I'm pretty sure that most folks here are going to tell me NOT to send this letter/e-mail to my WW. And I will probably agree with them and not send it. Still, it's been good for me to write it, and it's still a work in progress, so I'd welcome your opinions on both the content, and if I should send it. Perhaps after some modification, this would be appropriate to send to my WW during Plan A. I just feel like we're not communicating at all (haven't seen her in 3 weeks) and I'm starting to feel the urge to get some of my feelings across to her, especially considering she's becoming more and more distant all the time.

In the past, my letters have seemed to affect her, so I'm hoping that, with the properly written one, I might at least be able to find the balance between showing how much I care, and not turning into a desperate or needy person. I don't feel needy right now, but I do worry that my WW doesn't really know how I feel about all of this. And I want her to know. Most of this is from my brain to paper, a few things come from good ways I've seen feelings expressed here on MB, and I've borrowed a phrase or two.

So, anyway, here goes. Opinions welcome as always.

---
WW,

When we first met, we used to send each other those huge emails all the time, never seeming to run out of things to say. You have always been the one person that I felt comfortable talking to about anything at all. You always had a way of making everything better. I valued your opinions, and I learned so much from you. I loved just sitting and talking to you. Before we lived together, I used to wake up in the middle of the night and walk to the computer, just in the hopes that I might have some new words from you. So, the fact that I suddenly can't share a conversation with you every day is something I truly miss. There's so much I want to say to you, but it's obviously hard to do that right now, so I've decided to write you a letter.

I've said so many things since October that I regret, and I hope you know that. I am not proud of the way that I have handled things. All I ever wanted was to make things better for you, and for us. Before all of this happened, I was stuck in a fantasy world of assuming that doing things I liked meant that we were doing things YOU liked as well. I was blind to the fact that I wasn't being fair and giving us equal time to do things that we both enjoyed. I screwed up.

You needed me, more than ever, and I wasn't there for you in the way that you needed. You needed empathy, comfort, affection, admiration, and I didn't even see it. The more I think about things, the more mistakes I realize that I made. I made so many. I allowed our lives became a schedule, a "to-do" list of tasks. I lost sight of the most important thing, the thing I vowed to do a year ago - Take care of you, and make you as happy as you made me. Nothing else comes second to that. Not cleaning up the house, watching movies and tv shows, buying electonics and dvds, home improvement projects...nothing. I convinced myself that I was being this great husband to you, and I tricked myself into believing that. I never realized just how much I was failing you.

WW, I have seen you and held you in your most vulnerable moments. I've seen so much joy in your eyes to know that you and I together are something special. I remember all of the wonderful times we spent together and it outweighs our hardships by so much. Even all of the pain of these past months fades in comparison to all of the happiness that I shared with you over the past three years. I have such vivid memories of it all. I had such a loving companion in you, and I squandered it away, taking for granted the fact that I thought we'd have each other forever. That there would always be a tomorrow to make up for the shortcomings of today. I didn't consider the fact that I might one day run out of tomorrows.

I just hope you will never look back at our 3 years and think that it was wasted time. I haven't thought that for a moment. I will always cherish each and every moment that I had with you. I love you WW, I always will. I realize that I let you down a lot over the past few months, and disappointed you. I know you once loved me and had such a bright outlook for our future. Please just remember all of the good times we had, all the places we went, and all of the warmth and love that we shared in each others' arms. I hope that, when you reflect on all of those good things, you won't regret that you spent these last 3 years with me. You have been my friend, my lover, my teacher, and my companion. I wouldn't trade what we had for anything in the world.

Yesterday, I was cleaning out the mess in the laundry room, and I found something that brought a tear to my eye. It's that little striped nest of boxes that you hand-made for me as a birthday present that first year I met you. Remember? I opened them, and inside I found a pile of notes. You used to leave me a note every time you left to go back home after a weekend here, or sometimes just left a note to leave one. I kept them all. They were so sweet, so wonderful. They are a snapshot of us at that time, they do so much more than any photograph ever could. They remind me of how strong our love for each other was, and how perfect we were for each other. On the bottom of that pile, I even found some tissue paper origami that you made for me that first day you sent me those birthday gifts. I can remember opening that package like it was yesterday.

I want you to be happy, WW. It's all I ever wanted. Nothing could ever match the satisfaction that I felt when I made you smile, whether it was taking you somewhere special, making you a good dinner, or just being there for you when you needed me. It's frustrating for me because I know in my heart that you and I could be so incredible together. It may be selfish thinking on my part, but I truly believe that no one on Earth could make you a happier person than I can. I understand that it may not seem that way to you now, but I also feel that, somewhere down the road, that may change for you. So, you can see why it's so difficult for me. You told me that you are searching for happiness right now. I feel I can give that to you, yet you aren't willing to take that chance with me.

I realize that you are not ready to work on our marriage today. This letter can't change that. Nothing I say, nothing I do can change that. I just want you to know that when you are, I am here for you. Only you will know if and when you are ready to give our marriage a chance, or if you want to end it. You saw that I went through some indecision myself after all of this happened, but in the end, I always came to the same conclusion -- I still love you, and I continue to feel that this is something we could recover from. I feel that we could have a better marriage than ever.

I am not afraid of going on without you in my life. What I am afraid of is that you'll have let me go without my telling you just how wonderful of a woman you are, and that, if you ever might have that thought, even if for a fleeting moment, that you might want to give us another try, whether it be next week, next month, or next year, I would welcome you back with open arms, an open mind, and a pure heart. There is no doubt in my mind that I could make you happier than you could even imagine.

I just wish I could give you a big hug right now. I wish we could go back in time to those unspoiled moments in our relationship. If I could go back and start from those moments once more, I would hold you longer, and never miss a chance to tell you how very much you mean to me. I don't simply want to turn back the clock and just make things the way they used to be. I want our marriage to be better than it ever was.

I'm going to go now, but I do have a final thought that I wanted to share with you. I was thinking back to all of those Sunday nights that were so sad because you had to leave to go back to school the next day. We made the most out of them. We snuggled, we talked, we held each other late into the night. It felt like eternity until we'd see each other again when I knew you had to go the next day, and I wanted to treasure every minute that we had together on those nights. While I was thinking about those nights, I realized something -- There's no reason in the world that every night shouldn't have been that way for us. Every day can, and should have been, just as special, because it was another day that I had you in my life. It was a gift. None of us know how much time we've got left, but I didn't want another day to go by without telling you that I have always loved you, and to say thank you.

In my heart, I like to hope and dream that we haven't yet spent our last "Sunday night" together.

All My Love,

ALS
---

Hi Als,

Wow, what a letter. Sent shivers up my spine!!!!

Send the letter. You are in plan A right? So this certainly shows positive yet realistic thoughts.

You are a good writer. Hope she can read well. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

take care,
L.

ALS, Geesh, you brought a tear to my eye, for a second I had prayed my WS had written to me because so much of your first part applied to us 3 years ago, and everything you said about cleaning house, electronics, movies. I spent so much time trying to get him to understand that if you don't worry about today there is no tomorrow. I really loved your letter and I think she would be a fool not to have it affect her!! (no insult intended) Geesh, even though I am the BS how I dream that I would receive that letter to me from WS saying all that and that he is outta the "fog". Well, as I sit here crying now with emotion from your letter, I guess it did the trick for me. SHE better enjoy that, you are giving major love there!!! Take care and let us know. Sounds like the perfect plan A kinda thing to do. Is she "aware" enough to appreciate it, or is she still "fogged in"? I'm pulling for ya ALS!! But don't make me cry anymore...k?

Well, thank you both, I didn't expect to receive such an enthusiastic response. The verdict is still not in over at EN, one person told me it would be a MISTAKE to send it, so I don't know...

See, I think the reason I was kind of thinking of sending it was that I've always seemed to communicate to well with my WW that way. Our relationship began through long emails like that and I've always been one who is great at getting thoughts down on paper, so much better than on the spot. But I guess that's the truth for a lot of folks.

I do wonder, though, Neesha, if my WW was still too "fogged in" to have the letter reach her. That may very well be true. There may be a better time for the letter, I'm not sure. However, it just seems to me that time is not on my side here. I may be wrong in assuming that, but at least so far, the longer my WW has spent away, the more it seems she is letting me go.

I'm kind of at the point of wondering what good it would do to wait, or what harm it would do to send it. That's the key question here. If sending it would do more harm than good, I don't want to. But if sending it might even give her something to think about, especially as she sees her family (who support us being together) over the holidays, maybe it would be worth something.

Holding off until I hear more opinions. Thanks all.

ALS

Send it. Period.

You're not communicating now and a letter is sometimes easier than trying to talk when you are both uncomfortable. What, exactly, would you have to lose by sending the letter? It shows love, caring, concern for her happiness, etc....all the things that love is all about, plus it shows that you can be vulnerable even if there is no response from her.

ALS ... Send it or don't. Do what your gut tells you to do. My gut told me to hold off on my letter after I had made up my mind to send it. A week later my gut told me differently and I sent it.

And, for the record, time IS on your side. As long as your plan is solid and you're implementing it well (and you are) time is the best friend you have. For, in time, your wife will discover that OM is not who she thought he was and she will see that you are more than she ever thought you could be. What she does with those discoveries is another matter.

Still waiting a while to decide, I'm actually kind of surprised that there weren't any suggestions on what should or shouldn't be said. Could it be that perfect a letter? If anyone sees anything that might look too needy, or just not appropriate given the situation (fog, her seeing OM actively, living apart from me), let me know.

ALS

ALS,

I absolutely think you should send her that letter. If it accomplishes nothing else at least you got to tell her your feelings.

It in no way sounds needy to me, go for it...send the letter.

Best wishes
Michele

ALS,

I agree with Whipit, do what your gut says to do. Personally, I would send it. It is a good plan A communication, but it also tells her what you feel. It doesn't accuse her, and frankly if it is the last thing she ever hears from you, I would think this is what she should hear.

I doubt that it will end her A. But when her A ends that letter will be in her mind. It is the seed that you want to plant, but more importantly it is what YOU feel you need to tell her about yourself and your feelings.

Send it.

God Bless,

JL

Well thank you all, so much. I honestly am surprised, I never expected it would go over so well. I guess I'm learning a lot more about Plan A than I even thought.

A final question, though -- I haven't seen my WW in person in 3 weeks, though I'm expecting we'll get together sometime soon, whether it's for her to pick up more things at the house, or to just catch up. If that's the case, do you feel this letter would be best given to her personally, or something I should just e-mail? The last letter I wrote her, I gave her in person (just before she left) and it made her cry and she hugged me. I could tell it at least affected her and made her think of us. Maybe this one would best be given to her in person as well? I could tell her she could read it later, if she likes, or she could read it right then.

Thoughts? In person or email? Now, if she doesn't show any signs of seeing me anytime soon, I may just email it anyway, but I'd like to know if waiting for the personal delivery might be better if that chance is coming soon.

Thanks again, everyone.

ALS

ALS, I think it's a wonderful letter and I would love it if my H sent me a similar one, only please leave out the references to how happy you know you can make her! For instance, ". There is no doubt in my mind that I could make you happier than you could even imagine." Just strike that out. Were I the one receiving the letter, everything else you said would make me warm to you, only that statement makes me withdraw, and think, "yeah, right." It's just how I feel. The rest of the letter is incredible; really good.
persimmon

Persimmon - I agree with you! It's gone. I KNEW there had to be a few things in that letter that went too far. I'm glad you like the rest. I hope my WW does too when she gets it. If I ever decide to send it or give it to her, of course! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

ALS

ALS, I agreed with perisimmon on that one. But as for sending it/or giving it to her in person? Well, if you gave it to her in person, would she read it in front of you? And another point here, she already knows YOU have a way with writing and the effect it can and has had on her, well.....could she possibly (as of right now) think you are trying to manipulate her or make her feel guilty about what she is doing and or show OM and let him slam you as trying to do that? Does she let OM read her email? Does he have access to her email where he could get to it before she did and destroy it? Darn, I'm asking so many questions I feel like I'm interrogating you, sorry.I'm just kinda playin devil's advocate here because YOU know her alot better than we do. I probably did not give you any thoughts but I sure gave you enough questions to think about. The only reason I say this is that I write letters and know that I have an affect, be it bad or good to someone I care about, I just know not to write one to WS right now as he will not digest it on any level except to think "oh she's trying to guilt me or some other skeevey thing that his delusional mind might be thinking" about the whys of writing it to him knowing what he is doing. Until he comes out of the fog, I know that if Jesus Christ himself delivered the letter and read it to him and directed him to the right road, he would not even believe that, so that's my thoughts. I do not know where she is mentally like I said to you before, only you can know that. Just my thoughts though, I love the letter. Think about the questions I asked and then you will know in your heart and head what to do and how to do it. Take care.

Edit, edit, edit. Try to keep it to a page. Right now I have it at two pages at 10 pt. sans-serif type. I'm working on something now. I'll post as soon as I have it done.

As I've been editing I remember that you say you'll wait up to a year for her to want to work on your M. Is this really the case? I would advise leaving out any definite time period because you may not be able to wait that long. In fact, I recommend that you try to say you can't wait forever.

<small>[ December 04, 2002, 04:07 PM: Message edited by: whippit ]</small>

What do you think of this? Feel free to tell me to go jump in the lake for being so bold.

whippit

*******

WW,

When we first met, we used to send each other those huge emails all the time, never seeming to run out of things to say. You have always been the one person that I felt comfortable talking to about anything at all. You always had a way of making everything better. I valued your opinions, and I learned so much from you. I loved just sitting and talking to you. Before we lived together, I used to wake up in the middle of the night and walk to the computer, just in the hopes that I might have some new words from you. So, the fact that I suddenly can't share a conversation with you every day is something I truly miss. There's so much I want to say to you, but it's obviously hard to do that right now, so I've decided to write you a letter.

I've said so many things since October that I regret, and I hope you know that. I am not proud of the way that I have handled things. All I ever wanted was to make things better for you, and for us. Before all of this happened, I was stuck in a fantasy world of assuming that doing things I liked meant that we were doing things YOU liked as well. I was blind to the fact that I wasn't being fair and giving us equal time to do things that we both enjoyed. I screwed up.

You needed me, more than ever, and I wasn't there for you in the way that you needed. You needed empathy, comfort, affection, admiration, and I didn't even see it. The more I think about things, the more mistakes I realize that I made. I allowed our lives became a schedule, a "to-do" list of tasks. I lost sight of the most important thing, the thing I vowed to do a year ago - Take care of you, and make you as happy as you made me.

WW, I have seen you and held you in your most vulnerable moments and I remember all of the wonderful times we spent together and it outweighs our hardships by so much. I have such vivid memories of it all. I had such a loving companion in you, and I squandered it away, taking for granted that there would always be a tomorrow to make up for the shortcomings of today. I didn't consider I might one day run out of tomorrows.

I just wish I could give you a big hug right now. I wish we could go back in time to those unspoiled moments in our relationship. If I could go back and start from those moments once more, I would hold you longer, and never miss a chance to tell you how very much you mean to me. I don't simply want to turn back the clock and just make things the way they used to be.

I just hope you will never look back at our 3 years and think that it was wasted time. I love you WW, I always will. You have been my friend, my lover, my teacher, and my companion. I wouldn't trade what we had for anything in the world.

I want you to be happy, WW. It's all I ever wanted. It's frustrating for me because I know in my heart that you and I could be so incredible together. So, you can see why it's so difficult for me. You told me that you are searching for happiness right now. There is no doubt in my mind that I could make you happier than you could even imagine.

I realize that you are not ready to work on our marriage today. This letter can't change that. Nothing I say, nothing I do can change that. Only you will know if and when you are ready to give our marriage a chance, or if you want to end it. You saw that I went through some indecision myself after all of this happened, but in the end, I always came to the same conclusion -- I still love you, and I continue to feel that this is something we could recover from. I feel that we could have a better marriage than ever.

I am not afraid of going on without you in my life. What I am afraid of is that you'll have let me go without telling you just how wonderful a woman you are, that you’re beautiful, and that you deserve better than to be shared by two men. As painful as it is for me to think of you in the arms of another man, I realize that this time apart will allow you to find where your heart is. I am willing to wait for you as long as I am able.

I'm going to go now, but I do have a final thought that I wanted to share with you. I was thinking back to all of those Sunday nights that were so sad because you had to leave to go back to school the next day. We made the most out of them. We snuggled, we talked, we held each other late into the night. It felt like eternity until we'd see each other again when I knew you had to go the next day, and I wanted to treasure every minute that we had together on those nights. I realized, while I was thinking about those nights, that there's no reason in the world that every night shouldn't have been that way for us. None of us know how much time we've got left, but I didn't want another day to go by without telling you I have always loved you, and to say thank you.

In my heart, I hope and dream that we haven't yet spent our last "Sunday night" together.

All My Love,

ALS

Whippit - No way, not a year. I dunno if I ever said that but I would not wait that long. No way. In fact, I'd say if in a few months she's not showing any signs of wanting to reconcile, she should have filed Dv by then or I'll urge her to do so. That's just not fair to me to not at least give that closure if she's not giving ANY thought to coming home. I don't think I'll even mention a timeframe.

Star*fish has been helping me with some edits in the EN forum, to shorten the letter and I agree, it needs to tighten up. So please, feel free to post any changes you've got, I will be working up a finalized version tonight and hope to send tomorrow.

Neesha, I don't know what affect, if any it will have on my WW, but at this stage I don't think it can do any harm. It's been 3 weeks since I saw her and she makes no effort to contact me ever. So I at least need to do something to let her know I'm still here. I feel at least the letter can do that. OM does not have email access, so if I don't hear from her soon about getting together this week, I plan to just email.

Thanks everyone! I never imagined I'd get this much help. I appreciate it.

ALS

Whippit -

I just read your edit. Seems you and star agree on stuff that needed to go for the most part. That's great! I'm glad that I can get some agreement as to what is and isn't appropriate at this time. Thank you VERY much. I am going to use what you've done and what Star has done and work on a final product this evening.

Thank you!!!

ALS

Don't bring up Dv (unless that's what you really want). Let that be her cross to bear.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by ALostSoul:
Whippit - No way, not a year. I dunno if I ever said that but I would not wait that long. No way. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">... even if for a fleeting moment, that you might want to give us another try, whether it be next week, next month, or next year, I would welcome you back with open arms ...

Okay ... so it's not a year. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> "Next year" is pretty open ended, especially when next month is next year. It's good that you take these references out.

<small>[ December 04, 2002, 05:19 PM: Message edited by: whippit ]</small>