Dear sparrow,

I love you more than anything else in this world, and I want to remain married to you. I am sorry for the things I did - and did not do - that helped make your infidelity possible. I look forward to a future where the parts of me that caused you to turn away - my anxiousness, my selfishness, my distractedness, my sometimes disagreeable nature, my laissez-faire approach to romance - lie shattered on the ground to be swept away forever.

I have told you I will always be there for you, and that I mean to forgive you. But your lack of remorse challenges my ability to forgive, and the pain your affair continues to inflict will eventually destroy my love for you. I know that you too have been hurting, and I would give anything to help ease your pain. I truly believe in forgiveness, healing, and redemption for both of us. But to preserve my love, I must avoid seeing or talking to you any longer. If you end your relationship with OM and you choose to discuss returning to a life with me, I will welcome the discussion. Until that time, it will not be possible for me to have any kind of relationship with you.

Please respect my decision to isolate myself from you in this way. If you need to communicate with me, please find someone to pass your messages along. If there is anything you still need from the house, have this person contact me, and I will leave the items in the garage for you to pick up. I will continue to cover my part in our shared expenses as I have throughout the summer, and I trust you will do the same.

Sparrow, my wish is for us to create a new relationship, to build a new life where each thing we do, every day of our lives, makes us both happy as it once did. My willingness to do this in the worst of times is part of the promise I made to you ten years ago. And I do still believe in you. But right now, letting you go and distancing myself from your actions is the only way I can protect my heart. I don't do this in anger. I need to restore some normalcy to my life so that I can remain healthy and continue to grow as a human being. Remember that I love you and always will.

With all my faith, and hope, and love,

Graycloud

Gray - Leave out the lack of remorse part. The rest is fine.

Bah! Thought I could slip that one past the censors. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Nope - I hope that Chris will check it out. He is the expert.

IMPORTANT change - last couple of sentences (thanks Johnny):

I don't do this in anger. I need to restore some normalcy to my life so that I can remain healthy and continue to grow as a human being.

Remember me. I'm the one who loves you.

Graycloud

<small>[ September 22, 2004, 10:10 PM: Message edited by: graycloud ]</small>

Gray,

I read that trying to put myself in her shoes, and my gut instincts say not yet, and not in that way.

(But then I am probably the least qualified to comment on plan B <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> )

I get the feeling she is stubbornly determined to carry this out.

I also think that now that she has taken the plunge, the romance is about due to wear off, and she is going to find out what living with this man is really like.

My gut tells me that he is selfish and immature, and that she is going to start seeing that now.

And that the reality is going to be far from the perfect life that she pictured.

Gray, is what you wrote, what you honestly feel?

Shul

Shul, when I had doubts about plan B earlier, people told me, you'll know when it's time. I've felt, for about a day now, that it is. I do still have doubts. Should I be like SS or lostva and plan A until I'm divorced? Maybe. Will my letter make her think, finally he's letting me go and I can get on with my life? Maybe.

She is stubbornly determined to carry this out. Absolutely. And she thinks the A is incidental to her desire to D me.

My letter pretty much follows the basic form. I wrote it quickly, and I don't consider it ready to send.

I don't really know if my love for her is going away. Honestly, I don't think so. I'm very tenacious. For a couple of weeks I was very angry toward her, and she was a real pill on Saturday, until she started to cry. Now my heart goes out to her.

I plan to lay as much goodwill on her as I can in the coming days, before I give her the letter.

The affair has been a fully blown phenomenon for about four months. It was half-baked for about six weeks before that.

I would like to be there and not be divorced when it ends. I hope the stress in her and OM's lives is affecting the affair.

I don't know. As you can tell by this rambling post, I'm unsure. I think she's good at out of sight, out of mind.

I'm going to move forward with this for now. It will be a few days before I'm ready to send the letter, maybe a week or two even. I have to get some things straightened out first, and get some more things from the house to her.

I have some days to sleep on this yet. I don't have to decide until I drop the letter in the mailbox.

GC

bumpity

<small>[ September 23, 2004, 01:11 PM: Message edited by: graycloud ]</small>

The latest version - I was hoping Chris and weaver might inspect this sometime. Not sure I'm keeping this one, but it's the one I'm polishing right now.

Dear sparrow,

I love you more than anything else in this world, and I want to remain married to you. I am sorry for the things I did - and did not do - that helped make your infidelity possible. I look forward to a future where the parts of me that caused you to turn away - my anxiousness, my selfishness, my distractedness, my sometimes disagreeable nature, my laissez-faire approach to romance - lie shattered on the ground to be swept away forever.

I have told you I will always be there for you, and that I mean to forgive you. But the pain your affair continues to inflict challenges my ability to forgive, and will eventually destroy my love for you. I know that you too have been hurting, and I would give anything to help ease your pain. I truly believe in forgiveness, healing, and redemption for both of us. But to preserve my love, I must avoid seeing or talking to you any longer. If you end your relationship with OM and you choose to discuss returning to a life with me, I will welcome the discussion. Until that time, it will not be possible for me to have any kind of relationship with you.

Please respect my decision to isolate myself from you in this way. If you need to communicate with me, please find someone to pass your messages along. If there is anything you still need from the house, have this person contact me, and I will leave the items in the garage for you to pick up. I will continue to cover my part in our shared expenses as I have throughout the summer, and I trust you will do the same.

Sparrow, my wish is for us to create a new relationship, to build a new life where each thing we do, every day of our lives, makes us both happy as it once did. My willingness to do this in the worst of times is part of the promise I made to you ten years ago. And I do still believe in you. But right now, letting you go and distancing myself from your actions is the only way I can protect my heart. I don't do this in anger. I need to restore some normalcy to my life so that I can remain healthy, find some measure of peace, and continue to grow as a human being.

Remember me, I'm the one who loves you.

Graycloud

GC, i'm not an expert and i still hope that Chris comes in and makes suggestions. however, i have been told several times that i am a good editor when it comes to plan B letters. a couple of things that you need to keep in mind is 1) what is your ultimate goal of this letter and 2) this may be the last real communication you have with the sparrow. so these are just my suggestions and perspectives.

I took out your "traits" that you listed in the first paragraph because this is your opinion of what needed to change. or i could be wrong and that she told you specifically what she didn't like. but you also have to consider what these WS say when they are in these fog states and that the usually overdramatize what is wrong w/the M/BS, etc. do you get what i mean? i just don't want you to be "telling" her what you think is wrong w/you. the best time to do that is in your actions.

I changed some wording and grammar just to make the flow work better. i took out "avoid" in the second paragraph because i didn't like how this portrayed you like someone who was in fear of her and had to go out of your way to not see her. afterall you have very little contact as it is. the same thing with the term "isolate". I didn't like how this made you appear, as someone who would live in isolation and never have a life w/out the sparrow in it.

Also, as far as the person to use as a mediator, well i'm not so sure you should be so open to letting her choose whomever. i mean what if she chose the OM? yes, that's sick and twisted but our WS are not normal right now. It's usually suggested for the person writing the plan B letter to chose the mediator and ask them if it's okay w/them and how any future contacts or interactions should be handled and that only absolutely neccessary information should be conveyed to the BS. i would really hate if you ended up being more hurt by a mediator she chose and them telling the sparrow things, and relaying things you are not interested in, etc. do you get my drift?

Here is my recommended version:

Sparrow,
I love you more than anything else in this world, and I want to remain married to you. I am sorry for the things I did - and did not do - that helped make your infidelity possible. I look forward to a future where the parts of me that caused you to turn away lie shattered on the ground to be swept away forever. I have told you I will always be there for you, and that I mean to forgive you. But the pain of your affair continues to inflict challenges to my ability to forgive, and will eventually destroy my love for you. I know that you are also hurting and I would give anything to help ease your pain. I truly believe in forgiveness, healing, and redemption for both of us. But to preserve my love, I cannot see or talk to you any longer. If you end your relationship with OM and you choose to discuss returning to a life with me, I will welcome the discussion. Until that time, it will not be possible for me to have any kind of relationship with you.

Please respect my decision. If you need to communicate with me, please find someone to pass your messages along. If there is anything you still need from the house, have this person contact me, and I will leave the items in the garage for you to pick up. I will continue to cover my part in our shared expenses as I have throughout the summer, and I trust you will do the same.

Sparrow, my wish is for us to create a new relationship, to build a new life where each thing we do, every day of our lives, makes us both happy as it once did. My willingness to do this in the worst of times is part of the promise I made to you ten years ago. And I do still believe in you. But right now, letting you go and distancing myself from your actions is the only way I can protect my heart. I don't do this in anger. I need to restore some normalcy to my life so that I can remain healthy, find some measure of peace, and continue to grow as a human being.

Remember me, I'm the one who loves you.


i'm kind of leaning more towards Shul in that maybe not now as far as the plan B. but still ultimately only you can make that decision. is there any court dates or anything going to be definite as far as the OM and OMW? maybe use that time and make a simultaneous motion. anyway, hope this helps, let us know what the final version is and when the drop will take place, and continued prayers to you, RR

Thank you so much, RR.

I was having trouble articulating the things that were bugging me about this letter, what made it feel like it wasn't "me". It was just the sort of stuff you pointed out - the implications of sorrow, passivity, loneliness...

I'm letting her choose a mediator because the people I've asked - SIL, MIL and sparrow's BF - have all said they couldn't handle it. OM doesn't have the cojones, RR, trust me. He's a total wimp. I wish she would ask him so he could whine and cry and look like a little baby.

I'm not going to plan B immediately, but I'm going to get ready. Early in this thing, I said I'd like to make it to Halloween, and I think I still would. I'm having a few doubts after being very sure about it for a couple of days.

OM and car4love have mediation every couple of weeks, and it is not going well. They're bickering about what time he drops their DD off on his overnight every other wknd, and he actually said in their last mediation, "I'm being vindictive now," with no irony.

OM also just took a 2nd job at Starbuck's.

So the pressure builds. I want to be there a little bit longer, and maybe get one or two more chances to show my plan A where I don't give the sparrow a hard time or discuss the M. If we talk, and it comes up, I at least want a little more babble to chew on!

And I want her to think about the weird things she did last week, like crying, looking so terribly sad, not calling me back, trying to empty the dehumidifier (unnecessary and oddly misplaced domestic effort, I thought), getting me shoes while I swept up glass...

Anyway, I have to go. Yay, weekend!

Thanks again for checking in before heading out, RR.

GC