BILLBOARD COmING AT YOU! (Do you know you have angels EVERYWHERE?)

YOU ARE AWESOME AND EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY!

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I'm sorry that things are rough for you today, but you did great...letting it out instead of holding that in...a FINE HUMAN BEING!

OKAY, now, stuck it up, hold your head HIGH and move forward...tomorrow's a new day and you're going to be okay!

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Love you, SIS...take care!

Okay, stop me now. I just had the overwhelming urge to DO SOMETHING!! Anything. I just need to get out from under this cloud, and I’m fantasizing about blasting my way out.

I am ADMITTING this..not DOING it:

I want to call WH.

I want to tell him I am so sorry that I didn’t know how to respond to discovering about the A, that I wish we could go back and do it right, that the boys deserve us to both be adults and do the right thing: to try, really, really try.

I want to tell him that there is a lot worth fighting for, that we can do it, that he can’t mean to throw everything away and leave this ugly legacy for our children.

I want to tell him that I think there’s goodness in him, that I have faith in him, that I think he loves his boys, that he’s scared and hurting, and that I’m scared and hurting too.

I want to tell him that I believe we can do anything if we do it together, because I am tough and I am a fighter and I will never give up on him or us or the boys.

It has been three and a half months since I have had any contact with him. I KNOW it will mean nothing. Nothing I have EVER done has meant ANYTHING. But it’s the truth. I just need to speak my truth, even if it’s only to speak it here…

And to admit to you all that I WANT to speak it to WH…

I SOOO UNDERSTAND SIS..and have been right there...

Now is the time to PRAY...whatever you can do to SELF-SOOTHE as PEP would say...

Because the truth is there is NOTHING THAT YOU CAN DO....

Talking to your WH would be the same as beating your head up against the closest brick wall...

It's hard to ACCEPT the POWERLESSNESS...I KNOW...but GOD has the POWER and is IN CONTROL NOW...

DOING NOTHING NOW IS DOING SOMETHING...PLAN B is the BEST THAT YOU CAN DO...

Your WH knows what he has to do. He has your PLAN B letter. He knows all that you would SAY..saying it again will not make it any different or more understandable to HIM...

HE'S GOT TO TAKE THE FIRST STEP...on his own...

((((SIS)))))

Thank you, mimi, for understanding. My DO-er, my "control things" switch is stuck in ON.

Maybe a quick walk, go get a smoothie, sit in the sun for a few minutes. Take a break from this office. Try not to cry while I pray.

I'm afraid, mimi.

I just glad that you understand what this feels like.

That's EXACTLY what it is, SIS..FEAR...

If you are at all like me, I somehow got the message that I COULD CONTROL the UNCONTROLLABLE...

I still have to put a STOP to my URGE..TO DO..when I'm SCARED...

I've learned that 9 times out of 10..that's when I make some of my BIGGEST MISTAKES...like opening PANDORA'S BOX...

Believe and know that you can ONLY CONTROL YOURSELF..that's for sure..you can take a walk..you can get a smoothie or WHATEVER it takes to EMBRACE YOURSELF...

A smoothie, a walk, a sit in the sun by the river away from everyone. And a little heart to heart with God.

And I figured out what I am afraid of. I am afraid that WH has forgotten anything good that we ever had together. I am afraid that he doesn't remember how happy we were once, how right we felt together. I am afraid that he has lost his moral center for good. I am afraid that he read my PBL once and tossed it. I am afraid that RT has him so wrapped around her finger that he can't see straight, or even see how much our boys are suffering. I'm afraid that he really doesn't care a lick about me, or that I ever meant anything to him, or that he nearly destroyed me. I'm afraid that his vows no longer have any meaning; that they are a joke to him. I am afraid that he has no regrets, no second thoughts about ending our marriage.

At the very heart of it, I am afraid--really, deeply afraid--that I screwed it up...that after d-day, I wasn't woman enough to do things right and I acted on impulse and emotion, rather than out of love. I had a chance and I blew it. I let myself down, I let the boys down, I let HIM down. I really did.

He owns what HE did...I'm not taking responsibility for that...what I am taking responsibility for is what *I* did wrong. Not only in the marriage, pre-A, but after d-day.

So much this time of years is a reminder...almost the anniversary of d-day...probably why this is cropping up and triggering me.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Just wanted to let you know that you are not the only one who has had these feelings...

Please remember my mistake and how that turned out when I called POWS a few weeks ago...

Respect yourself and continue to have that great self-control!

take care and no word yet on my sitch! ::::shrugging:::::

Sis,

I have a crazy suggestion. I was harking back to the days when I was in Plan B and my exH was NOT coming around and I was just sitting there...in limbo...waiting. It drove me NUTZ!! Well...more nuts than I am naturally anyway <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

One thing that really helped me when I felt like I wanted to DO something was to DO something for someone else. I did a lot of volunteer work in those days, because even if I was a single parent and had no husband and was in my 40's--I still had more than some of the people I was volunteering for, and it made me feel better. A) I was DOING SOMETHING constructive and helping the world in a positive way. B) My life was really not so bad!! I had a home, a job, my kids, and a beautiful garden home! After volunteering I could SEE all my blessings, whereas beforehand I could see what I "didn't" have.

So if you want to DO something--go volunteer! Today! Work at your church's food bank. Sort clothes at GoodWill. Go to the mission downtown and feed soup to the folks at night...and talk about missing teeth with a stranger! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Just a thought!

Your faithful friend and mama bee,



CJ

Sis, I would cook for the people that I usually had lunch with. Try out new recipes. Give to them, and see their surprise and smiles. It helped me to realize that love was all around me, that many had been reaching out, only to be batted down because I was rooted in thinking about PWC.

CJ is brilliant!

Oh, Sis, the fears that you list hit me at the epicenter. Same fears. Especially the one about forgetting the goodness, forgetting that I was ever good, fun, loving.

When I started giving, I began to realize how truly irreplaceable I am. No one is like me. Even on a molecular level, we are all unique. It's a beautiful thing to know that we are so similar, yet so unique. We come together and revel in the differences.

Sis, your WH has not forgotten you. No way! I'm not saying that just to lift you up, but it's nearly impossible. Your children probably favor you in some way, even the way they talk, their mannerisms, how they tell jokes, what their dispositions are; they are a part of both of you. This will be a constant reminder. You are untarnished by this whole deal, being in the pokey or not, you are clean. I mean, let's be for real here, that RT is foul, and it's amazing that you didn't do more in the heat of things.

Sis, please work to forgive yourself for your mistakes; learn from them and move on. For your personal recovery to really work, you must accept the past, it is DONE. You must learn the lesson and move forward. Stop thinking that that one incident lost you your H. Your H lost you your H, not you, not your actions, NADA, no way! He f'd up Sis.

Sis - I think I asked you this once before, but it may have gotten lost in the shuffle: Do you think it's time to talk to Dr. Harley again?

I ask because your WH seems to me to be so very, very passive and so very, very willing to let other people make decisions for him that it's really kind of stunning.

First Rat Turd started doing his thinking for him and he apparently found no reason not to allow this.

Second, it strikes me that your Plan B might come across as Sis also making a decision for him - the decison to just let the marriage go and not try to be "friends" afterwards.

For some reason, he just does not seem inclined to fight for anything of value to him. Maybe you can elaborate on this a bit - have you seen this before in him?

First he sees no reason to fight off Rat Turd and keep her out of the marriage

Then he sees no reason to fight for his own wife and the mother of his children when Turd has you thrown in jail.

And finally he sees no reason to fight for his own marriage and family even when you'd made it clear with your stellar Plan A that it was not over and you would take him back.

I just keep seeing a passive, passive man who does nothing but sit there blinking like an owl while the women in his life fight over him and make all his important decisions for him. To someone like that, Plan B might very well mean that you have made the decision and so now he doesn't have to.

Being a cop would seem like a very strange career for such a man, but there it is. Maybe you or someone else here has a thought about that, too, though I seem to recall you saying that he did not like his job.

So, anyway - is it worth talking to one of the Harleys about how this sort of man is likely to respond to Plan B, and see if the Harleys have any other suggestions for you?
Mulan

Mulan:
You raise some good points.

But before I get into it, remember that I did NOT do a stellar Plan A...I started really late, and then I had that one meltdown a few weeks before I went to Plan B.

I was thinking about WH's passivity recently, too. And it is another reason that I am SO VERY disturbed by him living with his parents. He has essentially regressed by living there, in a number of ways.

IMO, his HIGHLY P/A dad is going to want WH to PAY DEARLY for sullying the family name, for bringing dishonor on the family, embarrassing them (both WH and me)...however you want to say it. And I think he's exacting this payment by having WH stay at their house.

This way, FIL can stare at WH in judgement every day. He can make cutting, hurtful remarks...all backhanded of course. He can demean and degrade WH on a regular basis. He can remind WH (as he has said before) that going to counseling is only for those who are weak (WH goes every other week).

And all the while that FIL is doing this, he's being so "generous" by allowing WH to stay in their home. They are giving him a roof over his head! A familiar place for the boys to visit! How gracious...what unconditional love!

I've given this a LOT of thought, because I cannot make sense of WHY they would let their openly adulterous son live under their roof even though they claim to be so completely horrified. They (and by THEY I mean FIL) MUST be getting something out of this situation. Somehow this arrangement works to FIL's advantage.

This way, he keeps control over WH because I'm sure they grill him everytime he leaves about where he is going, etc. (But not TOO much because we don't REALLY want to know!) He keeps WH feeling beaten down and scorned and worthless with his looks and remarks. He keeps WH in a place where there continue to be NO EXPECTATIONS that WH will do better or do what is right or what he is capable of. "You are a failure, WH. You are lost and beyond hope."

WH is painted with the black brush of guilt and shame, and made to feel that any crumbs his family throws his way are more than he deserves. And FIL can put the screws to him whenever he pleases.

So WH's head is spinning from being told that he is a loser and a failure; and to admit his mistakes would be to acknowledge that his dad is right about him, and WH is resistant to that...

This is the pattern with WH...always reluctantly deferring to his dad or his oldest brother (who was the ultimate Golden boy). And then resenting them (and himself) for doing so. (he would complain to me bitterly about this whenever it would happen)

In terms of fighting for things of value... The IL family line would be something like, "we don't fight in our family, we have civilized discussions. There is no discord. We are civilized and proper and we do everything right. Fighting and arguing is for people who are not as "high order" as we are in our family. We have no dysfunction in our family...look how successful we all are...especially golden boy!" (=conflict avoidance, repression, and denial)

I don't know how much WH felt that he had to fight for anything. The ILs had already demonstrated what wonderful parents they were, what a perfect family, because of Golden boy.

So WH just sat back and shrugged. Why should I bother trying? Why put in the effort? There's no way I can compete with the attention that is showered all over Golden Boy. No one ever challenged WH, no one ever expected anything of him. That's sad, actually.

So WH went to the opposite extreme. I'll UNDERachieve. Even though I'm every bit as intelligent as Golden boy, I'm going to take the easy way through life. I won't apply myself at school and still get As. I'll take a job that doesn't require an intellectual powerhouse. And when I have the opportunity to advance, I won't take it. I'll be dissatisfied and horribly bored, but I have at least stepped out of the shadow of Golden boy by going in an entirely different direction.

Almost everyone that I know who has observed the IL family dynamic has picked up on the whole Golden boy thing, so this isn't just speculation on my part.

So anyway.....waaay TMI, I know.

I think the only hope for WH is to really embrace therapy (which of course FIL undermines, even though he was a school PSYCHOLOGIST!!). Honestly, that family is screwed up, but in a way that is so completely beneath the radar. IMO, dysfunction is better off exposed. It prevents infection.

It's also part of what I have been wishing to say to WH. *I* believe in you. *I* want us to work. *I* know you have goodness in you and that you love the boys. *I* know you don't want to hurt them, and burden them with this legacy. *I* married you, and *I* made a promise to you, and *I* will fight alongside you to reclaim all that you were, and more. *I* won't let you end up sad and alone, if you let me help you find the way out.

The thing is, RT is saying exactly the same thing (all lies dripping from her mouth)...but SHE is also CRACK. I'm nothing more than a speedbump on the way to get his fix.

Wh is SO proud and stubborn.

So would the Harley's have another suggestion for how to approach this? I don't know. Any thoughts? Anyone ever had a recommendation for any other approach? Because I'm thinking they'd say give it one more year to burn out.

SL:
I wanted to respond to you as well. Yes, giving and sharing is good medicine. Typically I am giving to the boys, but without them, it has felt empty. Doing more things with friends, having them over, holding my friend's newborn tonight at poker so she could have a break, talking to my neighbor down the street about her concerns for her teenage daughter.

It does feel good to MEAN something to someone else. To BE there for someone else. In that moment, I am connecting with someone...in that moment, I am special, I'm doing something that no one else is.

I am much, much closer to letting myself off the hook than I was a while back. I suppose it's part of taking inventory...I have to look over each item and examine it before I put it in the trash. Sometimes I hold on to an item a bit, and worry over it, but I do know it will go in the trash eventually.

Thanks for describing how/why I am not likely to be so easily erased. Here's where I get caught, though...okay, so he remembers what we had, etc. Just retaining the memory does not insure that there are any FEELINGS left associated with those memories. They are just memories of a past life, viewed from the perspective of a person who has been through such a drastic transformation that there are no longer any emotions evoked at the memories.

Like looking back at the guy in high school that I was so certain I was "in love!" with! Ewwww....WHAT was I thinking??

Okay...before anyone reads my posts from last night and offers well-deserved 2x4s for unrealistic expectations or spending WAAAY too much emotional energy trying to psycho-analyze WH, let me just say that after a beer, losing about 10 hands of poker, and spending a week without kids, one become overly contemplative...

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that must have been on hecka of a beer Lilsis.

I hope you have a wonderful day today.

MEDC

Sis, when I think back to the people (mother, boyfriends, best friends, etc) that I loved, I remember them with some feeling, maybe nostalgia to some extent, but I remember them fondly, if not more. Except for my mother, those people were just passing through my life. Your WH was not just passing through, you made a family together. Consider that he is as human as you are, and that he will, if not now, later, remember you with feeling. Let's remember the fog in all of this too.

PWC just left the house, and you know what he said, he said that I looked nice today. I remember a time when he wouldn't even look in my direction, because he was cheating. Remember Sis, he's in the midst of an A, so even his thoughts may betray him right now.

LilSis:

I like Mulan's take on this.

You made all the decisions before. Now RT is.

And your description of the IL family dynamics is interesting as well. And in sync with Mulan's comments.

And you didn't come to MB until 5 months after Dday. Never doubt that you were not trying the best you could up until that point. Heck, you tried even harder after that point. But it still comes down to relying on WH. To make a decision. And we know how he is about that.

So. What to do?

1. Continue in Plan b, grow personally stronger and get divorced and see what happens in life.

2. Continue in Plan B, grow stronger, drag out the divorce as long as possible and see what happens.

3. Decide to break Plan B. Address WH directly, and in a forthright manner. And get:

a.) Rejected outright.
b.) Listened too, but rejected.
c.) HE completely and utterly breaksdown and sees the complete truth of your concerns and proceeds to work to repairing all the things wrong in his relationships with you, the boys, parents, friends, employer and God.

Which, of the above scenarios, seems most likely to you?

You crave whatever little morsel that WH would throw your way that you STILL MATTERED TO HIM.

So. Find out.

I will recommend a non-MB method right now.

Find out what time WH and the boys are supposed to be back from their trip. And invite yourself over to IL's to greet him when he arrives. If needed, have someone else at your House to meet the kids if he goes there first.

Then, armed with a copy of the Plan B letter. Talk to him. He's still your H. He just got back from 2 weeks with the kids, and no RT crack.

He may not want anything to do with you under THOSE circumstances.

He MAY have every reason in the world to want to meet with you at that time.

Will this cause you emotional pain? Yes.

Are you suffering withdrawal because the boys are away? Yes.

Would you have considered this if the boys were still around? No.

Do you feel it would be a "last-ditch" effort to save your M? Then do it.

And then you go forward with whatever happens. Because the options are pretty bleak. But, if you do not feel that you have done everything you could, to save this M, then YOU might be second guessing yourself for a very long time.

Plan B is about saving your Love for your H. Not WH. About growing and becoming a better and stronger person. And preparing for a future that isn't what you may have imagined five years ago, but due to the choices of others, has been the one forced on you.

Is this a recommendation to go against so called MB guidelines? Yes.

You have followed the guidelines, and learned alot about yourself and marriage, and even your WH since you joined MB.

Has it worked for you? Yes. On many levels. Have these plans worked on WH? Not yet. And probably never will.

Would I call Steve Harley and set up an Appointment? Certainly. Unless you have started conversing with others on this site directly, Steve Harley is the only one who can talk to you directly. And truly guage what is important for you and this M, right now, and for the immediate future.

Because it is real easy for us it sit here and use this discussion board to second guess you. We try to light a path that will work for most M and most infidelity. But sometimes it doesn't.

Breaking Plan B doesn't give WH a LilSis fix. Therefore, undermining your Plan B. You undermine your Plan B by allowing WH to determine when and where to break it. In this case, you are in control.

If you get nowhere in the first 15 minutes, you can leave.
If you end up talking to him for 4 hours, then you can still leave and go dark. But maybe at the end of it, he might understand better what the plan B is all about.

Because Mulan is right. You did make the decision for him. And that makes it alot easier for him. Time to disrupt, if possible, that decision.

LG

And the 2x4's, let them fly. But this is your sitch, your decisions. But call Steve.

Okay, LG. I'm really thinking, and I appreciate your thoughtful response. I'm not going to act on impulse, that's for sure. That does nothing but get me into trouble.

Steve's probably a good bet...and although I admit I didn't really feel like I clicked with him, at this point we are talking strategy and action, not emotion. I am very clear on what I am feeling and what I would like to happen.

The TM that I composed and DID NOT send today: "There's still a way out. Take it. I've got your back."

(Sometimes it feels good just to compose something, even if I snap the phone closed without hitting send.)

And that message expresses exactly how I feel right now and what I'd like for him to know, and in just a few words. WH has to decide he wants out of the darkness, but once he makes that choice, I'm in it with him.

Don't think I'm weird, but I had a long chat with God this morning, too. I'm going to think more on that and share a little of where we ended up...

I've been wondering the same thing... about where is this Plan B going to lead Lil Sis, other than she has discovered a lot about herself and grown in leaps and bounds (which is great). It does SEEM like this is not affecting her WH at all. I agree with LG... I wonder if Steve will too? I think it's time to stir the pot, it's been simmering a long time.

Sis ~ you've got alot of conjecture going on here...and not alot of fact.

Calling Steve is a good idea.

It took the entire 2 years for my husband's affair to end. It took 18 months of separation. We are recovered now. It takes TIME.

There is NO rush here.

The need to DO, the need to stir the pot, is your inner fear talking. God is working on your husband, but not if you interfere.

He knows he can come home to you. You don't need to remind him.

Right now, he needs to suffer the consequences...ALL of the consequences.

If what you describe is accurate, then he got "this" way over a long time, through the willingness of the women in his life to step up and do for him.

Abdication of choice IS a choice. Your husband has CHOSEN to let other people run his life.

I imagine...that if you pop your head out of the dark now...you will be gratefully received - hooray, yet another person to take responsiblity for MY LIFE!

He needs to grow up on his own.

There is certainly a chance that he will choose to stay where he is. If that is the case, it will be about HIM and his life, not about your worth.

Self esteem is built Sis, you need to turn your focus to doing for others, not for your husband.

The most loving thing you can do is stand to one side and LET life hit him hard.

I totally, totally agree with BR.

It is imperative for you NOT TO BREAK PLAN B.

These plans were not developed by Harleys to break according to whim.

BACK LATER...