RW, I know the church thing is hard.

As I may have mentioned, my A was with a woman from the church we'd been at for 13 years. W & I had been so involved there & had many friends, but I threw it all away for 10 weeks of stupidity & selfishness. We had to leave in order to preserve NC. It took us 8 months to find another place we felt comfortable. I hated feeling like a refugee on Sunday mornings, and hated that I'd been the cause of my family feeling that way.

But we eventually found a place & have begun making new friends, slowly. And our friends from the old church? Well, the ones whom God meant to stick by us, have stuck by us, and the more casual ones have sort of fallen out of touch. But saving our marriage was way more important, and so while I regret having put us in a place where this decision to leave had to be made, I don't ever regret that we made the decision.

The thing that makes moving churches hard for me is because I know that WH is totally against it, I don't even want to have the conversation with him about it. I'm at the point where I'm tired of going to battle about stuff. In my mind it should be really simple, OW is guaranteed to be there so we shouldn't be.I'm not sure why WH doesn't get this. He thinks it's silly for me to be bothered by OW being there. His stance is that it's our home church and God didn't tell us to move churches. My response to that would that God didn't tell him to have an EA either.

I'm going to try and have the conversation with him today as the angst of going to church tomorrow already started yesterday.

I can only use but so many excuses not to go especially since I have been a large part of our children's ministry there. The ministry is stretched for volunteers so I know it will leave them in a bad position but, my family comes before church.

Pray for me!

I had the convo with WH today. I told him that it's agony for me to go there and see OW every week. And asked him what we should do. To which be said "I guess you want to find go to another church". I told him that's what I think would solve the problem. So we'll be visiting around. I can tell he's not happy about t
it. So the conversation didn't really go as well as I wanted.

TWC & GO any tips on finding a new church? Also anyone that can give pointers on how to make this a team effort I'm all ears. StTus quo for us was always WH going along with what I liked, he rarely gave his input. I want thugs to be different.

Thanks for all the help so far.

WH found the letter I had written requesting his work email and phone records and got very angry with me. I let my sister borrow my laptop so I had to write the letter on his, I'm not sure why I wasn't more careful about it.

In his AO he told me that I should not have requested the letters from 2008- now. That I should only request them from Jan 2010- now to prove he isn't communicating with OW. He said that I am going to see things that I don't want to see. I told him that he should not be the judge of what I do or do not want to see. I so asked him what are the things he is referring to and be had no answer.
In his AO he so said that he only cares about our son. He is finished and regrets taking the poly. He said that the sex was the main part of the issue. I told him that the pain I feel due to his EA doesn't go away because henproced he did not have sex. To me that is not the main issue.

He said that coaching obviously isn't working because I want to know info from 2 yrs. ago. He said he's done and frankly I'm tired of going to battle for a relationship that he is so nonchalant about. I'm going to make arrangements to take my son and move out by the end of the week.

Pls forgive my typos. I am posting from a my phone in a hotel.

While I was driving I realized that WH's blow up was probably gaslighting. I'm not sure what he is trying to cover up but, hopefully the records will help me find out

gaslighting would be correct. And my thoughts on the church are this:


This is a brazen hussy who comes back to a congregation where she has shamefully sought a relationship with another woman's husband. This congregation is not about worship to her. And if your husband pitches a fit about staying there, it's not about worship to him either.

RW,

Sorry to hear about this latest development. The MB community is here for you! Keep coming here for support and venting.

It sure seems like WH is dead set on hiding something from you. As long as he insists on keeping secrets then your M wil not be able to recover. You are doing the right thing by trying to get the truth.

Hang in there!!

(((((RW)))))

Mindshare

I couldn't agree more. It sounds like your WH has something else to hide, possibly something bigger.

Keep doing your Plan A even though I know it's the last thing you want to do.

Find a place to move to.

Draft a Plan B letter and post it here. When it's ready, move out and leave the letter and be pitch dark.

Your WH is not yet committed to working on the M and it sounds like you are pretty much at the end of your rope.

You are doing all the right things. You will never look back on this and wonder if there was something else you could have done better or differently. Just Plan A as best you can until you have your Plan B letter, and a place to go to, and you can move out.

I really hate he's being such a fog ridden wayward.

turtlehead you are right in that the last thing I want to do is to keep up with Plan A. Even though I don't feel like it I will anyway.

WH says that he's upset about the fact that I want to know details from up to two years ago. I told him that I wanted the whole truth and the only way I could verify that he actually gave me the whole truth (which he didn't) was to obtain the records.

I went to view an apartment today. It would be a sub-lease with 4 months left on the lease and the option to re-lease. I wouldn't tell WH of course that the lease is only 4 months.

Thnaks Kayla and mindshare. I really appreciate your support. I'm not sure what it is that he's working so hard to hide.

Ok, I am terrible at writing so I just read the samples and pulled parts that sounded like something that I would write and added in my own stuff. I feel like the teacher is going to get me for plagiarism! Tell me if it's too long or if I am missing a piece. I appreciate everyone's feedback on my Plan B letter

I chose to use my mom as an IM, let me know if you think that may be too awkward.

Dear husband,

This is a difficult letter for me to write. As I am writing this letter I remember the time when you went out of your way to find the Hallmark kissing bears that I wanted and create Valentine's in July for us. You were hurt and angered by the way I had been treated by S and wanted to do something special to show me that our relationship would be different. I am writing this letter with the true love that only a wife can have for a husband. When you read it please know that it is from the bottom of my heart.

It has become evident that our M has suffered due to neglect by both of us. While striving to pay off debt and meet the needs of our family we have missed meeting each other's needs. I sincerely apologize to you for my part in creating an environment that hurt our relationship. I neglected your needs, and failed to give you the support you needed many times. I want to do whatever I can to work together to create a marriage that we both enjoy and want to be a part of. I feel that I have been learning ways to be the type of woman that I hope you would be proud to call your wife, as I have so many times felt pride in calling you my husband.

I can commit to a marriage based on honesty, openness and mutual respect and care for the other's well-being. I can commit to marriage with you on those terms - I cannot commit to a marriage on terms other than those.

I have thought about my mistakes and I am willing to work hard to correct them and create a new life for both of us that will meet both our needs. I cannot continue to do that until you end your relationship with OW and all other relationships and emotional commitments which require you to maintain a secret second life that takes away from our relationship, for once and for all. I love you and I want our marriage to work but in order to preserve my love for you I am no longer able to maintain contact with you.

I ask that you please respect my decision to separate in this way. I have written a plan below for you to maintain contact with C. If you need to contact me, please do so through my mom she will pass on any important messages to me.

* Sunday night- C at my home
* Monday Night- C at my home
* Tuesday Night- C at my home
* Wednesday night- C at your home, I will drop him off at daycare and you may pick him up
* Thursday night- C at your home
* Friday night- C at your home
* Saturday night- C at my home- You may drop him off at my mom's home at 3pm. each Saturday.


I will be seeking counsel on how to best protect C financially, specifically child support and how to set that up.

I want us to be a team, and restore our marriage together. I want you to know that no matter how bad the past was, no matter how ugly, we can get past it. With God's help, our true healing can begin.

I want to grow old with you. When you find yourself ready and willing to truly and fully commit to our family, willing to work on a plan for our recovery, I will be ready and willing to discuss our future.

I will know that you have made that commitment when the following conditions are met:

* Maintain no contact with OW for life
* Finish reading SAA
* Admittance that you were involved in an emotional affair
* Full confession with a willingness to answer any questions I may have that will help "fill- in" the details.
* Willingness to be transparent in providing full disclosure of all email and phone accounts along with disclosing the passwords to each account.



Your loving wife,

RW,

This is what is referred to around MB as 'Josephs Letter'. It's a letter that a BS can give to a WS to hopefully help them see why we need to know the truth about what they've done. Why sweeping it under the rug will hinder recovery. It's probably a long shot with your husband but you may want to try giving this time him. It certainly can't hurt.

Mindshare


"To Whomever,

"I know you are feeling the pain of guilt and confusion. I understand that you wish all this never happened and that you wish it would just go away. I can even believe that you truly love me and that your indiscretion hurts you emotionally much the same way it hurts me. I understand your apprehension to me discovering little by little, everything that led up to your indiscretion, everything that happened that night, and everything that happened afterwards. I understand. No one wants to have a mistake or misjudgment thrown in his or her face repeatedly. No one wants to be forced to "look" at the thing that caused all their pain over and over again. I can actually see, that through your eyes, you are viewing this whole thing as something that just needs to go away, something that is over, that he/she doesn't mean anything to you, so why is it such a big issue? I can understand you wondering why I torture myself with this continuously, and thinking, doesn't he/she know by now that I love him/her? I can see how you can feel this way and how frustrating it must be. But for the remainder of this letter I'm going to ask you to view my reality through my eyes.

"You were there. There is no detail left out from your point of view. Like a puzzle, you have all the pieces and you are able to reconstruct them and be able to understand the whole picture, the whole message, or the whole meaning. You know exactly what that picture is and what it means to you and if it can effect your life and whether or not it continues to stir your feelings. You have the pieces, the tools, and the knowledge. You can move through your life with 100% of the picture you compiled. If you have any doubts, then at least you're carrying all the information in your mind and you can use it to derive conclusions or answers to your doubts or question. You carry all the "STUFF" to figure out OUR reality. There isn't really any information, or pieces to the puzzle that you don't have.

"Now let's enter my reality. Let's both agree that this affects our lives equally. The outcome no matter what it is well affect us both. Our future and our present circumstances are every bit as important to me as it is to you. So, why then is it okay for me to be left in the dark? Do I not deserve to know as much about the night that nearly destroyed our relationship as you do? Just like you, I am also able to discern the meaning of certain particulars and innuendoes of that night and just like you, I deserve to be given the opportunity to understand what nearly brought our relationship down. To assume that I can move forward and accept everything at face value is unrealistic and unless we stop thinking unrealistically I doubt our lives well ever "feel" complete. You have given me a puzzle. It is a 1000 piece puzzle and 400 random pieces are missing. You expect me to assemble the puzzle without the benefit of looking at the picture on the box. You expect me to be able to discern what I am looking at and to appreciate it in the same context as you. You want me to be as comfortable with what I see in the picture as you are. When I ask if there was a tree in such and such area of the picture you tell me don't worry about it, it's not important. When I ask whether there were any animals in my puzzle you say don't worry about it, it's not important. When I ask if there was a lake in that big empty spot in my puzzle you say, what's the difference, it's not important. Then later when I'm expected to "understand" the picture in my puzzle you fail to understand my disorientation and confusion. You expect me to feel the same way about the picture as you do but deny me the same view as you. When I express this problem you feel compelled to admonish me for not understanding it, for not seeing it the way you see it. You wonder why I can't just accept whatever you chose to describe to me about the picture and then be able to feel the same way you feel about it.

"So, you want me to be okay with everything. You think you deserve to know and I deserve to wonder. You may honestly feel that the whole picture, everything that happened is insignificant because in your heart you know it was a mistake and wish it never happened. But how can I know that? Faith? Because you told me so? Would you have faith if the tables were turned? Don't you understand that I want to believe you completely? But how can I? I can never know what is truly in your mind and heart. I can only observe you actions, and what information I have acquired and slowly, over time rebuild my faith in your feelings. I truly wish it were easier.

"So, there it is, as best as I can put it. That is why I ask questions. That is where my need to know is derived from. And that is why it is unfair for you to think that we can effectively move forward and unfair for you to accuse me of dwelling on the past. My need to know stems from my desire to hold our world together. It doesn't come from jealousy, it doesn't come from spitefulness, and it doesn't come from a desire to make you suffer. It comes from the fact that I love you. Why else would I put myself through this? Wouldn't it be easier for me to walk away? Wouldn't it be easier to consider our relationship a bad mistake in my life and to move on to better horizons? Of course it would, but I can't and the reason I can't is because I love you and that reason in itself makes all the difference in the world."

(end of Joseph's Letter)

Thanks mindshare I have given it to him. I will let you all know whether it helps him understand where I am coming from.

Here's the response WH sent me in regards to Joseph's letter. He's still refusing to provide details and has threatened to end our relationship if I go on with requesting the records. I'm not sure how to respond and welcome everyone's input.

I will call and see if we can move our appointment with Steve up since I am supposed to have a decision on the sub-lease this week.

Beginning of WH's response:
Its nice that you so elegantly put it that way but I can't heal the past, I can only let my actions heal the present and going forth. Like I said, you are more concerned about the details of a story where you already know enough grueling information to process and say ok there it is, now let's move forward. I don't want to move forward because "I want this to go away." HELL, this ain't going away for a long time. Every time I say I'm going to play madden, every time I'm busy at work and don't call as much, every time I'm somewhere by myself "thought" are going to pop in your head. We will be on a nice vacation just hanging out and a thought will pop in your head, we will finish making a love and a thought again. We will be watching tv and a wife sleeps with another man and a thought from our past will enter. I KNOW this and it won't go away for YEARS.
And the longer you try to "investigate" details the further behind we will be. I KNOW this not "just going to go away" but we started coaching so we can move forward. He has a plan to move us forward but your actions or the actions you would like to take is only moving us backward.

With his coaching I'm trying to show you I'm a different person but that's not your concern right now. So it is correct that you are not as concerned about moving forward as the marriage coach thinks you are. It has nothing to do with "look tia will you please just get over it." You won't be getting over it anytime soon...anytime soon. And I CAN and WILL accept that and deal with it. But for you to act like you are showing grace and act like you are ready to move forward and act like you want us to be happy but then react with "I want to know everything" when you already know everything tells me your actions are fabricated. You don't want to move forward, you are more concerned with finding out all you can so you can have a reason to not move forward.

You know we never slept together, didn't even come close. You know we only hung out at her house, you know I have told her she was attractive, you know we built a friendship, you know there was an emotional connection, you know I kept talking to her when I said I would stop, you know I mostly talked to her at work and over the phone, you know I had to really care about her to keep talking to her, you know at the time I cared more about my relationship with her than with you b/c I kept talking with her, you know all of this. All of the other stuff you want to know Will Not help us move forward.

I'm not placing the blame on you nor am I saying you are dumb for wanting to keep "digging." And I do care about and love you..I was mad the other night. But if you do this I am done with trying to make it work since you not trying to make it work ALL the way that you say you are. You said it's only been three weeks, I say I have been walking around thanking God for helping me and happy I have been obeying HIM and honoring you for 3 weeks and looking forward to doing it another 3 weeks and so on. But clearly, this isn't enough and yea you have been "doing" it for 2 years and I haven't but thank God at least HE doesn't bring up my past, accepts me for where I am now and is molding me to moving forward. So if we end b/c pf this even tho its ALL my fault..100% I will rest in knowing I can move forward in HIM.

End of response.

I'm still not sure what is it he is trying to hide. He says I know everything yet he specifically told me that I am going to see some things that I "don't want to see"

RW,

Plenty of blame-shifting going on with WH. This makes me very suspicious. He sure is fighting hard to keep you from reviewing the past. Definitely could be more skeletons in the closet that he doesn't want to see the light of day. His lack of empathy is still very disturbing as well. He just wants to sweep everything under the rug and for you to 'just get over it'. That can be common with alot of waywards.

Definitely call and see if you can move up your appointment with Steve. Tell him it is an emergency and that you are about to go into Plan B and need his counsel before doing so.

What do you have left in the tank? Is your LB almost empty? Pay close attention to how you are feeling about WH. The timing of Plan B is crucial.

Mindshare

Mindshare right now I guess I can say I'm at my wits end. I will try and see if I can get an appointment with Steve asap. I have to make a decision on the sub-lease and I'm leaning towards going ahead and signing it. If lose him I lose him

RW, I have been reading your thread and my heart goes out to you. I too experienced the betrayal of an EA in my marriage, and it was awful.

I am no expert, and certainly I'm no MB veteran, but how is he in any kind of position to leverage a response from you?? If he wants to truly recover your marriage and "be a better person" (as he wrote), then he needs to demonstrate a willingness to give you whatever you need to feel safe in the relationship. Trust is not yours to give; it's his to EARN. BS's often need to feel that they have all the truth, even if it is hurtful. It takes away that feeling of powerlessness, and gives you the information you need to make an informed decision concerning YOUR life. He is not willingly according you that, and to me that's a huge red flag.

And I would absolutely call him on the contradictory statements. Ask him: "Honey, since you said I already know everything, how could there possibly be things from the past that I "don't want to see"? his response to this will be telling.

I suspect he is gaslighting you - trying to confuse you by throwing dust in your face to obscure the real issue (i.e. his infidelity).

I hope you can get an appointment with Steve asap. God bless you and direct your path.*HUG*

RW,

Can you post the exact questions that were asked on the poly word for word? I don't remember seeing the questions posted by you. If I missed it then sorry. I'd like to see the exact word for word questions if you have them.

Mindshare

You're not crazy.
Your WH is blame shifting.

IF you already know everything, as he claims, then he shouldn't care how much you care to go back and dig. IF he is truly committed to earning back your trust, he'd welcome any evidence that corroborates what he is telling you. The evidence won't corroborate, though, and that is why he is worried. That is why he's shifting the blame to you.

You know perfectly well that a marriage can only be built on complete honesty. He's not there yet. He wants to act nice now and sweep the past under the rug. That is a bandaid, though, and the wound will fester underneath it all. Maybe you'll go along seemingly happily for the rest of your days and maybe your marriage will die of blood poisoning.

Don't try to convince your WH, you can't. It's futile, it's a LB, there's no point. Just know that you are healthy and sane.

Your Plan B letter is way too long (the first drafts always are). I'll take a stab at ruthlessly and cruelly cutting big hunks out of it and post here in a little bit.

Good grief. Typical WS attitude. I sense very little from his note that he intends to fully open up to you at any time. And he's trying to make his inability to act in a trustworthy manner YOUR problem to deal with.

Sheesh. He needs a good 2x4, that's what he needs.

A possible response to this gaslighting: "With all due respect, H, it is not for you (as a WH) to decide what I NEED to move forward. As the betrayed party in this equation, only I can know that. Also, you do not live inside my head, nor are we the same person, so when you tell me what my motives are--what I'm *really* thinking/feeling/wanting/etc.--you are defining me and hence speaking nonsense. At least have the decency NOT to tell me what I am or am not thinking."