With my anniversary, the sparrow's trip, and our birthdays all right around the bend, and my uncertainty about plan B, I decided to get talking to a Harley. The only one I can speak with before my anniv. is Jennifer, so I'll be talking to her tonight.

Anything I can do to speed along the process of explaining my situation, or any other advice for preparing? Thanks,

GC

Graycloud,

I think if she would read all your posts here , that would probably help her understand and save time explaining.

Chin up. Sparrow knows the date too, and I bet she is thinking about it.

Shul

i think it is a wise move and will help give you some clarity. i don't want to discourage you but just wanted you to know that really most of the first session is telling the harley's your story (giving back ground) there's actually not a lot of time to really discuss the questions you have. but i would write them down ahead of time. don't leave anything out. if there is something you would like to do for the anniversary then run it by them and see what they think. don't worry if you don't get to ask all your questions. a lot of the times they end up talking about them anyway.

you can always refer to my thread about my sessions w/SH for things that you could ask but i really don't think you will have trouble w/coming up w/things to ask <img border="0" title="" alt="[Razz]" src="images/icons/tongue.gif" /> in fact i would actually go ahead and make another appt w/JH for this friday or even for next week. so that you can really fine tune your plan better. i don't really know a lot about jennifer so i can't really speak to things she tends to say or talk about, etc. but if you don't feel like she's really giving you what you need you can always switch over to SH, even though it would probably be better to stay w/the same person.

i think you get the idea, make sure you have pen and paper to take down notes when you talk to her and always keep it near you so that you can write questions/things down between sessions that you want to talk about. except for the 1st session, all the counselors want to be brought up to date on what has transpired since the last session. i started keeping a written log to help me remember. i tell SH everything, even if i feel it's nothing.

good luck, it will be fine, and make sure and update us to how it went and what your "plan" is. who's to say that maybe some day the opportunity for sparrow to talk to one of the harleys might present itself. prayers to you, RR

As kind of a lark, I called the radio show today. Of course, a caller's questions on the show serve basically as a stage for illustrating MB principles in their most generic form.

BH advised me to stick with plan A and to reach out with gifts. I said I was concerned the sparrow wouldn't be receptive, and he said do it anyway.

This is contrary to what most folks on the board have suggested. So naturally I'm getting confused again. Hopefully I'll get some answers tonight.

GC

gc:

My one session with SH 2 years ago felt like that, 2. Everybody advised "Plan B!" and almost the first thing SH asked me was "so you only just found out this year?" (it'd been 7 months since d-day by that time).

When in doubt, follow JH's advice.

We're not professionals.

-ol' 2long

Maybe, 2long, when we post about every little bump in the road our sense of time gets a little screwed up. Maybe my hesitation about plan B is part of this - my feelings for the sparrow are very strong. I don't see them changing too soon. And when I see her I can see she's confused, so there's that.

I haven't heard a peep from her in a week, and I feel like hell about it. We were supposed to have another get-together, but she has dropped off the face of the earth.

GC

SH also asked me, early in the session, "How's your energy level?"

And, like you describe, it was pretty high at that point. It remained pretty high for about another year, maybe year and a half.

It's not high now, at least for the M. It's high for MY fu2re, though, so I'm going 2 channel that energy in2 my patience, while my W continues 2 go through withdrawl.

-ol' 2long

Gray - I don't have any advice other then what has been said, have your thoughts outlined on a piece of paper before hand and that way you'll be able to make better use of your time.

I know what you mean when you say Sparrow has dropped off the face of the earth. You so easily get use to the communication and it's just another horrible set back when it changes. But I think you are definately moving in the right direction, you gave her a LOT to think about last time you guys got together.

Good luck tonight, hopefully it will help and give you some direction.

hey gray, just hang in there, i know you are tired of hearing that but when you say that your feelings are still very strong for her and that you don't see them changing anytime soon is to me a very sound argument for not going to plan B anytime soon. that's what they all are-arguments to support/persuade you to do one thing or another. everyone here wants to see everyone else's M to succeed and because of that people here (including myself) give advice that they think might help you in achieving a successful M.

even though there are many simularities among situations here, the fact is there are many differences as well. i think SH would have told me if he thought plan B would work in my situation. he has talked to my H a couple of times. he just doesn't feel that it would and i honestly don't know that i would ever be able to do that (PBL). even though everyone means the best, you are the only one that's is going to have to live w/the possible consequences of going to plan B. maybe call out to tinman, he also counseld w/JH and he did go to plan B and is doing well, the last i heard, he didn't have any kids in his situation either.

i pretty much follow SH's advice because he is trained professionally and has years and years of experience and has talked to my H a couple of times, like i said. i mean i am paying for his advice, kind of think i need to follow it. SH makes very good arguments for the things he suggests and i always feel good after i talk to him. but i also know that if i changed my mind and wanted to do plan B that SH could advise me in that but i think he may still disagree w/it.

on a different note, i just wanted to say thank you for the post on lonelyhearts thread when you talked about the book "private lies." it really hit home when you talked about what the WS/OP tell other people or what they would tell other people about how they met. i want so bad to talk about this w/my H, ask him if he actually even thinks about this at all. i have told him that their R started as an A and no matter what happens w/us that will NEVER EVER change. surely you would think that the OW, her family, and my IL's have at least contemplated this as well. he didn't really say anthing when i told him that. i only said it because we were having a R talk and he was basiclaly forcing me to talk about it. i had avoided answering the phone for almost 2 days because i didn't want to talk about us w/him, i had an appt w/SH and was going to ask him what i should say to my H. well of course, SH got so far behind i actually had to reschedule for another day and my H called later and i didn't feel like i could avoid him any longer. anyway.............

good job w/your reply and i actually copied and pasted it to a file for "future" reference should the occasion arise, prayers to you, RR

RR, I'm glad somebody noticed that part. Too bad it wasn't LHC. I do think it's a powerful point.

I actually asked my WW about this when she was asking to be educated a week ago. Very calmly, I said, "Given the way it started, do you feel this is a relationship that you can ever be proud of?" The sparrow said yes, that she wasn't ashamed of anything she's done. After a pause, she said, "I guess I should be," or something like that.

I think she's got lots of thinking to do. Unfortunate that she's doing it in such heavy fog.

GC