OK, I guess the pc's out...but do I send the note?

SC:

Tell you what you do. This is great, so write it down:

Hye yourself on over to your local Fried Electrons superstore and buy the components to BUILD a new PC. Set it up all nice and fancy and customized for your W, THEN email her with the news and SELL it to her. That way, you keep your mind occupied doing something you like to do and it's a "nice gesture" for your W as well.

When did she buy that PC that needs fixing, anyway? If it was more than a day and a half ago, it's obsolete now, anyway. You'd be doing her a favor.

Well, I might have to go back and refresh my memory on what you told her when you moved out. I didn't think it was "I'm moving on with my life." I thought it was more like "I need to be away from the pain of the A, and need some time to think."

I was thinking you should fix the PC, and don't send the note. We're not talking about war here. And you shouldn't be trying to educate or punish her. You're supposed to be "waiting". Real Plan B has its purpose, and is coming soon.

hmmmm... maybe a note (or telling her) something like this: (your note is a little bit like a "Plan B Letter")

I will fix your PC for you, but I really think you should start thinking about finding other ways to take care of the things I have taken care of for you in the past. While I am away from home, it is difficult for me continue doing all the things that I love doing for you.

??? whattaya think

I'm serious, man! This is eating at me!

She messed something up in the O/S badly. so I have to back up her data, reformat the hard drive, and load everything again, restore her data...pain in the!

SC,

My vote, not that note, it sounded plan B ish.

If you work on it, take it to your place, work on it with out the possiblity of contact with her, take it back when she's not home. Maybe one of the kids can bring it over....

Weaning off is an effort in Tact and diplomacy. I saw you post on going-crazy about availablity....well.....

Good luck, hope the best...

DRS

PS that fog satillite was originally put up in 1972, but was built by the lowest bidder, so it didn't work <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

SC:

You're not in plan B. Do you like working on PCs? I know I like working on them, even when it's fixing something that Bill Gates or Steve Jobs SHOULDN'T have screwed up to begin with.

Go ahead and fix her PC. If you can get one of the kids to bring it over to YOU and work on it in the hotel, then do that.

But you want to fix it for her, I can tell. You're a good man, SC.

DR:

"PS that fog satillite was originally put up in 1972, but was built by the lowest bidder, so it didn't work "

Remember "Faster, Better, Cheaper"? Pick one, and the first two don't count. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Faith1:
<strong>Well, I might have to go back and refresh my memory on what you told her when you moved out. I didn't think it was "I'm moving on with my life." I thought it was more like "I need to be away from the pain of the A, and need some time to think." </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Correct.

<strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">
I was thinking you should fix the PC, and don't send the note. We're not talking about war here. And you shouldn't be trying to educate or punish her. You're supposed to be "waiting". Real Plan B has its purpose, and is coming soon.

hmmmm... maybe a note (or telling her) something like this: (your note is a little bit like a "Plan B Letter")

I will fix your PC for you, but I really think you should start thinking about finding other ways to take care of the things I have taken care of for you in the past. While I am away from home, it is difficult for me continue doing all the things that I love doing for you.

??? whattaya think </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I like the note and the idea. I don't dump her with her problem, and I don't really change what I said before about leaving, but I do let her know this "thinking about it" is not going to last forever.

SPACE!!!!

Plan B right away. This is killing you man.

Do not fix her computer. Let her try to take care of herself. This is a perfect oportunity to see the qualities and talents in you that she will miss.

So no contact starting today. Add to the Plan B letter that she could put down on paper what she intended to talk to you about. What more is to be said and accomplished by the discussion. Her wanting to give it some time first is good enough of a clue that she has little interest in actually fixing the mess SHE created. Let her go space, do something fun today and get off the MB site for a while, you need a break.

DL;
This has been killing me for nearly 12 months. I can't make rash decisions now, Steve asked me to give her a few days, he feels she's close. She confirmed that yesterday.

I'm not going to risk blowing it for a few days. I've survived this time, I can last another 5 days.

I think I'm going with Faith's solution. I'll send her an email with the note, and ask her when would be a good time for it, that I probably need a full day or more.

Going to take care of some stuff, think about it some more, maybe get more feedback, and probably go with that.

That's a good plan, SC.

You're the boss here. Do what YOU think is right. We're with you, man. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Mr. Pepper went to an AA meeting recently and came home with this *pearl*. (I usually ask him after his meetings if there're any pearls he's picked up)

"Happiness does not depend on your circumstances, but on your inner peace."

Months ago, I suggested to 2Long and to Spacey that this process is a spiritual journey , and has a deeper purpose, greater than restoring your marriages ... you scoffed at me <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> I suggested that affairs indicate a spiritual anorexia .... I still hold that idea to be true ..... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Spacey .... relax. Turn on your inner light. When you speak of "going dark" ... you are speaking of shining your light upon yourself, and NOT upon your spouse. You are actually "going light" for yourself. And your spouse will have to spark her own spiritual light herself. You cannot pour lighter fluid on someone else's spirit and have it do any good.

You both are favorites of mine 2Long and Spacecadet .... because I can see your inner light. And, it makes me <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Pep <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

<small>[ August 15, 2002, 11:08 AM: Message edited by: Pepperband ]</small>

SC,

Why is it when the horse gets near the barn and can see it, that the horse breaks into a run??

Why are you running now after all of this time? I think you need to NOT send her the email. Wait for her to ask you to fix the PC.
Go fix the PC and then tell her from now on, she needs to find someone else to fix it. This is getting too hard for you to deal with. AND IT IS. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

Now, the upside of you taking a day to fix it, is that she will be around you. The opportunities for a talk may arise, and you get to see the kids a bit more. All of this before Mon when you talk to SH and probably go into a REAL Plan B.

You might consider if it is easier to work on the PC at your place or at home. Your place offers fewer distractions and probably W won't hang around. Home brings you back into the environment that you left, but with a slightly different twist. You can get up and leave anytime you wish. You don't have to put up with a thing from her. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Think about this SC. Is this a problem or an opportunity? You decide.

God Bless,

JL

2Long said:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> You're the boss here. Do what YOU think is right. We're with you, man. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I'll throw MHO in here.....

I think that BOTH criteria has to be met before one can do a GOOD Plan B.

1) The timing of the situation, and
2) The mentality of the one going to Plan B.

I think, like some others, that the timing, and the situation at hand, is prime for Plan B.

BUT.......

Space may be mentally ready for Plan B, but has doubts about it. Therefore, I do not think the "whole" sitch is at the correct timing for it.

For instance,(this is NOT criticism) 2Long's sitch a while back reflected the very thing. At that instant in 2Long's sitch, the dynamics of the R was primed for it, but 2Long wasn't. You have to go into Plan B with no reserve. At least that was apparent in my case. It's tough. I will not "candy-coat" it. But, it does get better with time. I was ready. My WW filing for Dv and still seeing OM, set the stage for it. Even though she is staying next door, for 2 months I initiated NO contact. Didn't answer ANY phone calls. Tried NOT to be available. Wasn't easy. Takes a lot of resolve.

Spacecase may be mentally there (I think he is), but the reserve and doubts are not to be taken lightly.

You can't do the job without the proper tools. Space is still missing one "small" tool. The ability to go "dark" with NO doubts.

Another opinion here....From what I gather by reading, and my sitch, you don't get very good odds for a "second" Plan B. You better make the first one count.

My 2cents.

HCII

IMHO....

I thought that the only reason that SH wanted to postpone the Plan B letter was due to the fact that she made all the right noises about wanting to "talk". Now that she has put that "talk" on hold, I would think that you would revert back to the original plan. Postponing it was contingent on that talk and that isn't happening. It might just be another way of her postponing the inevitable if she is familiar with the MB concepts.

Dear Space:

Good discission here. I am sorry it is us discussing and you living it.

I think you should wait for plan B until you talk to SH. Until then, keep it as you would under the current "agreement" still talking to W and interacting. It has always been your nature to help W with these problems, don't stop now just prior to Plan B.

I agree with Faith.

All my best

Jack

In my most humble opinion and as frank as possible:

It is amazing how the coin has flipped. I told you to wait and not go to Plan B right away because of the positive actions you were seeing from WW. You argued then that you were to stick to your plan to plan B. When you talked to SH after he talked to WW, he confirmed that she was moving in a positive direction, and then you changed your mind about Plan B timing.

Now, I see negative WW actions and I see a very dangerously low love bank (I could be wrong about your love bank), and I am encouraging you to go to Plan B to protect yourself, and you argue that you are going to wait. I am worried that even if you get to the next step with WW you are not going to have anything left for recovery. You need a Plan B for strength for recovery of yourself. You are not well (like myself) meaning your life is not balance. Your motivation is to win the trophy. What other focus do you have in life. My fear (like what happened with me) is that once you finally finish your quest to get the trophy, you will not want the trophy. Funny how things are.

Have you done a good Plan A, I mean made drastic improvements in yourself. I am not talking relationship skills here, it sounds like you are fully honed in R skills. I am talking you as a person as a full balanced package. My opinion is you have put all other improvements of yourself on hold and you are seriously unbalanced.

You know what has been put on hold and it is not healthy. What happens when your quest is complete? Next quest recovery? Recovery will take years and be just as painful. Are you ready for that? Is your life ready for that?

Sorry for being blunt. I am extremely worried about you.

I'm worried about SC, too, but for somewhat different reasons.

The comments above, particularly from hcii, regarding my attempted plan B, are right on the mark. Though SC has the benefit of SH Cing here, which I didn't at the time, he's still doing many of the same things I did that week I tried to plan B. And that is, posting his sorry @$$ off, getting good, but very conflicting, advice from his buddies on this forum, and probably fretting too much like I did. This is a recipe for disaster, as I can vouch!!

This is about YOU, SC. Consider the advice given here and from SH, but MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS. It'll hurt less, believe me.

I think you're doing great, but you should probably focus on some non-R activity, like underwater basket weaving, or whatever you find most interesting, and get your mind of your problems. They won't diminish until you can do that, and you can't truly "let go" of what your W is doing or thinking or how she's reacting to what you say or do for her until you can do that.

You've got a great trio of kids there, too. Do more stuff with them.

Most important, though. Take care of yourself! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Interesting crossroads here. I think everyone is probably partially right, and that perhaps it is the combination of many of these elements that places me in an awkward position and situation.
I’ll try to make sense of some of this and see what conclusions I can reach.

Pep correctly states: “Turn on your inner light. When you speak of "going dark" ... you are speaking of shining your light upon yourself, and NOT upon your spouse. You are actually "going light" for yourself. And your spouse will have to spark her own spiritual light herself. You cannot pour lighter fluid on someone else's spirit and have it do any good.”

I know this to be true, and intellectually I have accepted it. However, emotionally, it is a bit harder. I hold out the hope, the wish, that some of my actions or inactions will somehow “help” “spark” my W’s inner light. So, in this sense, I am not totally “with” the program. But then, is anyone ever really?

Now JL states: “Why is it when the horse gets near the barn and can see it, that the horse breaks into a run??” and this is entirely a correct analogy. I think, I feel that what happened here is this: I was ready for Plan B, mentally prepared, emotionally prepared, and love-bank-wise, at the right place. Steve agreed with this. Now clearly, I will not say that I was totally, 100% with the total program here either…I don’t even know what that is. How do we judge this? Who can truly say you are ready, or you are not ready?

Then, Steve changes things for me and asks me to do a semi-Plan B for a week. Remain in contact, be civil but no more, give her a chance to adjust to your being away before you deliver the letter and go “dark”. So that was a bit hard to adjust to, I was prepared for something else, and I did not know how to really deal with this. But I did, and I’d say that overall, I did OK. Not perfect, but pretty good.

So I’d made that adjustment OK, and was getting through it, again ready to go to the mindset I had prepared for, real Plan B. That is why, at the time, I so insisted on sticking to the original Plan B timetable we’d set. I thought it was time, Steve thought it was time, and that was the plan.

Then, another fork in the road. My W says to Steve that she misses me, that she wants to talk, and Steve feels that she’s sincere, and perhaps “ready” for a breakthrough. So he asks me, again, to put the Plan B mindset and preparation on hold, and give her a chance to do what she wants to do, and see where we are; perhaps avoiding Plan B altogether, who knows? So my desire to perhaps finally have a breakthrough takes over, and I again, agree. Plan B on hold, wait for the talk, see where that goes, we’ll talk next week. OK, again cast into the “uncomfortable” situation of being out of my home, but with some contact, civil, but not loving or close.

Then, one day later, my W calls, says she was going to talk to me, but that she needs more time, and that she has computer problems she’d like me to take care of. So I’m again cast into that limbo of unknown. On the one hand, I don’t want to give up hope of “her talk” still happening, so I’m reluctant to rush into full Plan B, lest she interpret it as “punishment” for NOT having the talk, and on the other hand, this does sound like she’s backing down from her previous state of apparent “readiness” for a breakthrough, which would, presumably, mean we should go to full Plan B as the reason for the delay has disappeared.

So, what to do? My Plan B mindset has been disrupted, my hopes have been raised again, making me have doubts about what to do, and everything seems to be spinning out of control.

So several options are aired; from my “Plan B-ish note” to Faith’s soft-note, to DL’s “go to plan b now”, to JL’s “help her and tell her no more” all logical options in their own way. To top it off, I left a message for Steve and hope he gets back to me, although that’s unlikely. So….major quandary and re-evaluation of the whole situation.
There are questions as to whether I am “ready” for Plan B, and those are correct, maybe in some ways I’m not. There are questions as to whether I have done all the things I should have done for myself and my “spirit” while in Plan A, and I certainly haven’t done all of them. There are questions about strategy, about readiness, about timing, about everything. HCII makes a valid point about the “doubts”. Are they really because of the delay?, are they really real? Are they the product of the uncertainty I feel? Who knows?

But you know what? Regardless of the answers to all of those questions, here I am. At the doorstep of plan b, perhaps not fully prepared, perhaps prepared enough, perhaps not prepared enough. Heck, perhaps I should go home, perhaps I should just divorce, perhaps I should shoot myself!

But what is MY reality? My reality is that I do not have a “life” outside of my wife and kids, and house, and family. Hell, I don’t even have a job. So what do I do? I can’t stay home and let my W continue her affair in my face indefinitely, I can’t totally move on in Plan B because I am not truly prepared, I still hold out the hope that my W will “wake up” and at least give me enough so that we can try to fix the almost un-fixable.

So, I made the decision to go to Plan B because I could not stay there any more, and when other things happen I’m more than willing to stop Plan B because my hope is for a resolution, but if there isn’t, then Plan B is my best course of action because it will force me to “get a life” and move on.

So that’s it. There. I said it. That is MY situation. Will it work? Who knows? Maybe, maybe not. Will I survive? Maybe, maybe not. Will my M ever recover? Maybe, maybe not. Will it matter? Maybe, maybe not.

But do I have ANY other option? No. And like in so many other situations in life, when we DON’T have another option, we go with what we have and we hope for the best. Sometimes we come out OK, sometimes not. But that’s life, isn’t it?

So. I’m inclined for JL’s “solution” of going, fixing her pc, and giving her a little “heads up” that I will not be available for this stuff for long. Then wait for either a call from Steve and a decision there, or for Monday’s call with Steve where we’ll see what my W is up to, and THEN decide if we wait some more in semi-B or go to full B.