This may be a long story butI hope someone will read it and offer some advice. Two months ago my wife let me know that she wanted out. Several weeks prior to this I had noticed a change in her, she was distant, pre-occupied, and troubled. I would try to get her to talk about it but she would always say it was nothing and that everything was fine and smile a very strained smile. I always let it go, until I came home from dropping the kids off with my parents for their summer stay on the coast. I came home very late and my wife was not around. It appeared that the house had been empty for awhile. After making some phone calls to figure out where she was, she comes through the door a little tipsy which is unusual for her. I asked her what was going on and this time I didn't let go of it. It finally came pouring out of her about how unhappy she has been for the past two years and how she wanted to end the marriage. I was devastated. I had no real clue about her unhappines. I knew there had to be more to this and asked if there was someone else. At first she denied it but I kept pressing and she admited that she realized she was in love with a man that she had come to know over the past two years. She said he was closer to her age. I'm 43,nine years older than her. She said he is handsome and kind. He is a salesman that calls on her at her place of business. She says their relationship has not become physical except for one hug. OM has told her he loves her and he is unhappy with his marriage and wants to leave his wife. She has told him she loves him and is leaving me. Their relationship has mostly been over the phone and during his visits to her office. She has stipulated that he must first leave his wife before their relationship can go any further. I think that she has rationalized all of this as the honorable thing to do. They have apparently made plans as they have discussed our children. My wife can have no more children and he has never wanted any but he's o.k. with ours. They have talked about sex, my wife has herpes he's o.k. with that too. OM talks of marriage but she wants to wait for at least two years. In a matter of days my life was turned upside down. I have since lost 30 lbs. I joke and tell my friends that my wife has me on the heartbreak diet. My doctor has me on anti-depressents so that I can function. I'm going to a couselor,my wife has yet to cooperate in going too. I believe that she is just waiting me out hoping I will grow emotionaly strong enough to accept the final blow, signing divorce papers. <BR>I wish that I had known about this site long before now. I made all the wrong moves in the begining. I demanded that she end all contact with OM, she won't. I begged for another chance to try again, she's through trying. I used God and guilt on her, she says God will forgive her. I pleaded for the kids sake, she resentend that. I believed we had an o.k. marriage. I knew that it could always have been better but I became content. Each of us had had an affair in the past but I thought we had gotten past those sad years. I guess in my heart I never really forgave her for her affair and as I have now learned I was reluctant to meet all of her emotional needs. She does not believe that I will ever change from my old ways. All of my attempts to coerce her into trying to work things out made her feel trapped and she was becoming more and more distrought. I was doing all of the house work, cooking the meals, finshing up projects around our new house all to prove that I could change and be more sensitive to her needs. (Did I mention, 5 months after buying our fist home she drops this bomb on me.) Nothing I seemed to be doing was helping. She was slipping further and further into dispair. I finally decided to give her all the space she needed and moved out two and half weeks ago. She is much more relaxed now and at ease. She is still adamant about a divorce. <BR>I wished that I had known about plan A. After educating myself on this site I now believe that earlier on in this process what I percieved as utter dispair from her was really withdrawl from her OM. At that time I was telling her she would have to sue me for a divorce and she wasn't prepared to do that. I wish now that I had not given in and left. I'm still doing all that I can for her and she is appreciative. I keep the kids after school until she gets home from work. I have dinner cooked for them. I still do some of the other house hold chores. I stay late with the kids when she goes to play golf with her friends twice a week. I leave as soon as she arrives home. We trade a pleasent greeting and rarely converse as we pass each other coming and going. We talk only when it is necessary. I take the kids Saturday morning and they spend the night with me so that she can have the entire day and night to herself. We all meet at church as a family on Sunday.<BR>I guess right now I am somewhere between plan A and plan B. <BR>My question after all of this is: Should I move back into the house and go completely into plan A? I'm afraid that my moving out only reinforced her belief that we are moving ahead towards an amicable divorce. I know she would not stop me from moving back in but I'm afraid that she may take it as another threat and delete any Love Credits I may have accumulated. Or do I go completely into plan B and break off all contact with her since she has not backed off from her position of divorce or seeing her OM. I am desperate to do anything that will save my marriage and family. I have even thought of moving in and telling her to move out since she is the one who wants to start an new relationship. Anything that would jolt her into what I think is reality. She wants to throw away an 11 year marriage for a slim chance of happiness instead of trying to <BR>find it at home. <BR>I appreciate anyone that has taken the time to read all of this. I know that everyone is here because they have experienced great pain in their lives and mine are no greater than anyone elses. I hope someone out there has some good advice. <BR>Thanks,<BR>Thrown away

I don't know that I can give you any advice but you W sounds like my H I empathize with you. reading your story makes me think of mine and I'm crying for the both of us, because I know your pain. My H refuses to sever contact with OW also. The only difference is when H asked for a Divorce I said NO! without a moments hesitation because for one I know we don't have the money for him to fight for it. I am also still at home, and sometime I wonder if it would be easyier to not be here, but I know I still love him and want to work it out. I also realize that I can't make him change his mind so I am working on me. I am changing myself not for my H but for God and maybe my H will like the changes to. All I can say is turn to God, trust, pray, and have faith. I know it's harder than it sounds but I am learning that it is worth it because despite everything I have a wonderful peace.<P>------------------<BR>Scared and lonely

Thank-you also for your encouragement. I understand how hard it is to give up your own will for God's but I can feel the difference just in my self when I die to my self and live for God. God has shown me things that I need to work on in my own life. My H is 8 years my senior and when we got married I was only 18 (still a child) and I was fearful of growing up because I didn't want to dissapoint him. I think that was my downfall. Now I am growing and Maturing and Changing not for my H but for my God and me. All we can do is live for God and trust Him and have faith that in his time things will be worked out (This is not easy for me to say because I am one of the most impatient creatures alive, something God is working on in me).<BR>My prayers are with you, Please keep in touch and let me know how things are going.<P>In God's Love, your sister in Christ <P>------------------<BR>Scared and lonely

Dear T.A<P>I am very sorry that you have a very difficult situation at hand. You don't deserve the sort of treatment. Sacred and Lonely is right about leaving and surrendering all to Jesus.<P>My WS adultery of 2 years made me go to the brink of madness and turned me physically violent. I couldn't get the rage, hatred, envy, bitterness, anger and violence out of my system. It has something to do with soulish ties (bondage with the OW aka nymphomaniac banshee; she got WS when he was pissed drunk and threatened him to continue A which ended when she knived him in public and landed in jail when WS rejected her one time too many). So, her spirits of violence, etc, were transfered to my WS and myself. I have never seen WS so suicidal and despondent before. WE were definitely not ourselves.<P>I went to a healing ministry and with whatever little faith and hope I have left, I allowed God to work his miracle. I came home last weekend after the healing ministry and felt the emotional trauma has disappeared; the rage and violence is no longer flaring at the pit of my stomach. I just need to decide what to do with my marriage. I wanted a divorce or separation very badly because everytime I see WS, I just reach out to hit him - it was that bad. Now with my violence healed and my baby, I am praying to God for a breakthrough.<P>Try fasting and praying - am reading a book on that by Derek Prince.<P>I hope your wife will go to counselling with you, if not commit your wife into God's hands. Get supportive church friends to pray for the two of you as well. <P>Get books on the trauma of divorce on children and give them to your wife to read. I am a different personality so I cannot really advice you on how to treat your WS because I am not the Plan A type. My WS stated many times before in God's name that the marriage has been perfect and wonderful, and that his mistake was he was not close enough to God to know how to flee the situation when the banshee got into his bed when he was pissed drunk.<P>Got to run - my baby is crying.<BR>

Just stay in Plan A as long as possible...<BR>Move back in if you can...<BR>...but don't throw her out...<BR>...you want to do a great Plan A...<BR>.....before you transition to Plan B!<P>Only go to Plan B when your Love Bank... is <B>wayyyyyyyy</B> low!<P> <P>Jim

Thanks for the positive response. It sounds like really good advice. I believe that I'm leaning that way more and more each day. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by NSR:<BR><B>Just stay in Plan A as long as possible...<BR>Move back in if you can...<BR>...but don't throw her out...<BR>...you want to do a great Plan A...<BR>.....before you transition to Plan B!<P>Only go to Plan B when your Love Bank... is wayyyyyyyy</B> low!<P> <P>Jim<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>