((((((((((((((hugs)))))))))))))))))

I am so very sorry I couldn't reply before to your post... just got PC unpacked.

You have definitely recieved a lot of good advice. I agree with not acting too quickly. You are hurt, numb, reading all that informationg through snooping has rubbed salt in the entire A related stuff.

Please take care of yourself, I am sorry it is so hard.

Well, I'm in my office now. Not doing any better anticipating picking up my W and her coworker this evening from the airport.

Before our bad argument a few weeks ago, I figured I had maybe 15 love units left in my bank for her. After that, I withdrew 10. Then our argument last week pulled another 5 out. NOW, I need another 20 or so, and they're not there to withdraw.

I wish my life was so simple that I could just walk away now. I'd leave her a voicemail message on her cell telling her to call a cab. I'd hold up in a hotel for a week or so while I get an apartment. Then I'd call a lawyer and figure out how to divide our assets, sell the house, and be done with this.

But my life isn't simple at all. I have to pick her up at the airport and take her home to her kids. I have to try to be supportive of her with her very turbulent, confusing emotions, and do it withoug LBing any more than I absolutely have to. I have to work with her on our house and with the contractors, insurance people, and claims adjusters to put the house back together over the next year or two. I have to keep an even keel so my own job isn't put at risk.

I NEED to be able to reiterate my "boundary conditions" so that they cannot be misunderstood any longer (they really couldn't have been misunderstood last week, but they have been). How do I tell her that I need her to take the following extraordinary precautions to protect our M and keep our family together?
1) If she hasn't already hired OM for the next two projects, DON'T hire him.
2) If she HAS already hired OM, FIRE him NOW.
3) If she has already hired OM and can't fire him, she must QUIT HER JOB.
4) She MUST write a NO CONTACT letter that I coauthor and sign that goes to OM, OMW and, if there really IS a research proposal in the works to support my W's research project, a copy to the OM's employer.
5) She MUST make available to me all her email accounts, passwords, cell phone bills, and account passwords (if any) from now on.

I can't put up with this crap any longer. I realize that, from the content of some of the "new" emails I read pre-D-day, that my W's self-esteem has been at an all-time low for several years now, and the OM has preyed on that by involving and keeping her in a disgusting EA/PA, with the grossest language back and forth in emails for the last year of their A. OM feels no remorse for breaking up his own family, and my W feels no remorse for what this is doing to ours.

And since I'd mistakenly thought, just about a month ago, that we were further along toward recovery than we really are, as shown by the recent arguments and email discoveries, I have withdrawn all that remains in my LB$ for her, and am showing a serious deficit. All I can feel for her right now is an intense sense of pity for her situation.

My W can read me when I'm down, and so, like I've said before when in a similar mood, there is probably NO WAY to avoid her realizing that something is very seriously wrong. I don't want a confrontation, but I don't see that I can avoid telling her some of what's on my mind.

I'm really at a loss here as to what to do. Any and all suggestions would be very welcome.

<small>[ July 16, 2002, 10:13 AM: Message edited by: 2long ]</small>

"Doveryai, no proveryai"
Old russian proverb

translates into
"Trust but verify"

I'm going to TRY to answer my own questions. Tell me what you think:

NO R or A talk at all. Only the weather and similar, meaningless $hit.

Still easier said than done (and I'm TRULY DONE). <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

2L; I truly think there's a WW conspiracy here; how come we always seem to have these "crises" at almost the same time? You sure your W's not talking to my W? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> THAT's a scary thought!!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" />

SC:

Hey, maybe they're channeling with each other. Truly a scary thought!!!

Thanks for trying to make me smile. I'm trying hard to keep above the mud here, but it's sucking me down.

I definitely welcome any and all input/efforts to cheer me up right now. I don't see any light at the end of this dark, musty, stinky tunnel.

2long,

I am not going to give you the same advice most people are giving here. You are the only one who can really decide this, but here is MHO: I do think it is time to go to a Plan B. It is time you stood up for yourself. Setting boundaries will do no good if the WW continues to cross the boundary. What is the repercussion for her crossing the boundary? If no Plan B, no bite to your bark. You have done a good Plan A? Right? You have given her nearly 6 months to get her affairs in order. You need to take care of yourself before you get physically sick from all of this. You need a long break that a Plan B will give. I know this is difficult to think about, but how can you trust her actions now. She has learned to fake her love for you.

However, I think you need to get your affairs in order first. Think about what the most beneficial environment Plan B will be for you and try to get to that. If that means you kick her out, so be it. Look up some of the laws in your state regarding legal separation, abandonment, etc. Go get legal advice (use cash). If nothing less, all this preparation will help you let go of her. It may not seem so, but you getting so anxious over all of this may mean you do have quite a bit of love in your love bank. If you had no love for her, would you really care what she did?

Just my take on all of this. I am wrong often so take this all with a grain of salt. Only you have the answer to all of this.

I am sorry.

2long

You know I only check back here lately to see how you are doing and it don't look good. I used to feel bad about being so pessimistic in my postings to you, but obviously extreme caution in considering yourself "in recovery" was needed. Little telltale signs you have mentioned here and there have been clues to your WW's placating ways with you. Although I do believe that many M's are worth saving, I also believe that the BS must be extremely realistic and firmly rooted in the ground. Your love (or any BS's love) for your WS is so great, and your optimism is so high, and you want it to heal and keep your M going so bad, it almost clouds your vision. Granted, I am in a different situation than you, but honestly speaking, I have kept my feelings in reserve since D-Day. I have focused on my own health, my own hobbies and sports, I exercise, I eat right, and I do things that make me feel good about myself and help me to enjoy life more, with or without my spouse. What feels right to me is to live my life almost as if I were sharing a house with a close friend, but closer and more intimate than just a close friend (naturally). Over several conversations I have told my W that I am expecting and waiting for her to make the kind of life improving changes that she claimed that she wanted for us all along. I had to remind her that she told me that one of the reasons that she claimed to have told me of the A's was to bring about positive changes in our lives so we could go forward into a new life together and break out of the rut that we were in. Well, I really took that to heart and started working on myself immediately. I quit smoking (I was an on/off stress smoker the last 2 years), I lost 40 pounds, and I am more attentive to her and more responsible as a husband. I am trying to change in positive ways.

Meanwhile, I was watching her go back to life as normal and was becoming angry that she was barely making an effort to change at all. It was almost as if getting it off her chest and clearing her conscience was enough for her. Well, it isn&#8217;t enough for me. It has been 4 months since D-Day and I do not even remotely feel the type of passionate "undying" love that I felt for her previously. You know, that type of love that makes all the Bull $hit in the world worth enduring. The type of love that made my 180 mile, 5 hours a day, round-trip commute seem like it was worth it all and it didn't matter that I made that type of sacrifice for her and the family. The kind of love that made up for not paying attention to myself like I used to (no guitar, no martial arts, no hobbies, nothing extracurricular). The kind of love that made me aware of all the beauty in the world. Well, that's gone. Now I find enjoyment for those things within myself. I am learning to love myself and to love life once again. I am rediscovering myself and becoming more and more the person I was when I met my W; the person she fell in love with.

Of course all this makes her nervous. She feels that as I change I am leaving her at the same time. I told her to join me in my changes and let&#8217;s do it together! I really need to start a topic on the huge blowout we had July 7th. It was a doozy! Anyway, I digress. I caution you 2long to keep very grounded and realistic in your endeavors to save your marriage. You know that saying, &#8220;Hurt me once, shame on you. Hurt me twice, shame on me.&#8221; Don&#8217;t allow yourself to be tortured as you hope against hope that your W is on the same page as you in your M and in the efforts to strengthen it and persevere. In the short time I have been in the MB world, you have now had many disappointments and setbacks as you discovery more and more truth in your situation. You are either going to have be a hardliner (as you outlined in your previous post about No Contact, Fire Him, Quit The Job, etc.) or pick a FIRM date for Plan B. I think you are justified in bringing down the axe. Plan A is good, no doubt, but if all it seems to accomplish is to further enable your WS to continue her A, and she is not making an honest and sincere effort with you to end this situation and heal your M, then it is high time to take a tougher, more demanding stance. A person can only take so much. Plan A can be so pandering to the WS it can give them their cake and eat it too for far too long. You need to be firm on your date for Plan B. There comes a point where the suffering you are going through outweighs the benefits of walking on eggshells so as not to scare her off. Perhaps (and I mean perhaps) she might need a real rude awakening with your Plan B to see just how serious you are about this. Right now it appears that she is just happy as can be with the way things are right now. Think about it first. Don&#8217;t act rashly&#8230;&#8230;But do act!

Sorry for the rambling. Good luck.

2long,
You have as much said that she will know something is wrong, she will ask. I believe you have shown in the past how you will react, not always good.

Is there any way you can not pick her up? Can someone else do it? Can you go somewhere for a day to think? She will still know, but that might be a better way to tell her.

I hope you have been making that plan on what to do if things got bad. It's always better to think it out before it gets to that point. If you can make it through this one, perhaps you should get it done. I agree with what JL told Spacecase, do it on your own terms. Don't let any one event with her make your decision for you.

I think we all hurt for you, It's hard to give all you have given and find out it may not have been enough. We hope you find out someday that it was indeed enough.
SS

2l - Been away for a couple days - sorry to see the turn things have taken. Your situation takes me back to d-day #2 in May when I was certain my marriage was over. Confronted my wife when she returned from a trip with the tape of her very intimate and nauseating phone conversation with OM, and thought there was no way to recover from that. But, somehow, miraculously, that incident slapped her hard enough to start emerging from her fog, and she's been steadily improving ever since. At least, as far as I can tell.

I know, as you do, that our wives are very good at compartmentalizing their thoughts and emotions. As you have painfully discovered, words spoken by a WS aren't necessarily supported by their actions. And they wonder why we don't trust them like we used to! None of it makes any sense. But sometimes hope is all we have, and all we can do is hang onto it until the last strand has slipped through our fingers.

I don't know if you've reached that point yet. I hope not, but that will obviously depend on how your wife responds to all of this. If Plan B is unavoidable, you know you have the love and support of a lot of people here.

I know you have said in earlier posts that you and your wife are now atheists, but I'm still going to pray for you both today as you deal with this mess.

Guys,

All our stories are so similar - isnt it just scary?

Sweden - good to hear back from you. How are things? Send us an update please.

Blind Sided - your post speaks from my heart indeed. Me too, I stopped smoking after D-Day. to prove that you CAN leave an addiction if you really want, and secondly, to make me feel better. Succeeded on the second point, WW is still struggling with her addiction, and no, it's not tobacco unfortunately!

2 Long - again, I exactly understand your situation, as mine is very much similar. what worked for me so far is:
- let WW know from time to time that "you know what's going on" (if she is still in contact), even if it means a huge row
- but no need to go into specifics. On D-Day, I showed her the 150+ page printout from all her emails to OM....

Always when I was (am) specific about her on-going contacts she would play the "your controlling behaviour", "it's just a friendship now", "it's non of your business" disc. Load of bollocks of course, as I know what's being played.
Actually, without snooping I might sometimes maybe beleive her.... what else can you do with a person you live together, are intimate with, raise children with and know for a large part of your life? nevertheless such a person is - as examples show - perfectly able to lie straight in your face.

Oh christ, I also don't know what to do. Carry on, then plan B I guess.

But it's a great releif to be able to share this with others, I have to say.

Oh, one more thing, ( OK, I'm a little slow, but in the end I almost remember everything.)

Keep it about you, not about her. Asking her to change her what she is doing is always seen as a demand. Telling her you can't continue to live with her becaues of the pain it is causing - is about you. Keep it about you.

Have you asked her for help for the pain yet? Has she ever responded to that request?

JL may be right about that, if she is so selfish that she won't respond to that request for help, you may need to change your direction.

SS

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Hang on there, we are here to catch you if you fall, or help hold you up when you need us.

Hope that puts a smile on your face. Sorry I don't have much else to offer. I will think of you this evening, and hope that everything goes well for you. My best to you always. Take care my friend, and good luck.

All:

Thank you very much for the support. I really need it!!! I just got off the phone with SC, so I haven't had a chance to read all your posts until now. Good suggestions from all.

I think I'm going to TRY to be non-confrontive when I pick up my W at the airport tonight. I need time to write some plan B letters for feedback, and see when the best time to implement it might be. A wrinkle: My D is leaving for London for 5 months next week, and I certainly don't want to ruin her departure. I honestly don't know whether plan B before she leaves would be better or worse than after she's gone. I'd hate for her to feel like she needs to cancel her trip on account of "something I've done." My D knows about the A, and knows that we may DV, but I try not to talk to her too much about what's going on - she doesn't need to be bogged down in problems she can't fix anyway. My S doesn't know, and plan B any time will be hard on him, because he'll have to be told the truth. But I can't keep this up for long, not without a sign of positive, fundamental change on the part of my WW.

This whole situation is so weird. My IC had urged me 2 weeks ago to focus on the positive aspects of OUR relationship so as to covertly "pull" her back to the M, knowing all the time that she's conflicted between our M and her A. I think I've made some positive progress there, and if I were stronger could continue that progress if I weren't so affected by this realization last night. Bottom line is that I am, and it's clear that repeating myself several times in no uncertain terms as to what I need to stay M'd went in one ear, stayed for about a day, then went right out the other ear so she could continue her email dialog with OM (there have been days, recently, when she's talked to him more than to me, or at least that's the way it feels). I certainly don't want to downplay the recent progress that's been made. Who knows, maybe it would have worked, given time? But I don't know how much time I actually have. I truly believe that, after reading the email I saw last night, that the "Paris" remark reallly was in reference to Perris, which is near where my W works, because the latest email on Friday asks OM when they can meet so she can give him the samples to analyze.

I will cogitate about having someone else pick my W up at the airport. Possibly my D, though I don't know if she gets off work in time. Possibly MIL, she'd probably be home. But I've got a lot to do, and now plan B letters to draft, and so I wouldn't have time to even pick up some clothes before she got home anyway tonight, so if I CAN pick her up and not get into a LB argument, I probably should.

I'll keep reading and posting for further feedback.

Thanks, SC!

SS:

"Keep it about you, not about her. Asking her to change her what she is doing is always seen as a demand."

Yes.

"Telling her you can't continue to live with her becaues of the pain it is causing - is about you. Keep it about you."

Exactly what I need to do.

"Have you asked her for help for the pain yet? Has she ever responded to that request?"

She will say " you're hurt" when I cringe sometimes in conversation, but her empathy feels pretty lame for the most part. She held my hand tightly during the A scene at the beginnning of Minority Report on Saturday, and seemed genuinely concerned about how I reacted to it. She said "I never did that to you" which must mean "I never had OM wait outside for you to head off for work, to have sex in our bedroom." No, they did it elsewhere. And from the descriptions in the emails, they did pretty much everything I've ever done with her, maybe more.

"JL may be right about that, if she is so selfish that she won't respond to that request for help, you may need to change your direction."

I think I may need to change my direction.

2L:

Have been following your story.

You have been up all night. You will be tired as heck picking them up. You are almost certain to lose it coming home from the airport, or at the very least seem terribly upset.

You could hire a Limousine to pick them up, perhaps. Limo dude waiting at the baggage claim with her name. Flowers and champagne in the limo for them. Make up a damn good reason that you couldn't make it. Take the time to cool off. You really seem to be at the end of your rope.

My understanding of Plan B is that you should go to it when you think you cannot keep from LBing. I think you are at Plan B. KEEP IT PLEASANT!!!! Don't major LB before your Plan B starts.

Good luck, man.

ST

I placed a call in to my IC this morning to ask his advice on what I should do here. He just called back and has a cancellation for 2pm, so I'm inked.

He strongly believes that my W wanted to be "caught" by leaving her laptop for me to work on it. He agrees that she'll go ballistic if I confront her with this, and he also agrees that she's making it very hard to stay M'd to her. And since she's lying to her IC about the A continuing, I can't even recommend she talk to someone about what to do about this. He agrees that probably the only thing I can do is work on my plan B letters, and go to plan B at some point in the near future.

Total heaviosity. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

Sad Tiger:

I like that idea with the limo. I will ask my IC about that when I see him. Don't know if there's enough time to line anything up, though.

I think that, with help this afternoon, I can probably be okay picking up my W from the airport. She'll be talking to her coworker on the ride back, so I can probably avoid getting into an argument with her. Then, she'll probably be tired when we get home, and will go to bed early.

I'll see what my IC says. I certainly can't just jump to plan B today, as I haven't taken the time to draft any letters for feedback yet.

I'd better do that before my IC session, to get something for him to look at while I'm there.

Just remember that Plan B is to protect you and whatever remaining love you have for WW, not to influence WW's behavior in any way. It is important not to blow up right before you implement it. Only you will know when Plan B is right. Some days I think I could go on a long time, some days I feel like throwing in the towel. The hardest thing for me has been to 'be cool' about stuff. Meds and Jennifer really have helped me.

Oh yeah, LIMO may = LB$$$ deposits and no way for her to 'read' your mood.

<small>[ July 16, 2002, 02:51 PM: Message edited by: Sad Tiger ]</small>

Sad Tiger:

That's the key, alright! I'm going to seriously bring that limo idea up with my IC, but I think it will be too late by the time I get out to call anybody. Probably my D would be the next best bet, then MIL, then me.

I serioulsy don't want to confront tonight. I've made so many attaboys the past couple of weeks that I would hate to undo them now. All the more reason to go to plan B soon. Conflicting with my remaining love for my W is my strong desire to get this pain behind me and make my life a bit simpler - no second-guessing what she's thinking or doing behind my back.

No more!