believer,

Omigosh, are you doing OK...I know about the financial stuff, but how are you feeling? Physically, I mean!

That's a lot of work on your mouth!

Now, can we send your WH to the oral surgeon, please? No sedatives, no locals, nothing! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />
(dang it all, where is the EVIL graemlin when I need it??)

I think even if you are "sorta" in Plan B - or in between - you should keep posting.

Take care of yourself. Ice and rest and Tylenol!

Sparkle-
I am doing fine physically. It cost me $816.00 at the dentist today. But my real problem is WH. I guess what bothers me is that he says the right thing, but I cannot trust him.

He promised to come over tonight to see how I was doing, he didn't. I know it is about the money.

I am at the point of filing for divorce. I don't want one, but need some money from him. I have all of the bills, housepayments, medical insurance, etc. He pays nothing. Spends his money on OW.

I was supposed to get papers for separation or divorce from attorney today. But now I can't pay for them. H knew that I was filing. I really think that is why he has been so friendly lately.

It is hard for me to face, but I can't think of any other explanation.

*Sparkle*-

I got your email but I can't open it! I'm at home today and apparently this computer needs an update. I'll be back to work tomorrow and will respond then. BTW, I thought it might be you!

I'm seeing WH tonight after his work for the first time in over a year. I'm a little nervous but am ready for the challenge. I'm still working on a clearly written explanation of what I want before we can try to reconcile. I'll post in a new thread when it's done. You're right, Sparkle, we will need MC. I also appreciate your link to want the truth's thread, reading the responses cause me to think more compassionately about WH and the condition of our M pre-A. This is tough stuff!

Believer - I hope you're feeling better today! Your WH's behavior seems so erratic, he must be very confused right now. More confused than you, you are the rational one. I hope you can choose a separation agreement instead of a DV for now. Last May my lawyer said he thought I should wait til my WH "normalizes", then we can figure out what we really want to do. I just love that term - normalize, it helps to put into context just how "abnormal" the WS is.

Lablady

lablady -

I am going for the legal separation. Thanks, everyone. Talk about erratic. I have gone from Plan B, to Plan A, to divorce, to reconciliation, to separation, all in the last week.

It just goes to show you how crazy we BS's get - almost nuttier than the WS.

Lablady,

So you thought it was me, huh? Busted! I look forward to tomorrow when you can read what I wrote and reply.

Yeah this is really tough stuff we're going through and none of us here has yet started what they all describe as the REALLY hard part (recovery). It is pretty scary when you start thinking about it.

Believer, hope you're able to eat solid food today. Still say we should make your WH undergo what you did without anesthesia... <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" /> Yes, you have been on a ride even wilder than the roller coaster this week, bless your heart. If it is any consolation, I am in the seat beside you. One day one decision, the next day another...

I HATE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Sparkle - Thanks for thinking of me. My H never showed up yesterday to see how I was doing. He called tonight and I let answering machine pick it up.

He asked how I was doing, and said he loved me. He could have come by on the way home from work, but he would have had to drive a block out of his way.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by believer:
<strong> He could have come by on the way home from work, but he would have had to drive a block out of his way. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Our expectations are so high! How could we demand so much from our WH's?? LOL

Hang in there, Believer. Aren't we glad for this board?

Hi everyone.

I'm feeling much better today. HeHeHe - Plan B works after only a few days. Of course this is about the third time I've been on it.

Where are all the rest of the Plan B folks? We need to get them in here. I think we really need each other to keep with the Plan.

Hi believer,

Glad to hear you're doing ok after that last trip to the hotel california.lol

Me too.WH is due home this weekend for 4 days so I am going to see him briefly.Haven't seen him at all since 12/29/03.Hmmm.Should be interesting.

O

Well, it is time for an update. I haven't posted here for a long while, but lurk a lot! Thanks to everyone who has kept this thread going.

My second Plan B was initiated in July. In October my WH sent me a note saying he was trying to break the addiction. I told him if he really wanted help to contact Penny or the Harleys.

Well, he finally contact Penny, and things seemed to be moving forward on a positive note. Penny said he was ready to come home and work on our M. I had to have some day surgery on 12/20 and WH marked that as the day to return home. Supposedly there had been no contact with OW since early November.

The time we spent together was, by his admission, fine. I created no stress or pressure for him. Things seemed a bit strained (not unexpected, since we had not lived together for the better part of a year), but pretty much ok.

So, on the day after Christmas, he comes into my office where I was playing a computer game. He puts his hands on my shoulders and says, "Do you have any idea how much I love you?" I said, "Well, sometime I do, but sometimes I don't." He said, "I love you SO very much" and gate me a wonderful, tender, LONG loving hug. He then said, "So I know you will understand that I just have to get away for a while."

I was floored...shocked, devastated. We tried to talk it out for a couple of hours, and he ended up leaving anyway. Well, guess what? He spent the weekend with OW!

The following Monday night we had a coaching session already scheduled with Penny which we kept. He admitted to feeling miserable, horrible, about his behavior, and still maintained he wanted our M. So the three of us wrote the n/c letter on the phone. When complete, Penny said, "OK, so you can email it tonight." WH said, "No, I can't do it." We tried to get into why he would not, and he couldn't explain it. So Penny told me it was back to Plan B and told WH that as long as he refused to send the n/c letter, that in her mind the A was still active.

OK, that was December 29th. He has still not sent the letter. He emailed me that his personal goal was to try to send the letter by the end of this month. He maintains he can't figure out what his hesitation is. Now bear in mind, this would be the 3rd time he has told her it is over and he has broken the n/c each time himself.

THEN...this past Friday night my gut tells me something is wrong. I'm pretty sure he spent the night with OW.

Saturday morning I am FURIOUS! I send him an email telling him that the M is over. Five hours after reading the email, he writes, "An explanation please?" I tell him not to treat me like an idiot, that both of us know what happened to drive me over the edge.

Nothing all day Saturday or Sunday. But Sunday night I get an email just saying, "This was the saddest weekend of my life."

Know what, Guys and Gals? If the tables were turned, I would be out there fighting for my M, if I loved my spouse as he supposedly loves me. I even got a Valentines Day card, with the words I Love You underlined! I don't get it!

But instead of fighting, he says he is "sad." My WH has a choice of taking the reins in his life and living it to the fullest, or he can let left roll over him and continue to be a victim for the remainder of his life. He has to stop being a person that everything happens to and start being a person that makes things happen.

Don't know if it will occur in our marriage, though. Part of me is convinced he wants me to do this, that he has been pushing me toward ending the marriage because he doesn't want to be the one to do it.

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

<small>[ February 16, 2004, 07:29 PM: Message edited by: ISGirl ]</small>

Your H sounds alot like mine. Mine has continually said he will have NC with OW, but still goes back to her. The last I knew it was 11 times. I stopped counting.

I am finally back in Plan B and doing well. The only thing we can do is stick to the plan. There is nothing we can do about WS's problem.

My WS says he can't help it, OW just keeps showing up at his door. He really believes that all of this "just happened". He stands back and feels sorry for himself.

So I have just moved on with my life and left him to sink or swim.

believer,

Thanks for posting. You do a really great job on these boards. I see you all over the place, helping folks. I used to do it a LOT. It helps alleviate the pain and create a focus when we help others, doesn't it?

I hear what you are saying. How long has it been for you since D-Day?

My problem is that nothing is changing and it will be 2 years this summer since I found out for sure, but knew in my heart 6-8 months earlier. I know I have read others (Orchid, for one I think) who battled this for 3 years, but omigosh, HOW?

At what point do you throw in the towel and realize your WH is not going to change?

You know what is so sad? The very things that made me love him so much - his morals, his ethics, his devotion, compassion, apparent unselfishness - are the very things that have now disappeared from his life. So I ask: what will there be left to love? Can a person ever return to being that individual? Or do we just accept that they have changed for the worse and move on with our lives?

I admired my H before I really knew him. I admired his honor, integrity, kindness.

Well that has all disappeared. It has been gone for over a year. So I just stick with the MB program. I am much better now, and my days are good.

I like to post here. It somehow let's me work through things. When members first come here, they are lost, and so hurt, just like I was. I know the program works, however things turn out. Others need some hope in their despair, and I plan to help them, just like folks here helped me.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I admired my H before I really knew him. I admired his honor, integrity, kindness.

Well that has all disappeared. It has been gone for over a year.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Do you really think that is the case? That it was that you thought you knew him, but really didn't? Or do you think that this "illness" - the A - has created a monster, a facade, that is really not your spouse at all?

Many here speak of their WS as being abducted by aliens. The complete personality change that a WS goes thru. I remember Mimi talking about how her FWH had said and done things during the height of the fog and the A and when the fog cleared, even partially, he had absolutely no recollection of those actions or words.

But the bottom line is that we cannot make them into something they are not. We cannot make them be the men and women they used to be. If they want to return to owning those qualities they used to possess, it is something only they can accomplish. Many will need help to get there. Many will never get there. Many will try to get there when it is too late, when they wake up one morning and realize, deep in their souls, what they have given up - true love, great marriages, children, their homes, their place in the community, pets, extended families, friends, nieces, nephews, grandchildren. To say nothing of their self-respect.

Life will never be the same for them. For those who lose like this I shed oceans of tears. What a great, horrible loss, for nothing can ever take the place of the family and the values they have turned their backs on. Especially not the thrill of an affair.

When they sober up and realize what that OP was really, really! So many say, "My OP did not set out to ruin my M...my M was already in trouble." Well, one day they will see the OP's role for what it really is. A deceitful, lying individual, who has set out to destroy something very beautiful and sacred. And if he/she succeeds, then one day the WS will have nothing left for the OP except for disgust.

Anyway, I am ranting... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Its been awhile since I wrote on this thread. Last week I saw my WW for the first time since left again. We were both at my Ds volleyball game. I saw her as I was leaving. My D was in the locker room and I wasn't sure if she was riding the bus home or riding with one of us. WW asked if D was riding the bus. I said I didn't know and walked away after that. It was hard seeing her and even harder not talking to her. Its been over 7 months since D-day and much longer since we were together. I had been deployed for 3 months prior to D-day. So, in reality, I'm going on about 10 months. I am really beginning to lose hope. Though my life isn't bad, I still think about her 24-7. She is like the song that you can't get out of your head no matter what you do...

ISgirl -

I know my H was a good man. I worked with him 7 years before we got married, and have been married for almost 10 years. The OW just sucked his brains out somehow.

He thinks the OW is just wonderful. It makes me gag. She went out with a married man while her H was in Iraq. She doesn't work, doesn't do anything around the house, and has practically abandoned her 12 year old daughter.

LNH - Hang in there. Sounds like you are doing a good Plan B. Are you doing anything to take care of you? Our self-esteem really hits bottom. It has helped me to do new things and have other interests.

<small>[ February 18, 2004, 07:08 AM: Message edited by: believer ]</small>

Hello - I'm back on this thread because, well, I'm back in Plan B.

It's been an interesting week. I tore my MCL (knee ligament) skiing last Wed., then went to meet my WH, whom I hadn't seen in over a year. The knee will heal, but the M???? WH still doesn't know what he wants, back to the M or OW. We talked for 2 hours, he kept saying that our M was so bad he had no choice but to have an A. I told him that he DID have other choices, and that because he made such a bad choice and was not willing to admit it, I wasn't sure if I wanted him back. He admitted that he had seen OW the previous day, after a week of NC. The next day he called to see how my knee was, and I told him that, until he chooses me over OW, I don't want to hear anything from him. He said he understood and hasn't contacted me since.

WH did call our DS's best friend, complaining about how we should all be able to get along, how his kids should be coming over to see him for dinner (with OW, I presume). He wants to be a cake eater. What he doesn't seem to understand is that his character is so poor, no one wants to be around him.

We all make choices about who we allow to get close to us. Some of us make these choices consciously, others more subconsciously. We all have certain standards (boundaries) we use to determine who becomes our friends and lovers. Well, in an A, a person will lie, cheat, and steal, not the kind of behavior one looks for in a friend, let alone a life partner, and hard to take in a parent. I realize that people make bad choices, and I'm willing to work with WH if he is aware of what he has done and will try to make it right, but he won't even take the first step! I want what Pepper's WH said, (paraphrasing), "I'll do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to make this right!!"

This time Plan B feels different. For over a year, I kept the door open for WH to realize what he would lose. I had hoped he would "get it". Instead he's still in the fog, and I'm getting tired of waiting. I have no illusions of WH changing for the better. I won't wait forever.

Lablady

lablady,

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">WH did call our DS's best friend, complaining about how we should all be able to get along, how his kids should be coming over to see him for dinner (with OW, I presume). </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Yeah, lablady, what on earth is wrong with you? Why can't you all just be one big happy family? For that matter, why don't you just invite your WH and OW to BOTH move in with you. You and she could take turns cooking, doing the chores, sleeping with your H, ya know, kind of like a harem.

Jeez! Give me a break! Talk about fog! What is denser than fog? A WS - LOL <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Seriously, sorry to see you back here. I had hopes when he contacted you. But...not to be, not yet. I'm glad you are feeling the comfort of Plan B again.

Did you ever get to open my email at work, or did the knee injury get in the way? I do hope you are feeling better.

Resurrecting this thread to see how old timers are doing, and for new PlanBers to read. I have now been in PlanB for seven months. WW filed for Dv 2/20/04 but so far my attorney has chosen not to respond and I have heard nothing else. I have had NC with WW for several months, but miss her every day. Life goes on.
Any previous posters out there? How is it going?

I'm still here in my Plan B, which has not been all that much of a Plan B. But I am enjoying it, and feel good most days.