing specific things in order to be considered a candidate for reconciliation, the WS will perhaps choose to try to repair the damage and learn to be more protective of the marriage and the BS going forward.

Let me ask why it is assumed that the idea of GAL, acting happy when clearly you should be devastated, showing signs of moving on with life as if all is well and throwing spending less than enough time to even maintain the relationship rather than showing it to be viable through interaction shows the WS that the marriage is still desired or can be repaired?

I understand the concept, I think. I work with horses and horses just love to play the come catch me if you can game with their owners. There is no way a man on foot can run after a horse and get control of it in an open field. So the solution is often to act as if you are uninterested in the horse and seem to be doing something else or looking away from them. Very often the horse wonders what you are up to and comes near to you to see just what your intent is.

And THAT is the key to making the process work because if when the horse shows up you are angry, push them away and make them uncomfortable, they will be less likely to come the next time you want them to. If you make it fun for the horse after he comes to you, the next time, he will come sooner and more enthusiastically than if you make it harder for him to approach either by showing aggression toward him or make his time with you less than enjoyable.

You might even be able to lure a horse into coming through jealousy by showing affection and giving attention to another horse that lets you approach. But that same jealousy can also indicate to the horse that you are willing to let him play his game and will simply find someone else to play with. The trouble is that the horse might also become aggressive toward you or the other horse and still not come the next time you call him.

Harley's Plan A plays into the reward system in the brain by providing a stimulus that supplies good emotional response in your presence and makes the affair a source of stress and anxiety. The human brain in love does not make choices and decisions based on logic but on pure emotion. That emotion exists in the amygdala where logic has no space and only reaction and response reside. It isn't a decision but merely a response and if repeated sufficiently it can cause the WS to become the pursuer by feeding them what they need and and if the affair is more stress and effort to get the same response they move away from the affair and toward the BS.

It is also a balancing act since pursuing, begging, pleading and acting like you are willing to accept the affair is also counterproductive.