Hi everyone.
Just wanted to keep in touch and update. Things are going pretty well except for one little glitch. WH's nc letter was not done according to MB protocol, but we've come to grips with that. The letter, while definitely advocating absolutely nc, also confirmed his love for OW. The glitch is this. He told me that he reads the letter regularly to "remind" him of his commitment to me and our marriage. The result is that he still cannot get past the "fact" that he is still in love with her. (A ended 15 months ago.)
My concern is that his reading the letter is more reminding him of how he feels or felt about her, than it is reminding him of his commitment to me. I would like to ask him to completely destroy the letter, never to look at it again. I have letters that he has written me telling me of his commitment to our marriage, but he never reads them although I have given them to him personally, hoping he would read them. I feel he still wants to keep her alive in his heart. If that is the case, we will never be able to move ahead to recovery. I feel he wants her to be his "ace in the hole" in case he can't fall in love with me again. Help?

Revelation - Perhaps you could write him a letter about the agreement you both made to commit to the marriage and ask that he read that instead. I agree that he may be associating more positive feelings towards the OW by re-reading a letter that essentially states how much he loves her. You can respectfully ask that he destroy that letter and tell him how much it hurts you when he reacts the way that he does after reading it. Maybe even destroy it together?

(A ended 15 months ago.)

OK ... something's fishy here.

What do you think is going on?

15 months and he's stuck in this sad puppy face mode ... this is not normal!

Did you go through at least 6 months of marriage therapy together during recovery?

Pep

thanks for the advice. I wrote a letter to him promising to love him and support him etc etc through all the ups and downs etc etc.... many months ago. He cried and said it was exactly what he needed, and then promtly put it away. I asked him if he has looked at it since, and he

said no, he actually forgot about it. Hmmmmm?

Also, we have read HNHN together, have done the EN questionairre and discussed it. We have also completed the love busters questionairre. We committed to the 15 hours of UA per week, but he has not been able to continue to committ to that one. He says he feels like every spare minute of his time is spent with me and he doesn't know what to talk about. We went to see a counsellor (separately because that is what he wanted) and he was told that if he wanted to work on the marriage he would have to suppress his feelings for her. I was told that I had to decide what kind of marriage I was willing to live with. I would like to continue some kind of counselling, but he does not want (adamantly) to be reminded of the last 18 months of our lives. He wants to just give everything time and hope things will fall into place. That is why I am careful as to how to approach the nc letter thing.