It has now been nine months since D-Day. I have read HNHN, SAA, and have been working hard on Plan A.<p>I am tired of Plan A! While I have been busy meeting my WHs ENs my own ENs have gone entirely unmet. My LB feels bankrupt. <p>You can read some backgroud at:
Trying to Get a Grip<p>My H even told me a couple of nights ago that he feels bad that he has not acknowledged all of the changes I have made. But still my EN go unmet.<p>The lack of any real intimacy is driving me nuts. I have gotten to the point where now when he touches my hand or something that I feel like telling him that if he wants to pet something, "pet the dog." (you see all I get is a pat on the back or a touch on the arm)<p>So now I'm affraid I am not far from really not liking him anymore. I have decided to stay in this holding pattern for another 60 days. During that time I will continue to try and meet his EN. I won't LB but I also plan to go about living my own life. He can participate or not. At this point I'm affraid I don't think I care much anymore. <p>At the beginning of the 60 days I wrote a long journal entry noting how I am feeling in detail. I promised myself to make at least one journal entry every week and at the end of the 60 days I will write a final entry detailing how I am feeling at that time. If at that time there has not been a change in how I feel about myself, my marriage, or how my H is relating to me, I will leave and not look back. <p>I am not sure if this is a good plan but at least it's a plan which is what I think I need right now. <p>I would be very interested in hearing thoughts from others.

Hi Kaitlee<p>I am so sorry that you are running out of patience. Unfortunately, I do not know how long is too long to continue trying, nor do I even pretend to understand the ups and downs involved in trying to repair a marriage that has been damaged. My only thought, as I read your post, was to ask if you have considered plan B. Maybe by seperating yourself from your spouse(even emotionally and not necessarily another place to live), and just working on taking care of you, will help you renew your commitment to plan A. Sometimes, as Dr. Dobson says in his book on Tough Love, people have to feel real pain to ever come to the place in their lives where they are willing to implement change. This describes me in a nutshell. I did not see the seriousness of many of my actions, nor did I realize the damage that I had caused in my marriage until the day that I discovered my wife was involved with someone else. While you are plan Aing, your husband may be comfortable with his life and you. However, faced with the prospect of no contact from you and certain EN's no longer being fulfilled may bring about the circumstances needed to push him off of the fence. I see that you are not new to MB and you have read the material. I just think, personally, that plan B should be considered before you give up. You, however, are probably the only person that can answer that question. I am praying right now that God will give you the wisdom and knowledge to walk in the way that God would lead you. <p>Guardian<p>Psalm 61<p>DD 2/10/01
WS 35, Me BS 39
Married 17 yrs.
3 children 15,13,11
We are in strong recovery! Praise be to God!

Kaitlee, just wanted to add that I seem to be in the boat as you at this time. See my post Plan A not working, headed to Plan B (also on recovery board with more detail). No easy answers. My WS senses my emotional distancing. Last night he said I seem unhappy and yes I am. I've never felt safe in expressing my thoughts and feelings with him and yes, I've tryed. He just runs me over like a bulldozer. I wish you peace, as I wish for peace for myself.<p>Take care.<p>LIP

I've thought about Plan B several times. I even spoke with my H about doing a healing separation if for nothing else that to allow he and I both time to heal. I am not kidding when I say this, he practically ignors that I've said anything! In all my life I have never seen someone so able to withhold all communication. <p>I'm beginning to believe that he thinks everything will just go away or that eventually all will be forgotten if we don't talk about it. There is absolutely no chance of that happening as far as I'm concerned!<p>At this point I think I would rather be alone than be rejected in my own home by the person who made so many promises to me 24 years ago. My children are starting to express concern to me about why the he@@ I am still with him. I worry that they will loose respect for me but I will not let that drive my decision. I continue to tell them that I need to be able to pass the "straight face test" to myself. I want to be able to take comfort in knowing that I did everything I possibly could regardless of the outcome.<p>So right now I will continue my 60 day plan and see what happens. My H can either meet me half way or go it alone.

Kaitlee,<p>I generally frequent GQII, but noticed your post here. You brought up some good points that I'm thinking about. I too am starting to feel like I'm running out of Plan A gas. My WW seems to acknowledge my changes, yet has no willingness to "do the right thing".<p>What I've started doing recently is much as you describe: starting to distance myself. In doing so, I think she has taken some notice. I think she might be becoming a little bit interested in what's going on. But she's still fogged in pretty good. So my distancing is all about preserving my energy. I believe one can distance themselves and still carry out Plan A.<p>There are a couple of schools of thought. The Harley approach is to stay in as strong a Plan A as possible up to the last possible second before going to Plan B. You want to end on a positive note - leave them seeing you in all your shining Plan A glory. (Even if they don't come back, they'll have to live with that on their consciences.)<p>The Dobson approach is to literally change your attitude - 180 degrees. Stop all pursuit before hitting the Plan B moment. It leaves the WS a bit confused and unsure about what's going on. It can do things like fire up territorial urges, etc.<p>I don't think there's any one "right answer". I think both can be effective, and I tend to like the latter, because it gives me an opportunity to at least show my WW that I CAN move on without her (this is part of our relationship dynamic that I'm aware of - her belief that I'll always be there for her). I don't think it will be "damaging" to our relationship - in fact, I think this change in attitude is worth trying out for a while, to see if it has an effect that might not require use of Plan B. After all, all I seem to have right now is time!

J.R.<p>It's good to know that I'm not alone in my thinking. After this many months I beginning to feel like my dignity is the most important thing right now. For me, going full steam Plan A is just a bit demeaning. I feel like I am begging him to love me. Being that submissive just doesn't feel right to me. After all I am just as worthy of having my EN met as he is. And I didn't go out and have an A. I feel like I am rewarding him for bad behavior. How great it must be to be able to go out, have an affair, disrupt the entire family, and come home and have your spouse apparently accept all of the fault by them running around making sure that you're comfortable.