Well, I've decided that I'm going 2 "kill" ol' 2long 2day.

Why? You might ask. Okay, maybe you mightn't, but just in case: I've decided that in order 2 make fundamental progress in my sitch, I need 2 be more radically honest with my W. 2 do that, I want her 2 know who I am on this and another 4um I participate in, so that she can read what I'm thinking and the feedback I'm getting from other participants, in addition 2 hearing regular "updates" from me, myself. But since I've got almost 3000 posts 2 the name 2long, I don't expect I'll live long enough 2 go and edit them all for vent content, and I'd need 2 do that in order not 2 put my W right on the defensive and possibly damage our currently-fragile position. So, 2long 2day, gone 2morrow! I'll "come back" as a new user, provided MB doesn't have a problem with that. I'm sure my friends will all quickly figure out who I am when I do.

I'll update you all in the next post 2 this thread, so you'll understand better why I'm doing this. But for now, I just want 2 thank you all, as 2long, from the bottom of my heart for all your wonderful support over the past 10 months. I would NOT be here now if it weren't for the excellent advice I've received from you fine folks!!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

I love you!!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

If I'm not mistaken, all you have to do is change your username via your profile and all posts will change to that new username. Unless, of course, you want to keep all those other posts as "2long." You could always change it to "Newname (formerly 2long)," or something like that. Whatever the name, you've been an amazing contributor here ... as simultaneously wonderful and sad that is.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by 2long:
<strong>....I'm sure my friends will all quickly figure out who I am when I do.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I am sure I will find 2 many letter 2 in your posts . <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> Like wippit point out, you could change your screen name and no need to get a new one.

-rh-

How does 3-CPO grab you?

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Trouble with changing the screen name is that all the old posts will still be there. I want to be able to let my W come here and read my "new" posts, which will be written with her consumption in mind. I don't know if she will, but just in case, I don't want her to stumbl across old vents of mine and get angry with me. That would undo to much progress!

And did you notice? I was able to type this entire post without a "letter two!"

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Pepper:

"How does 3-CPO grab you?"

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> ... ...but that ain't it! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Oh, 2bad! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" /> but understandable...

Hope 2B able 2 recognize ya... cuz UR 2 Good 2 B 4-gotten!

<small>[ December 09, 2002, 01:10 PM: Message edited by: BINthereDUNthat ]</small>

When I first came to MB I was "Yesterday" ... once I decided to change to "Pepperband" ... all my posts as "Yesterday" were automatically changed to Pepperband as well.

I think you have to sign off ... and re-register as a completely new being ...

rebirth, if you will! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Hey,

What's up with the Peter Gabriel change? I'm a really big fan and I picked it up immediately. Went to see him in NY two weeks ago! Awesome show.

I'll be looking for clues.

Bravo 2long,

I think it's great to invite your wife to the forum. I'd like my H to participate as well; maybe one day he might! I think we'll all recognize your humor no matter what your screen name is! CSue

btdt:

Thank you!

Pepper:

Yep. Already created the new account.

kily:

I like to change them from time to time. Good thing is (or maybe it's not so good) that many of Peter Gabriel's songs are about relationships. Very deep stuff.

Csue:

I am pretty easy to see through, huh!!? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

<<<I want to be able to let my W come here and read my "new" posts, which will be written with her consumption in mind. I don't know if she will, but just in case, I don't want her to stumbl across old vents of mine and get angry with me.>>>

A serious question here: how does trying to hide your identity from your wife jibe with Radical Honesty? It sounds an awful lot like plain old conflict avoidance to me.

<<<I'm sure my friends will all quickly figure out who I am when I do.>>>

And you think your wife won't be able to do the same? How do you think she will feel when she finds out you tried to hide what you were doing and didn't want her to know about it?

I am not flaming you. This just leaves me with a very bad gut feeling. Honesty is honesty. If you want it from her, you can't withold it yourself. Seeing ALL of your posts just might be the best thing that could happen to her and to your marriage.

You can't go AROUND this stuff, 2long. You have to go THROUGH it. Ask yourself how your wife will react when she figures out what you have done -- because she WILL figure it out, sooner or later.

Anyway, what happened that prompted this change is this:

I had ASSUMED (bad 2long, bad!) that my being loving around the W and not LBing and not talking about R's too much was the best thing since chicken soup for me, better than my attempted plan B back in July. Well, it was, but it wasn't, too. We got along great, and I truly felt like RM was becoming the "non-issue" that I need him to be for our M to survive, but he wasn't. I know, I know... People like H4F had warned me that "the WS will ALWAYS try to keep the OP in the picture. ALWAYS." And you know what? It's true. It's also true that we WERE/ARE doing much better, but RM is NOT out of the picture, at least not to my satisfaction. My W figured that, since I wasn't talking about him, it was okay with me after all that she keep him as a friend. And so she's been in regular email contact with him all along. Nothing about SF, she won't respond to those messages, but she did wish him a happy birthday and said that she "misses him" last Friday. The good news is that she's told me this, and I can believe it. I have no reason to believe otherwise, in fact. I've restated my boundaries, and we had a few heated discussions about it, some of them with comments like "we should just give up" at the end, but the latest I've gotten sound more like respect than otherwise, so I'm encouraged.

Update on RM's sitch:
*I was wrong. He didn't have another A in July. He had a chance to go out with someone, but said to my W that he felt he would be cheating on HER if he did, so he didn't.
*Mrs. RM is using her maiden name on Classmates.com. RM is not living in the house with her and their two boys.
*Mrs. RM started a revenge A with an OM recently. She then told RM that she "couldn't handle the kids" alone, and could he come home.
*My W advised RM that he should go home and try to work on his M. He did, and caught his W with her OM!
*RM asked my W to move in with him. She hasn't taken him up on the offer.

We talked about more in the past day and a half than we have since July, and probably really since our last MC session together, back in June or July (can't remember). I don't know what will happen, but this not talking about our R and assuming what the other is thinking is NOT WORKING. And so, I'm going to explore "radical honesty" in everything. I'm not going to insist on giving her daily updates of everything I think or do, but I am going to talk about a lot more of what's going on in my mind and the feedback I'm getting from this forum than I have ever done before. It's the only way, as I can see.

Anyway, that's the why of it. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

pb:

Good questions, and I think I have the answers. I've posted many times in the past to questions like this. I've thought about it a lot, as well. In the end, although it sounds like I'm avoiding conflict, I'm not QUITE, because I'm not editing my old posts and I'm not asking MB to delete them. And believe me, I've said things in the past that, if they were brought up now, without taking them into context, would probably irrevocably tweak my W's gain knob.

I know that may sound like "measured honesty" but in a way it's very similar to other plan A/B behavior: Right now, I want to be married, not necessarily right. Eventually, I hope I can show my W all that I've journaled here. I can already see signs of improvement from our discussion just this morning, when I told her I was going to tell her more of my thoughts and feedback.

So, I think this change is more of a "buffer" than avoidance, but maybe you won't agree. That's okay.

Okay, as Lenoardo DiCaprio said in Titanic: "This is it!"

2long is daid! (sung 2 the 2ne of “Poor Jud is Daid”)

2long is daid, ol’ 2long is daid;
All gather ‘round his coffin now and cry.
He had a heart of gold and he wasn’t very old,
Oh, why did such a fella have 2 die?

2long is daid, ol’ 2long is daid;
He’s lookin’ oh, so peaceful and serene (and serene!).
He’s all laid out 2 rest with his hands across his chest;
His fingernails have never been so clean.

Why then the preacher’d get up and he’d say:
“Folks, we’re gathered 2gether here 2day 2 moan and groan over brother 2long, who hung himself from that 2x4 in the rafters of the MB smokehouse.”
(Then there’d be weepin’ and wailin’, from some of the MB posters)
Then he’d say:
“2long was the most misunders2d man on the 4um. People used 2 think he was a mean, ugly fella; used 2 think he was a dirty skunk and orn’ry pig stealer.”

But the folks who really knowed him, know that beneath the 2 gaudy Converse All-Stars that he always wore,
There throbbed a stubbed big toe as big as all outdoors (as big as all outdoors!).
2long loved his fellow Mber.

He loved the birds of the forest,
He loved the beasts in the field,
He loved the mice and vermin and he treated the rats like equal (which was right).
He loved everybody and everything, he loved the OP only…only he never let on, so nobody ever knowed it.

2long is daid, ol’ 2long is daid;
His friends’ll weep and wail for miles around (miles around!).
The daisies in the dell will give out a different smell
Because 2long is underneath the ground.

2long is daid, a candle lights his haid.
He’s layin’ in a coffin made of wood (wood!).
And folks are feelin’ sad ‘cause they used 2 treat him bad,
But now they know their friend is gone for good (good!).

2long is daid, a candle lights his haid.
He’s lookin’ oh, s’purdy and s’nice.
He looks like he’s asleep, it’s a shame that he won’t keep,
But it’s summer and we’re runnin’ out of ice.
2… …long
2… …long
<img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" />

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Now we can wait a few months and then say:
" If old 2long could hear this, he would turn over in his grave."
I can hardly wait !

SS

And he will be able to hear, and he won't be able to say a thing !

Actually,
this reminds me of the story of the little boy whose pet bird died. His dad was worried that it would hurt him so much that they had better have a nice funeral for him. He went out into the garage and made a nice wooden coffin. He decorated the yard, dug a hole and then he assembled the neighboorhood children for the procession. As they neared the gravesite the bird lifted up it's head and chirped, and the younger brother said " kill him quick, we don't want to spoil this nice funeral"

Sure we have fun at your expense 2long, but I'll miss this version of you.

SS

<img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" /> Rest in peace <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" />

Friends, Romans , countrymen, lend me your ears,

We come to bury 2Long, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with 2Long