JL,

Thank you for replying. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />
I guess it does sound kind of like I'm asking the same questions. Maybe I should have written my post a bit better, but I tend to update here when I should be sleeping in bed.
Do I believe her when she says these things? Absolutely not. At one time I did, but she proved over and over that her words won't match her actions. I'm not thinking about breaking Plan B with a "great! I'm glad you want to come home.. etc" That would get me nowhere.
I think what I'm asking in a nutshell is, should I actively seek to wreck the affair?
The scenerio would be something like, a friend calling OM and letting him know what she's been up to, and play him the voicemails, including this new one. Also, letting everyone he works with know the kind of person he is.
I think about these things because I didn't do such a great job at exposing everything. I exposed to everyone W knows, but I didn't go to work on OM's side of things.
Now if OM knows what W has been up to, its going to cause problems there. Problems that I would like there. Make sense?

TTSi,

I am a fan of exposure and I think it helps if only a little. It may only help you. But let's look at the down side of exposure.

1. Your W might get mad. Oh! she has done that.

2. She might run off with OM. Yup, done that.

3. She might become pregnant by OM. Already done that.

4. She might not talk to you. Not a problem you are in plan B.

5. OM might get mad at you. Looking for the down side of that, I don't see a biggie do you? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

6. OM might be embarrassed. Awwwwwww <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

7. OM and she might not get along as well, if he lost his job. Too bad.

Frankly, I don't see the downside to this. Expose what has happened. They may lie and say you are lying, but hey lying is nothing new to either of them.

So do you see a downside?

Go for it.

God Bless,

JL

Ok, then my next question should be,
Do you think there is any one way that this should be exposed?
What I mean is, is there a best way that OM should be contacted about this, or how people at his work should be contacted and told what is going on?
I also think I should contact OM's parents. I don't know if they'll care at all, as I do not know really what they know about this and I do not know what their morals are. About the only way of contacting them would be through the mail.

The only real downside I can see to the additional exposure is W may see it as me trying
to control her life.
I know it's rediculous to us, but I just try to think of all the angles.
Then again, she's the one who keeps saying she wants to come home, so from my perpective, I'm just trying to help make that possible. Play her game a little bit ya know?

So far, I have not done anything regarding my last few posts. I'm still trying to figure out how I should handle it or if I really should even bother. It seems that everyone in my life just berates me for wanting to continue in this marriage. I know it's my choice, I'm the only one who really has to live with my decisions. I just wish others in my life would at least accept and respect my decision.
I still really want to expose all this to OM and his family, I just don't know the proper way to do it. You know? Should I do it myself, should someone else bring about the information for more impact... Dunno.
Does Plan B help me? A little I guess. Doesn't seem to help as much as it has helped others here. Maybe it's time to talk to SH, at least once. I'm sure he'll want to tell me to just divorce, like everyone else it seems. I've already made the decision that there is no way I will start any paperwork for a D. If she wants it, she'll have to go after it. That doesn't mean I'll not protect myself, just that I won't initiate anything.
Been staying busy with work and all. It's the alone times that are the hardest.

I'm sorry that you are going through such struggles. It is a hard path to follow...one which none of us ever wanted to take...and certainly have no expertise in handling. I would encourage you to look at your "rescuing" part again. As long as she's the "sick" one..does it allow you to not go on and create a life of your own? You're more worried about protecting her feelings than your own many times. I've been there...done that...got the t-shirt..and threw-up all over it! My xWS (husband) had an affair...with a 21 yr old (we were 47 yrs old), lied about it over and over....OW got pregnant...I filed for divorce...didn't know about MB then. We spent the next year working on "reconciliation" while they were still living together because "I'm (WS) not sure OW can take care of the baby ok." (Baby has Down Syndrome) I met the little guy...Fell in love with him...and felt that I could take him into my life and love him as a stp.parent. My xWS spent the next year...month after month..promising to change..to move out etc. He never did..They still live together...not married. He still calls occasionally saying he's going to "win" me back.. Again, no changes in behavior. I don't feel that anyone could have been more loving and supportive as I to him through this whole ordeal..I'm the one he came to and cried to when he found out the baby had Down Syndrome. I'm the one who asked to see the baby...spend time with him....I'm the one who understood why my xWS wanted to be at the delivery of the OC..I'm the one who supported my xWS maintaining an active role with his OC. I'm the one who was willing to take on a special needs child and help raise him when I was 48 yrs old and didn't want to start over again with babies. I"m not saying this to toot my own horn. Only that in all my efforts to try to be there for my xWS, support him, minimize stress for him, understand him, and eventually set limits with him....In the end it did me no good. All my love and understanding did nothing...I should have known...He's a recovering alcoholic...and I knew about enabling behavior. I have no idea, obviously, what your choices should be. I just wanted to share my experiences with trying to "go along with" and "be supportive" of my xWS so as not to "push him over the edge" and remain with the OW. Take care.

I understand why you did what you did.
As you read, I did much more of that than I should have. I see now that I shouldn't have somewhat, "acted" like things were ok, as it was just feeding Ws "cake and eat it too" syndrome.
I think by going into Plan B, I put my foot down as much as I can right now.
I've thought long and hard about the rescuing issue. I do agree I have this problem. I can't see right now how much of me is in the rescuing mode. What I do see is a W with a pretty serious mental illness, one that I knew somewhat about previously, but in now learning about it more over the past 8 months, I can see that I should have took it more seriously and at least tried to learn about it and how to help a spouse with it. I will accept that blame. At least now I know that all that is going on has nothing to do with me. I'm not the cause of it, and I did for a long time blame myself. You know, I coulda done this, I shoulda done that.
Of course, I still want her back. I don't want her back if she's not willing to take a serious look at herself. Although I still need to take a serious look at myself too. I guess I always thought at anyone who is married would want to rescue their spouse if they were in trouble. Maybe I have to let her completely hit bottom, maybe then she'll finally realize how deep these problems of hers goes. Maybe then she'll see what she had here in me.

TTSi

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Maybe it's time to talk to SH, at least once. I'm sure he'll want to tell me to just divorce, like everyone else it seems.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">It's obvious that you haven't ever talked to Steve. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> There are lots of things he'll suggest, but divorce is unlikely to be one of them...

Give him a call.

Well, I did it. I had my first appointment with SH this morning.
Since it was the first, a lot of time was spent on going over everything that has happened, and answering his questions.
K, you were right, he did not suggest or bring up divorce at all. I'm a bit surprised by that, given the situation.
Anyway, we spoken a bit about my instinctual feelings that W may have told OM that she is already divorced, and he agreed that is a strong possibility. One suggestion he gave was for me to call OM personally and start off by asking him
"What are your intentions towards my wife."
Obviously, I already know his intentions, but it's a way to get the exposure started.

We talked about my idea of writing a letter to OM's parents/family and detailing what has really been going on. He does agree that it should be done, but we should wait a bit until we know a bit more about what W will do. As by writing this letter, it is a make or break deal. W will find herself in a corner, and she will either choose to push for divorce, or see that there is no future there and come home. So I will wait a bit on that.

Since W birthday is coming up soon, I asked about recognizing it by sending her a card and whether it was something I should do or not, being in Plan B and all. He said that sending the card would not be a bad thing, since Plan B is designed to protect me. I'm not sure of his exact words, but the just of it was, as long as doing it didn't further drain my love for her it would be ok. We had a bit of discussion about how not doing something could be more damaging to the possibility of starting recovery than staying completely dark.

I brought up her last voicemail to me about coming home after the baby is born. I told him that I did not know if I could bring her back at that point. He wanted to know why. My answer was that if she comes home after, then OMs name would be on the birth certificate and it would be easier for him to try to weasle in on our life, making recovery next to impossible.
If she comes home before, then my name goes on the cert. and he'll have a long and expensive legal battle to win the right to pay child support. I'm convinced he will just disappear instead. We had a long discussion about that and I think we both agree that she needs to come home before giving birth.

The kicker is, she does not know that is my feelings on the matter. So what to do eh?
SH's advice was to contact her about it. Not in a demanding way or needing an answer now or anything like that, but just in a "this is the way that I feel, and I thought you needed to know this and it's something for you to think about." kind of way.

So for right now, I have a couple of very hard things I need to do. The easier, letting her know my feelings about coming home now. The much harder, Having a conversation with OM.
I don't know if I can do it. SH suggested that it may be easier if I do it with a friend in the room with me, as it might make it harder for me to go off on him or threaten him, but I don't think so. I know OM isn't the problem. But he isn't the solution either and he's standing in the way. So I don't know if I could hold my real feelings down or even be able to contain them once he starts talking.

So that's about it for now. I'll be making another appointment when some more information is learned or something happens in this situation. I can tell you all one thing. Sitting around waiting for others to do something really sucks. I'm so used to being a doer, I'm not a watcher.

Thanks for reading. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

I have kind of an interesting story I wanted to post on... Just something that happened.

After I had talked to SH, and had decided that I
needed to recognize W's birthday, all I wanted to do was send her a card. Now, for some reason I've always been good at picking out cards for her or anyone else. Strange being a guy that can do that. Every guy I've know has always hated it and it would take them forever to find a decent card. Since I'm kinda in a new state and city
(meaning, I haven't lived here for 20 years) sometimes I don't know exactly where everything is, which is natural of course.

anyway, I always buy Hallmark cards whenever I can, always have. I knew that there was a Hallmark store here in town and I know where it is. But for some reason, I had this thought that I could not go there and instead had to go to this one mall that I know of about 30 miles away.
I wasn't even sure if there was a Hallmark store in it, as I didn't notice one the last time I was there. (Which was a while ago)
This mall is good enough and everything, but it's one of those malls that has been eclipsed by the larger malls and is struggling to stay in business. I really don't like the place as there are a lot of those kiosk venders always trying to push stuff on anyone that walks by. The mall is usually pretty empty. But like I said, I just had to go there for some reason.

So I did find a Hallmark store in there after all. Went over to the Birthday section and picked up a card to look at. I knew after a quick glance that I didn't want it. I picked up the second card and started reading it.
It's kind of corney I guess, but I had this strange feeling come over me. As I read the card, it was like reading my feelings. Like this card was sitting there waiting for me and only me. If anyone wants, I'll post the words of the card, but basically it starts off about two people meeting, marrying, noticing some things, going through some tough times, and in the end still loving each other. It was short, but As I read it I was thinking, "Hey, this is me, this is our marriage!"

Now I'm sure the card is general enough so that a whole lot of people would think the same thing. But it was the perfect birthday card, for the perfect moment in time. That's what I felt.
If I hadn't had to go to that one store, I would not have found it at other store I bet.
What this means, I don't know, if anything at all. It was just one of those things that happens. Maybe it was just dumb luck, or maybe someone is trying to help me. I don't know.
I know W will enjoy it. I know what she will think of when she reads it.

Hey, I know it's kind of a dumb story, but things are slow over here, ya know what I mean?

What did the card say?

(Text of the card)

For my Wife,

You know the story.
Two people meet and fall in love,
They move all their belongings
into the same small place
and begin to make a life together.
They discover that they have three toasters,
two blenders, and not even one coffeemaker.
They don't fold their shirts the same way,
and they can't always agree on
whose turn it is to clean house.

But these are the little things,
and because these two people love each other,
they find a way to work them out.
As time passes, there are other things,
money worries, illnesses, family crisis.
These are the big things.
But because the two people love each other,
they find a way to work them out, too.

And on special days like birthdays,
they think about each other
and about all the fun stuff they share
and about how their love has
got them through the not-so-fun stuff.
And he says to her....

Thanks for everything.
I still love you very much.

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

Good Luck!

W called again today.
I guess she figured out how to leave a voicemail on my cell phone without actually calling the number, as the two previous times she called, I didn't have any missed calls but had new voicemail.
This message was pretty much the same as the others, "I wanted to call and hear your voice, I miss you and I have some stuff I wanted to send you (probably my birthday present) didn't know where you wanted me to send it. I love you, call me, it's up to you. I miss you sweetheart."

And that was that. I'm not planning on calling.
Although I will soon have to at least email her about being home before the baby is born.

Today was W's birthday.
I had to fight myself wanting to call her today to at least wish her a happy birthday, but I did not.
I'm still writing the letter to OM's family. It's definitely slow going, thought I'd have it done by now, but it's more difficult emotionally to write all this stuff down than I thought it would be.

There hasn't been too much going on to update with, but I did have another sessions with SH today. We talked mostly about the letter I have written that details the truth about what has been going on. I'll be sending it shortly to OMs parents, followed by a copy being sent to him.

I believe sending him the letter is a better alternative than calling him directly, as I could not maintain my composure, and consequently, nothing of value would be said.

The letter says everything that needs to be said.
I'm not going to post the letter, as it contains
too many specific details that I don't want floating on the web, but if anyone who has been keeping up with this story would like me to email it to them, let me know your email address and I'll fire off a copy to you.

No one I have talked to about this really knows for sure what effect this will have, it could go so many ways... Personally, I think it will be the end of their affair, or the end of our marriage. SH at this point has more hope for my situation than I do. Dunno if that's a good thing or not.
Take care everyone <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />