Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Infidelity/Extramarital Affairs/Jealousy Entering Limboland...GH Saga Part 8

Thanks Tim. Yea, I guess it IS about taking risks but it still feels a bit like sticking my head into the nice, tame Lion's mouth. Sure, they're ok for awhile but ask Roy...ouch.

GH

Hey I saw Roy on TV the other day and he said he will perform again! the roar is worse than their bite!
Look at me....I risked it all and it worked out.....
Not the best strategy to go all in!

Welp, another busy weekend in the book. I had a wedding most of the day and night on Saturday and my in-laws (SIL, BIL, Niece 5, Nephew 9mo, FIL & MIL) were all in town for SIL's birthday. This is usual for my W's family. We only found out about 4 days ago that they were all going to be here. They just tell my W, they don't ask her. It's how they've always treated her. It's part of her issues in life. I really think she needs to stand up to them. It's not that we don't want them around but a little common courtesy would be in order. I have talked to them about it but they just blow it off. Anyway...off that tangent.
We went to Disney on Sunday. Well, actually me, my two boys, and SIL's family went. W, MIL & FIL went shopping with the baby.
It was a pretty uneventful weekend.

As for "us" stuff, there really wasn't any so as usual, I will micro-analyze the small stuff (mind you I'm not sweating it, lol). Last night I had a little mini-breakdown for NO real reason. Just started missing my marriage, affection, etc. I needed to go out anyway so I just went to do my errands and let it out a bit. I was fine when I got home. W never saw a thing.

It bothered me that I could still be overcome with emotion like that, especially when things are going relatively well in my sitch. I thought those days were behind me.

We did have a bit more contact over the weekend. On Saturday night she woke up in the middle of the night and snuggled up to me. She said she had a nightmare, which is not unusual for her but this is the first time in a long time that she's turned to me for comfort, at least physically.

Communication has been good. She's joking with me more now and like I keep saying over and over here, my life with my W has never really been better...oh, except for that no affection/sex and the OM thing.

It was a good weekend. Nothing really new, nothing really bad, just neutral and nice overall.

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Oh, and back to something from last week when I gave my W the VS stuff...

One thing I think I forgot was that when she tried on the pants, I made a comment that she should try on the undies as well. She laughed and said "always trying..." I said "Yep, always gotta try."

It was the kind of playful banter we used to have back before sex was more difficult to come by in our M. It was the kind of thing that would have been impossible a few months/weeks ago. Dunno if it was a slip on her part or a conscious flirt...would have been better if she actually DID try them on for me...lol. Actually, and I only put this in here because I don't know if I heard her right, when she first saw the undies, she smiled and I thought she said that "I will wear these tonight."...Of course since she did no such thing, I think I imagined that...lol.

GH

This is not a way for me to try to get a kickback from Michelle or anything but...IMHO...

I have seen a lot around here about so and so's books on this, that and the other thing. I think it's useful to realize that certain authors/experts DISAGREE on what the best way to handle this stuff is. Their plans are diametrically opposed and when tried in conjunction with one another, I believe they cause confusion and can even make things worse.
For me personally, I had to just pick one (DB) and try best I can to actually follow through with it's plan. I think it's dangerous to jump from one theory to the next, like I see some people doing, simply because they think "well, this isn't working so let me try plan B, C or something totally different," without even giving their full effort or enough time to the plan they started with. In the case of DBing vs Harley/Plan A & B, you have one plan, DBing that calls for time, self growth, self focus, no pressure, no R talk and patience. The other calls for an immediate, forced end to an affair with all kinds of R talk and contracts put in place to try to force the WAS to comply with certain guidelines for reconciliation (so far as I understand it). These two methods are not compatible in my mind.

I think most of the ways we read about to handle our sitches CAN work but they are less effective when diluted by mixing them.
I am ALL for reading as much as you can and plotting a course that is best for you. Sometimes that course DOES include bits and pieces from different theories but I believe it's important to be adopting them as part of your life strategy out of desire, not perceived need because you think what you are doing just isn't working soon enough or well enough.
I would be less than truthful if I said I did not mix and match here and there but for the most part, I have found DBing to be the best comprehensive strategy for dealing with MY particular situation. Others may find it useful to follow other plans but then maybe it would be useful to also get/give advice from/to others who are also following those other theories.

I guess what I am saying is that I came to this board because it was free from the knee-jerk advice of "kick the b!tch out on her a$$" and other high brow stuff like that I recieved SEVERAL times on other boards for SEVERAL other people there. As I said to them then, and I will say now, if I wanted to set an ultimatum or try to throw someone out, I could have just done that on day one. I don't need a book or message board to tell me to do the thing that seemed most natural at the time. It takes strength and self-awareness to learn how to grow, set boundaries (not build walls or set ultimatums) and have patience/compassion for someone who has hurt you so badly. It goes against our FEELINGS to look within ourselves instead of at them, but I believe it is imperative we do so.

I spent a few days on other boards that centered around other books/theories and I found them to be abrasive and sometimes abusive, which to me told me all I needed to know about the people following those methods. Maybe that is unfair but I do know that in almost 4 months here I have not really had ONE incident of someone posting something that just seemed designed to pick a fight or insult me (OT, you don't count, lol). The people here are ALL trying to help and be helped and have created a safe environment for that to happen in, free from the chaos found elsewhere. There is mutual respect and lots of love to go around. To me, that just reinforces the books' ideals and has given me hope/reason to try even harder to put those ideals into practice. If all these good people are doing this, and it's bringing them success and happiness IN TIME, then it can't be that bad to give a serious go at, eh?

Again, sorry for the rant but I am just hoping that things stay as great around here as they have been during my time and the focus stays on doing the best DB job each of us can do.

GH

P.S. Michelle, email me for my address to send the check to...lol.

GH:

Thanks for stopping by my thread. Despite some obvious troubles in your sitch, things seem better for you than they have for me at any time in the last 9 months since finding out about the OM.

DBing was working for me, however, I just don't think it could overcome some of the fundamentals, such as OM's appeal (which has begun to wane and I believe will continue to do so), and my perceived deficiencies, namely, I am not that same guy who was all obsessed with with my W in the first 6 months of our courtship as I was in the following 13 years.

Anyway, I agree that DBing is the more genteel of the divorce killing methods, and it seemed most suited to our sitch. I think it still has a chance for us - much more than kicking W to the curb, which I think in my case would put a nail in it....

Hang in there - that your wife is affectionate to you is a good thing. Something that ceased for me shortly before her EA became a PA....

Thanks again for the advice and the encouragement in a time when I needed it....

Daddy,

NP. You're welcome. Hope I helped a little, I know how tough things are right now.

Thank you in kind for your words to me. I do think things are going well so far for me. There is just so much unknown and I think I need to take the first step towards removing some of the unknown. I guess I am just afraid of more lies or even the truth. I don't know. I suppose more than either of those two fears, I am just happy with the progress so far and as I have said numerous times, so long as I can SEE progress I don't necessarily need to HEAR progress. Prolonged exposure to limbo may cause me to rethink that stance though.

GH

Well, GH, I know that I'm partially your inspiration for this post, and I want to disagree with you somewhat, because Harley's and Michele's strategies for getting your WAS back are very similar and highly compatible.

Harley's Surviving An Affair advocates a Plan A to Plan B approach. Plan A basically involves waiting and meeting your S's needs as you work on yourself -- in other words, DB'ing! The reason that I have previously considered myself more of a DB person than a Harley person is because Michele goes into so much more detail about the process of what you do with yourself -- like 180's, GAL, "as if", etc. Harley focuses more on how you can meet the emotional needs of your S. His book has a lot of stuff similar to the 5 Love Languages book. Working on yourself and meeting your spouse's emotional needs are certainly not incompatible.

It's not fair to talk about Harley's advice in the same context as those who advise you to "kick the bum" out when you find out about an A.

Harley's Plan B, where you completely cut off all contact with the WAS, is remarkably similar to the "after the last resort" technique that Michele outlines on pages 218-219 of the paperback version of DR. Harley outlines it in more detail, but it's the same strategy. Michele only advocates it when you tried her other techniques and they haven't worked and you can't take it anymore, while Harley recommends that everyone go to Plan B after about six months of Plan A. Since Michele says (p. 151) that most affairs end within six months, both she and Harley recognize that most affairs will never need this technique. However, both Michele and Harley state that the technique can be effective and it involves much less stress for the LBS.

So I believe that Michele and Harley's techniques for getting your WAS back are very similar. I agree with you that the two of them have somewhat different strategies for what you do during reconciliation, but most of us on this board aren't at the reconciliation point yet (otherwise we'd be in the Piecing board). That's really a different phase for most of us (though your sitch is clearly different because there's no defined end to the A).

RB,

Thanks for the response. Let me be clear; if I seemed to be suggesting that Harley's book or his articles published on his website gave the advice to "kick the bum out" I did not mean to. I have not read the book so I claim ignorance as to what it says compared to what he has on the site. I have read most everything he has on his site and so far as I know, he does not advocate such things. What I was referring to was my experience with the message board on his site AND a few others (I was not trying to mask ONLY talking about his site by saying there were more).

Like I said, from what I read the MAJOR departure in methods comes early on in the process when plan A calls for an immediate end to the affair and then specific steps towards reconciliation. It's that ultimatum/forcing of the issue part I didn't like too much because it seemed like my W's heart was not really in the A but my pushing it to end may change that. If I looked at it from a strategic point of view, forcing the issue at that point would NOT have been attacking the issue from a position of power. Michelle's philosophy enabled me to build myself up FIRST before even considering the A. Of course it's not possible to ignore the A, but when you are supposed to be concentrating on YOURSELF and not your W or OM, it makes it easier.

Maybe I missed the part about working on you, but it was the other stuff that turned me off and makes me leery of people mixing the two.

You know as well as I do that most places you look for advice, especially among lay-people like us, you will find lots of "tell her it's either you or him" or "force her out until she comes to her senses" etc. I know you did do that, and it may (I truly hope is does) work for you. You chose to do that because it was what YOU needed to do to remain sane. It may work for many people for the same reason, but the vast majority of people seem to think it was a mistake to force the issue before they had to. The way I think about it is that at any point one or the other of us can leave but once gone, it's a lot harder to come back.

Anyay, it just wasn't the path I wanted to take and thus I found DB to be an effective way for me to go about changing the things in my life I wanted to change.

As for the similarities between plan B and Michelle's After the Last Resort Technique, well, as you stated, and minimized somewhat, there are other steps, including the LRT itself you go through with DR that you don't with the Plan A then Plan B method. To me, and you since you pointed out that DR goes into more detail about steps to take, that is a major difference that shouldn't be taken lightly. Also, this 6 month time period seems a bit arbitrary to me. Sure, most experts place a 6 month to 2 year life span on an A but the advice to implement Plan B after 6 months is indicative of the idea that one size fits all I saw on that site...and others. I'm sure, and I truly mean this, that I could be wrong in feeling that way but that was the idea I got from what I read.

With DB, since the focus is NOT on the A, which I guess you're saying Harley's A & B are not either but from what I read they are, then it really doesn't matter if the WAS is at home, moved out, the A continues or not. You work on you, your part of the M's issues and give them the time & space to find their way back. Spefically reguarding my sitch, Michelle's book was the FIRST one I read that made ANY mention of what to do if the affair continues that didn't involve forcing an end to it. Does that mean I chose the plan that suited how I wanted to deal (or not deal) with things? Sure, I can admit that.

I felt a little strange posting that stuff because there ARE plenty of examples of folks here mixing and matching theories with GREAT success. You are probably one of those able to do that.

The thing I am worried about is that people fail to distinguish between what is right for them overall and what feels right at the moment and picking the philosophy that suites their whim and not their situation. I am as guilty of that as anybody but I did pick DB and have done my best to stick with it EVEN, and ESPECIALLY when it seemed really hard and unnatural to do.

After this I will not comment much more on this because I AM ignorant to some of the facts and don't want to speak out of place on things I am not informed enough on.

GH

The point I was trying to make is that I don't think that DB'ing or anything else is a "magic solution." If DB were, every story on these boards would have a happy ending -- and we sadly know that isn't the case. The fact is, though, that Divorce Remedy is full of a number of techniques, not all of which can be applied at the same time. That's why Michele advocates 180's and experimenting. I certainly don't think that Michele would argue that she has a monopoly on good ideas for ending affairs.

I also think that "the best plan" very much depends on the individual sitch. For example, the biggest reason that Michele is against kicking someone out is that this could cause them to file for D -- which doesn't really apply to me, since my W still has over 21 months left before she can legally do that.

I think that men and women are different in their affairs, because I think more men generally start affairs because of sexual attraction to the OW, while women are generally more hesitant to start an A until they are "in love" with the OM. It's clear to me that the strategy used for a S who is simply using an OP for sex is different from someone who thinks that the OP is their "soulmate."

In other words, I don't think any amount of GAL, "as if", etc. would have worked for Hilary Clinton with Bill. He did what he did with Monica "because I could." I think that the only way she could have gotten any results was through a "tough love" forcing of the issue.

So anyway, my approach has been to read as much as possible, and then apply what I believe will work best for my particular sitch.

Quote:

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I felt a little strange posting that stuff because there ARE plenty of examples of folks here mixing and matching theories with GREAT success. You are probably one of those able to do that.

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Ha! I was very close to great success this weekend, but it slipped through my fingers. We'll see what happens -- but thanks for the vote of confidence.

Point/counter point, all well taken. I agree with you...different approaches are needed for different sitches. The final word I will have on this is that I hope people give WHATEVER approach they try the appropriate amount of time to work.

GH