Plan B

[Accuray]

Good for you Breakdown, you have several similarities to where I was in the fall of 2011. I have read "After the Affair" and can't recommend it for where you are, have you read it yourself first? I would go with the 5LL's and "His Needs, Her Needs" then "Passionate Marriage" instead. After the Affair spends a lot of time creating frameworks to help each person decide whether or not they should stay together or not which feels like return to limbo for a stander.

In my sitch, OM also called things off to work on his marriage and went no contact with W and to his credit he has stayed with it. That's good and bad because it leaves the relationship unresolved for your W and she will continue to miss that affair excitement.

The biggest mistake I made was not being firm and demanding enough with my boundaries. She did not own her affair, she justified it. For a brief honeymoon period she worked on piecing with me but then went back to "you must accept me as I am and to ask anything different is a failure on your part to love me unconditionally and indicates that we are just incompatible."

If there's one bit of advice I would give at this tender stage, It would be to hold onto your boundaries at all costs even if it seems to represent a step back in reconciling. It gets harder later to dig in hard when the kids believe you are back together and everything is good from an outsiders perspective. It will then be you that is creating turmoil and threatening the peace versus your W, and that's a more difficult position to be in believe it or not.

I would fight the fight on your boundaries now while things are still marginally broken and not compromise anything that you know is very important to you. Seize the initiative!

Accuray