I sent the sparrow a friendly email today. Here's her response - she seems to think this affair is perfectly normal.

I don't know what to do. This is really evil. Is it time for plan B? Only two months into things; my god.

--
Hi [GC],

Thanks for the message. I was just thinking -- I didn't give you my portion of July's mortgage yet. Did my new checks show up there? Or do you want to write yourself a check from the [bank] account? Or maybe you have enough to pay it yourself -- a tradeoff for me paying your car repairs on [my credit card]? Let me know if you need me to write you a check.

I am looking forward to the 3-day weekend! I'm glad to hear that you have some fun things planned. [OM] and I are going up north -- I think near [lake name]. Some of his family will be up there so I'll get to meet more members of the [OM family] clan. This year I'm staying away from firecrakers!

Have fun & take care,

[sparrow]

Don't you love when your WW talks about plans with OM. My WW does it all the time. We are going out of town this weekend, we went shooting, we went quading etc. It is a stab to the heart when they say that stuff. To me, plan B is looking better for you right now, but listen to the veterans here over me for advice on that. I feel your pain on that. Really.

I just left my feelings about your sitch on your other thread. Plan B - yeah it might be just what the doctor ordered for her. She is too smug right now... shake her up a bit.


Weav

Yeah, that's painful. My WW still just flat out lies to me about plans with OM. I'm not sure which is better.

I too am seriously considering Plan B. Plan A is just so hard when you're already separated. I'm going to ask SH about it on Friday. I'll let you know what he says, since our situations are pretty similar. WW is practically Plan B'ing me anyway...

<small>[ June 30, 2004, 04:11 PM: Message edited by: phantom8808 ]</small>

Oh, daddy. Just got the feeling back in my hands. I thought I was doing well today. When I read that email the room started spinning.

I don't know anything about plan B letters. I'm not ready for this. Jeez Louise. I'm asking for help, help, help. I ordered SAA yesterday - will that have some tips for me?

This is just what beginners fear - if I'm understanding and compassionate during my plan A, won't they just interpret that as me being okay with the A? Apparently, in my case, that's exactly how it's been interpreted.

GC

GC is your W living with OM? If she is it is definitly time to go to Plan B. I was only 2 months into Plan A and then had my first counseling session with Jennifer here at MB. She told me that my W was blatently disreguarding my feelings by living with the OM and I should go straight into Plan B. This is JMHO.

They are not living together, but I think that's mostly because OM takes his daughter occasionally and his wife would never go for it if the sparrow was there.

I think my wife's disregard for my feelings is pretty clear.

Wow. This seems like some setback. A biiiiig step closer to D. Okay, I can handle it. I'm smoking some effing cigarettes tonight though, I'm telling you that.

GC

Yes - she thinks you've accepted the fact that she's moving on and now thinks that it's okay to be 'just friends'.

BECAUSE of the speed at which OM and WW are moving - I think that a solid Plan B is important. I didn't realize how quickly this had all come about. I'm afraid that YOU can hold out longer than it would take for her to rush forth and be divorced.

I would stay dark from this point forward, until she tries to resume some contact (which she will - she'll probably check in after the 4th to talk about her weekend) - then send the Plan B letter (which is a LOVE LETTER) and find a way to avoid all future contact. I think the timing would be perfect - as I don't think this weekend (of meeting all his family) will go as well as she thinks.

Hope4future - I agree 1000%...now is the time.

Graycloud,

So sorry to read about the correspondence from your WW. I went dark 8 weeks ago( with a slight stumble this week).I am sure I would have been in a straightjacket if I had been around my WW these past weeks with how she jerked me around. But the big problem is I LET HER JERK ME AROUND by permitting contact. Your situation is similar to mine with no kids, for your sanity get into the best Plan B that you can. Go dark, read the 180 degree rules and don't give permission to your WW to make you crazy. You are in my prayers, going dark and staying dark is VERY TOUGH but worth it.

Here's my Plan B letter for an example:


Dearest K,
This is one of the hardest letters I've ever written. It is with heavy heart that I sit here and put my thoughts and feelings to paper. It is truly sad what has happened to our marriage and us. The path that I must take now is not one of choice but one of self-preservation. Let me explain.
I would first like to acknowledge and apologize for my part in the demise of our marriage. I have made many mistakes in the past that can not be changed. What I have been able to do is recognize those errors in judgment and have learned from them so that I can take steps to ensure that they will not occur again. I was selfishly caught up in myself, and with my selfishness and foolishness I helped create a void in our marriage that helped allow this affair to happen. I did not realize how much it meant to you for me to be there for you. The handholding, the hugs and the snuggling to name a few, I now clearly see many of those things I was lacking in. I just didn’t understand how important it was to us. I have made it clear to everyone that my time with my precious wife is and will be my main focus. You will always come first.
I did not understand what it took to have a successful and fulfilling relationship, or how to meet your needs. I can not sit here today and say that I know all that I need to know about relationships but I can however honestly say that I have learned a lot about honoring, cherishing and companionship. I want to learn even more about how to be a supportive and loving man. The type of man that I hope you would be proud to call your husband; the same pride I felt so many times when I called you my wife.
Since February, I've been trying to give you hope for the marriage by learning how to be a better husband to you. To give you hope that you could return to a marriage that you wanted, and for us to build our family together, but the past few months have been the most difficult time of my life. The pain and emptiness that I endure on a daily basis is almost too much to bear. My only saving grace is the memories of the love we once shared, of the all good times we have spent together, your extraordinary qualities that led me to ask you to spend your life with me and the thought of us being together, someday happy again. Unfortunately, I now find those memories and feelings are slowly eroding away. Before I lose any more of the memories and feelings of what were once us, I must take some drastic steps.
K, as you know I am still willing to do whatever it takes to correct the mistakes that we have made in the past and make our marriage together stronger and closer than we ever thought possible. With all of my heart, I would like to build a new marriage with you. One, in which we both feel loved, safe, cherished and honored. I simply can not continue my efforts to rebuild our marriage while you are still involved with (OM). It has become too painful. We can only rebuild our marriage...together...when you completely end your relationship with (OM).
Until that point, I feel I must break off all contact with you. I will avoid seeing you or talking to you or communicating with you in any way. I would also like any of the regular communications between us to be handled through SIL. If you have any emergency matters, you can always email me at any time. I will put your mail in the mail box on a designated night that you request so you can pick it up.
I hope that you understand that I am not doing this to hurt you or punish you but to protect my feelings for you. I ask that you respect my decision to separate from you in this way. You must know torturous pain and suffering I have endured because of your relationship with (OM). I simply cannot be in contact with you any longer, knowing that you and he are together. This separation is a necessity to preserve my love for you and to avoid losing any more of the things we have shared together, and to give our marriage the best chance for recovery!
I will be willing to discuss our future together as soon as you are willing to permanently separate from (OM) and are willing to construct a plan to ensure a total separation. Until that time I will continue to pray for us.
In my mind I will keep the vision of seeing you walk through the door and me saying "hello my love" and of a happy and loving couple where our needs are being met and a relationship where no others could come between us. I know it can happen! What anyone other then you thinks about us is of no importance to me or my feelings for you. I still love you today; I just can not be with you or help you as long as you are still involved with (OM).

Your loving husband,

I definately think that plan B is in order - I hope some of the other old - timers will chime in here - plan B is not about her, and it is not about your M, it is for YOU - it is to save you from further heartache. If you continue to have contact with her at this point you may as well file for D now, beucase you will lose any love you have left for her. You need to be able to go days - even a few weeks - without her constantly picking the scab off your open wounds.
I do not believe for a second that she truly feels like her A is jsut fine - she is a smart lady - she knows better. But you are being cute and chatty so she will be cute and chatty.
I am not saying you should be mean - but you need to let her know flat out that further contact with her only breaks your heart. That you want to work on a new improved M, with her, but only after she commits to NC with the OM. You need to make sure that she understands taht you Love her, want her back, but you won;t be able to email her or call her anymore becuase it is killing you.
and then you outline for her the path that would lead her home.
Read about the plam B letter - wirte it - and post it here for feedback.
Again et me share my own expericne - not only did my ex think his A was just fine, he didn't even think it was actaully an A becuase they were "in love".
I was going to be out of town for a couple of days. I told my then WH that te boys would be staying with his mom. he asked me if it would be all right if he stayed at my house with the boys, instead of sending them to his moms. I told him I would have to think about it. He said Why? I told him that as long as he was continuing to have an A I did not think it would be appropriate for him to stay in my house. He said "It's not an affair" I said "yes it is. She is married, and so are you, it is nothing but an affair" he said "well, we are working on that" I said "what does that mean - you are working on it" and he said "well, a divorce - we are going to get divorced so we can get married". I said - "divorcing me, will not make this all ok. Leaving me and the kids to pursue another realtionship will never make this whole mess ok, and as long as you are living with another mans wife you are not welcome to come stay in my house". Then he said "you just don't understand - I love her so much - this is not an affair"
Sound familiar?
Now - go read my posts about my ex's recent emails.

I have the chance to hear Harley's radio program, and every once in a while he says something that really strikes home. Here's something that I think might be of help to you:

Bill: Why do people do things that hurt other people? And the answer is that part of it is we don’t care about other people. We only care about ourselves, and when we are only caring about ourselves and we’re not caring about other people, people should run for cover. And the question is: What is it we can do to make ourselves safe in relationships with other people and that is to create environmental factors – environmental rules, regulations – to live by that consciously and purposely protect other people from our own selfish instincts.

Joyce: What is the percentage – How successful can couples be after infidelity and having a good marriage? … An affair happens in your marriage. What is the likelihood of success that your marriage will become happy again and maybe even better than before the infidelity?

Bill: It’s very low, very low. Most couples that have affairs end their marriage in
divorce. Most of those that remain remain unhappy…

Joyce: I seem to get the impression that her husband is blaming her for not being happy with the infidelity…

Bill: Not being happy with her so he ends up -- he says he’s not happy with her so has an affair

Joyce: Oh, so it’s her fault he’s having an affair…

Bill: And if she’d be a little more cooperative I wouldn’t be having so many affairs… And it’s the same argument people use that are physically abusive. Basically, if my wife would stop irritating me, I wouldn’t be beating her as much. The question is: What can she do to get him to quit having affairs? The answer is: Nothing. There’s nothing she can do. It’s really all in his court. If he has one affair, my argument has always been that that is sufficient to divorce. Now, the question is: Does he want to straighten things out with her? If he does, then the question is: What does he have to do? Well, he has to never see or talk to the lover again. He has to create extraordinary precautions, make sure he doesn’t have that affair rekindled or any other affair and he has to make sure their marriage is restored. When somebody has an affair, it isn’t so much what should the person who is betrayed, what should they do, to get him to stop having an affair.. Yes, indeed, you need to have emotional needs met, but it’s still no excuse for having an affair.

Joyce: And it sounds to me like he is just using his wife as an excuse to justify what he really wants to be doing – and he doesn’t want to be faithful.

Bill: Yeah. And anybody that says, well, the reason that I hit you is because of what you did or what you said, it’s the same kind of a thing. The first step toward overcoming domestic violence is to recognize that there are no excuses for domestic violence…What’s the first step in anger management counseling? And that is to convince the violent spouse that they have no right ever hurting their spouse regardless of what their spouse may have said or done.

Joyce: But how do you convince them of that if they can always justify their outburst of anger?

Bill: This is where counseling is important. Counseling from my perspective is an opportunity to change somebody’s mind, to change somebody’s thoughts, to change somebody’s attitudes, to change them. And a lot of times you got to begin with their attitudes. But that’s not where you end. You can’t end with attitudes, because you have to end with behavior. I’ve known a lot of people that fully believe that they should not be beating their wife, and yet they can’t stop because they haven’t learned to stop doing that…So the first step is to recognize that there is no excuse for an affair. If her husband were to tell me, every time I have an affair, I feel guilty, I feel like I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned against my wife, I’ve sinned against my children, I’m a horrible person to be doing this. Then I would say, “Now, what we have to do is create an environment where you’re not going to have another affair. And it’s going to be very restrictive, at least at first. You’re basically going to be watched 24 hours a day. You’re not going to be able to do and say what you want to say. It’s just like with helping a person overcome addiction to alcohol. You can’t be working in a bar when you are trying to recover from being an alcoholic. This woman’s husband says, “It’s your fault that I’m having an affair.” And I’d say, “What can she do to get him to stop?” And the answer is “Absolutely nothing. There’s nothing she can do. She has to walk away. She has to turn her back and walk away from him. Otherwise, she’s going to continue to be hurt by him the rest of their lives. The same thing is true of men that beat their wives. The same thing is true with men or woman who are verbally abusive. The question is: “How do I get my spouse to stop being abusive? How do I get my spouse to stop hurting me?” The answer is, “There’s nothing you can do. It’s all on the part of the person who is doing the damage.”

gc:

Have you outed the A to his family? Are they jake with their son bringing his illicit GF over for the 4th? Is his W going too?

Cherished:

That stuff about who needs to end the A is right on. I'm a bit surprised at Harley's assessment of the quality of marriages after affairs. It sounds so hopeless, or that recovery (of the marriage) may be even misguided.

But I do agree that the BS can't do squat to stop an A, only make suggestions (that are usually ignored) and try negotiation. I have proof that the BS changing their behavior will do nothing to end an affair, though, from my own experience. I've plan A'd now for 2 1/2 years. Sometimes well, sometimes not. It's made no difference to our marriage, and won't, until my wife decides that the lifestyle and foggy definitions of marriage, honesty, and privacy aren't healthy for her. Never mind me. HER.

I had to come back on here to address this. MBers often tell one another that they should make their decisions based on the objective of being able to look back in ten years and have no regrets about what path they chose - whether to stay married or divorce. I get slammed all the time for not going to plan B, but I have tons of regrets about the past come up and eat me alive when I contemplate that.

Too often I hear people being advised to "go to plan B" or "go dark", or "throw the WS to the curb right now!", and too seldom do I hear the correlative advice: remember that one outcome of plan B is DIVORCE. If you are not ready for that possibility, then you're not ready for plan B. Stick with the remote plan A for a while, but don't get sucked into hurtful discussions - especially those where she's cheerful but talks to you about her plans with her OM. Respond to her queries about everything but her A. For now.

-Qfwfq (aka 2long)

I could be wrong, but I think his wife may have already filed for divorce. He has no choice but to shock her into realty. Well it's JMO but I am a woman and I know that woman often want what that cannot have...what they have lost. This has all happened so suddenly, bam bam and she was out the door.

Weaver

She has not filed for divorce. I'd know if she had, right? But I expect she will do it soon. Having to pay her half of the mortgage is a drag. She's now started to be nit-picky about money spent on my car using her credit card BEFORE she left. And of course OM is very worried about money as well.

Can I do it like lostva and plan A until she comes back or finishes divorcing me? Maybe. The idea of not seeing her or hearing from her at all is pretty scary. I think she'll forget me entirely. But if I continue to plan A I'll have to find some way to communicate how bad her affair hurts me without LBing. And it's just like WoF5 says, she doesn't think she's having an affair because she waited until after she said she wanted a divorce before she started going to bed with him.

Ramble, ramble. I don't know what to do. I don't believe plan B will save my marriage.

GC

If you don't believe plan B will save you marriage, than you have your answer. Only you know and only you will know when it is time.

Oh, Cherished - I live in Minneapolis and heard that program. I don't listen often because the station does not come in at all in my office, but that day I took a late lunch and listened.

I was also surprised to hear him say that the probability of restoring a M after an A is very, very low. It did not give me much hope hearing that.

Should I start a new thread and give a shout out to some old-timers and some FWWs, or should I wait to see if they read this one? I'm incredibly greedy for advice right now, but don't want to start shooting off a million threads.

GC

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> Can I do it like lostva and plan A until she comes back or finishes divorcing me? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I thought you were trying to avoid divorce.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I don't believe plan B will save my marriage.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">No guarantees. It might save you though. Is plan A saving your marriage?

What do the Harleys think? Maybe ask them.

Conventional Harley wisdom is that most Plan As don't work unless followed by a Plan B. Dem's Harley statistics. That doesn't mean it's best for you.

From the program you heard, I would say that the recovery without MB probably IS very, very low. I think the Harleys think their odds are better. The excerpt didn't make that distinction.

Lostva will admit her story is a-statistical. Everyone would like to duplicate Lostva's success and her program. But Lostva is also a-statistical in that the situation didn't drive her to LB big time. I've spoken to Lostva, and she's an unusual lady.

I was much in your situation, and H had been living for OW for six months before I sent PBL. I wish I'd done it earlier. However, my Plan B isn't perfect because of a small community, where I see "them" together all the time. However, the joy of Plan B is I don't get these little breezy conversations where he pretends like everything is okay and under control. Instead, I get these cold mechanical emails that sound like they were written on a computer by a computer.

He filed for D anyway. Spoke with my lawyer this morning. He says he's probably wondering a good deal what I'm up to. Let him. Glad I shook his complacency up a bit.