The topic of a NC letter has come up...I feel like it would be reopening a can of worms.

It is necessary. It is less a case of opening a can of worms than of welding a cover over an open sewer.

Whether or not it convinces POSOM all the more of your commitment to be done with him and devote yourself to your marriage, it more reliably serves the purpose of a covenant between you and BH.

Trust us that writing it in your own hand, giving it to BH to read and approve (after we've helped ), and having him mail it, will be yet three more steps in the cooperation and "couple protection" that is going to have to become your life going forward.

Send the NO CONTACT letter so at least his wife will know what is going on.

"Mr. OM I am rebuilding my marriage with my wonderful husband, Mr. A. Please do not contact me ever again. I will not respond to your emails, phone calls, or texts. I am as good as dead to you."

Close down Facebook and any other social media he could use to contact you. Then it is over. You will now be as good as dead to him. The way it should be.

It's important to your BH. It shows your commitment. If he does come around just do as you have been now... IGNORE.

I CONCUR!!!

Your husband, who is giving you another chance, has asked for a No Conctact letter... and you are questioning it?

FM, are you serious? Do you want to recover your marriage?

NC letter is a document. Its purposes are many fold, including:

Statement to your BH that you will not be in contact with OM ever again, and that you have formally requested the same of him.

Statement to OW that you wish to end your relationship, and that you wish no further contact.

Legal notice that you do not wish contact. Useful for restraining order, if required in future.

Written commitment of watershed moment in your M.

Statement to yourself of your present and future commitment to your marriage.

After finding out that OM keeps breaking NC. Has broken NC just two weeks ago an NC letter is not going to be stirring anything up.

Things are stirred up because the OM won't put doen the spoon.

This is a bad sign that you refuse to send a NC letter. Appears as an attempt for you to keep the OM as a back up plan.

here


[from SAA, pg 58]

OW, I want you to know that out of respect and love for my wife and children, I have come to realize that I must never see or talk to you again. My relationship with you was a cruel indulgence that BS did not deserve. While I cannot completely repay BS for the pain I caused her, I will do my best to become the husband she has been missing. I care a great deal for my family and I would not want to do anything to risk their happiness. I will not make any further contact with you and I do not want you to make any contact with me. Please respect my desire to end our relationship.

Sincerely, XXXXX

Normally you would think that as an unfaithful husband (like you I don't know all the acronyms, in fact I refuse to use them even in business) I should not be anyone to offer advice, but here's my 2 cents worth, but the advise from BrainHurts above is exactly what you must do. I don't know if you are the point where you realize the pain you caused your husband, and all your friends and family?
If you are you must know that he is everyday wondering when you are going to do this to him again.
My wife catwhit, posted above, I concur with her comments on the usefulness of the No contact letter. I sent two! The first when I was discovered the first time, if you knew me, you would think I was smart enough to realize what I had done. But mere weeks after writing the irate letter, I started up the relationship again.
I'm lucky, catwhit found out 5 months later and we had a showdown as you would imagine.
This time I knew what an idiot I'd been, given another chance and screwed up again. Catwhit's not a woman who needs me, but we both realized we are actually a great couple Together, just got off track like you did. I've said this before to catwhit ( and I know I'm going to hear about this statement from the forum) but when we got married, no one gave a "manual of how to behave" vows in church are something that's been around for hundreds of years and have lost a lot of their meaning. 15-20 years ago, divorce became so common we hardly thought about it. But if we'd all been given Dr Harley's sage advise on marriage we probably wouldn't have gotten where we are now.
Sorry for rambling, but the background is needed. In August I wrote a second No Contact letter and was very clear, same as BrainHurts text except added section related to work issues as we worked at the same place. (I've changed jobs and countries to get away) we thought all was well, but like the camel putting his nose under the tent flap, the contacts started to come again. Each time a little more, until recently I received a phone call, and without my glasses on answered it. It was the Other Woman, I was in shock, she wished catwhit and myself a happy new year, I like a fool did respond, just "OK, thanks" then hung up, but it was against my own rules for No Contact, i didn't make the call, but I made the contact by speaking.
So where am I going with this, write the No Contact letter, make it simple, but try to include all avenues that you think he may take to contact you, send a copy to you husband first and tell him why you are doing this, ask him if you think you should add anything, but try and keep it simple.
When you've agreed on the text, send it and make sure you have blocks on email and phone numbers, your swift board at work can also block his numbers, not perfect as he could try from a pay phone, but do whatever you can.
The next part takes work from you, and I am not good at this, have to set an alarm to remind myself to do it. Make a no contact agreement with your husband, that's not to have no contact with him! It's to re iterate the things you would do I case of a contact.
Call your husband 2-3 times a week and ask if you can go over your no contact agreement with him, reassure him on each point as to contacts if any(there shouldn't be, but if the other man tries you need to inform you're husband, being totally honest is what he's looking for) what you are doing here is letting your husband know, it's over and your ready to start the healing process.
I see my wife's mood elevate every time I read the Agreement through with her, of course we have something to talk about because of the phone call, but this gives us an opportunity to openly express measures going forward.
For us that means the next step, getting a lawyer in another country to write a letter asking the other woman to respect our wishes, we hope that does it!!

So put all else aside and write the no contact letter and call your husband.

oh no! you cried all night about sending a no contact letter? you feel like your husband is being demanding and mean by dictating how the letter should read?

poor little mouse! it looks as if your reality is shifting and you can no longer whip your husband around like an old dishrag.

i guess it's time to think hard about whether you want to stay married or not because if you do, you're going to heave to learn how to give in ways you've never given before.

personally, i think he took you back way too quick. you think you're on top now. think again.

I agree you saving POSOM as a backup plan. That's why your so hesitant for NC

I actually laughed when I read she cried. Didn't want to come across insensitive but I love that icon and had to agree that the crying is really a pathetic attempt at woe is me... I have to resurrect something from the old threads.... call a WAAAAAAAAAAAAMBULANCE!!!!!

I can assure you not nearly as offensive as what I wrote, thought about, then deleted.

You're incredibly selfish and demanding. Woe is me seems to be your mantra, yet you are the one that committed the atrocity of adultery.

After begging everyone for help getting him back, then get him to take you back on trial, and then you still balk at the (so far) paltry demands he is making is laughable at best. Also, it's sadly indicative of your mindset and me me me attitude.

You severely disappoint me. I actually thought you were sincere. Guess I was wrong.

ETA- You better pull your head out of your [censored] with a highly audible pop, or you will soon find yourself back to where you were living before. You've been handed the gift of a lifetime, and this is how appreciative you are of said gift??

WTH are you thinking?

(BTW, this absolutely pales by comparison to what I really want to write, and almost did.)

FM, your situation is circling the porcelain portal, and most of the folks here are so angry at your position on the NCL that they're fighting over who gets to use the plunger to finish the job.

Why? Let's put this in perspective. The MB recovery plan is marked by two characteristics.

1) It is extensive and rigorous. It is not "Day1: Start - Day2: Done". To complete the process requires commitment and investment.
2) It is virtually entirely dependent on the efforts of the principals, the spouses. No one out here claims to have the magic wand to heal the rupture(s) remotely.

So what have you given us? The first step (Well, actually, the second step after climbing out from between the sheets with the AP) is to ENTHUSIASTICALLY agree to compose and send the NCL. YOU FAILED STEP ONE. In one refusal, you basically voided any hope of constancy through the process, and your commitment to actually DO what must be done!!! You're "oh-for-frickin'-two", FM!

And to ensure that you garner NO further support here, you HIDE from us, on your own thread! After over 200 notes of support, encouragement, hand-holding, and education, the first time you hear something that differs from what you want ("Write the damn NCL!") you run away! Crying!!!

"Wow!" seems so inadequate, friend!

I feel a need to clarify a few things that seem to have been lost in translation between mr aqua's and my posts.
I was not up all night crying about the nc letter. I was up all night crying because of the discussions that he and I had and the unresolved nature of our issues. I agree completely with his statement that he has a much higher tolerance for these discussions than I do. I emotionally cannot handle them without a breakdown. I was not using to get sympathy, it was a physical reaction I could not control. Being kept up all night crying ( I spent most of the day while he was at work crying as well) is not fun for me. I feel awful today, I fell down the stairs because I was literally too exhausted physically and emotionally to keep it from happening and it is by the grace of God that The other person was paying attention and i didn't get into a car accident today.
The OM is not the issue. I have no intention of contacting him or conversing if he contacts me. I am not leaving the door open, my concern was completely about the fallout of the letter dealing with it causing him to contact me more. When I told him before that I chose H over him he retaliated by trying to poison H against me in a "if I can't have her I'll make us you don't want her" fashion. In taing to H last night I explained to him that i hesitated what I needed was a show of support that nothing OM could say or do would change things and that whatever he tried to do we would get through together. Instead I was met with a demand and the feeling that he felt my concerns were not important and even accused me of lying about the reason for not sending it.
I don't know how much of this is in my head, how much of it is me feeling sorry for myself, or how much is legitimate. I feel like I am having an emotional breakdown and I am too paralyzed to do anything without snapping. (Not just MB related, I broke down crying this afternoon because there was no parking when I got home from the grocery store) I know that a few people had advised before not to have too many hard discussion days in a row and we keep saying that we are going to have an enjoyable ua night and it keeps turning bad. How do I meet his ens when I feel like I can't even function for myself? I feel scared to even discuss anything because I am so physically and emotionally exhausted that I don't have the strength to try to not be selfish and to be calm and rational but not talking isnt going to help anything.

FM. Welcome to the emotional rollercoaster. Sounds like you're defogging just a little. Imagine your BH has been on the ride for a while. Actually at this point you DO need to put aside your feelings. Mr.A is justified in demanding the NCL. You should have thought of the "fall out" BEFORE you decided to hop into bed with a mentally unstable POSOM. What are you scared of? If he tries to contact you get a RO. Seriously, you are asking your BH to support you when you can't even agree to send a letter. If you start following the MB program you'll probably be less exhausted. I don't understand how you can't see that you need to do this to even begin recovery. Come back when you've written the NCL and sent it off with Mr.A's approval. Geez.

First of all: I am glad you came back here to post! THIS spot is the place to find the strength you believe you don't have within yourself.

On that line of thought: DON'T THINK! Sounds pretty bizarre, doesn't it? But right now you have zero ability to dispassionately consider your situation clearly enough to devise a plan in any way approaching the effectiveness of the MB Program.

Put your trust in the program, and in the folks here who are far enough removed from the pain and turmoil engulfing you to guide you through it.

Can you commit to that?

(And: You might want to see a doctor about getting some ADs for short-term support.)

We sat down and looked up his address, the envelope is all addressed and ready to go. Here is the nc letter, does anyone have advice on items that need changing or adding? We are hoping to get some advice tonight so that mr aqua can mail it on his way to work tomorrow.
Also, should it be typed or hand written or does it make a difference?

OM,
When we last spoke you gave both H and me your word that you would not contact me again. Your emails have proven that you cannot be taken for your word so please see this as my formal request to cease and desist any further attempts to contact me or H through any means, written, verbal, or otherwise.

The relationship I had with you was selfish, cruel, and hurtful to everyone I care about, especially H. I caused undue stress and pain to those who loved me and I am deeply regretful for that. H did not deserve the way I treated him and I am committed to making things right with him and repairing the damage I have done to our marriage. Out of respect and love for him, I have vowed never to come into contact with you again.

Please respect my attempt to regain my integrity and heal my family by never contacting any of us again.

Sincerely,
FM