Could you read this and let me know what you think? I'm afraid it may be too wordy....so unlike me, I know <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
FIM


Have I told you I love you recently? I do. I always have. From the first, well maybe second, time I met you, I knew there was something about you that would change my life. I was right. You sailed into my life and we have ridden the stormy seas and the calm waters together for the last eleven years. We have brought three wonderful children into our adventures together. With each of them, my love for you and what you bring into my life has grown. You are a man who dreams, who grows and who builds. I love that about you. I simply love YOU.

Throughout the years, I have made mistakes in our relationship. Looking back I can see how my lack of communication and listening, really listening to you, has contributed to weakening our marriage. I realized this early in your deployment and had begun working on those issues. I am happily continuing to improve those skills and will continue to do so. There are other areas where I can now see our marriage was weak and where I could have helped to strengthen our relationship. I wish I had realized how much we needed to share our time together and had taken an active role in making sure we were enjoying fun and new things together. I should have been more of a friend to you. I am really evaluating how my view of myself as “wife” and “mother” has impacted my ability to share my whole self with you as my friend.

My deepest desire is to be together to work on these and other aspects of our marriage. Your affair hurts me though. Knowing you are still in contact with her and are unwilling to fully commit to saving our life, our family, together tears me apart. It wounds my heart and each day I find myself pulling farther away from you to protect it. I see a future for the children and myself but each day your affair continues you become smaller and smaller in that picture. I am afraid you are simply going to fade away completely and my love for you will have simply died. For that reason, I need to remove you from my life to protect what feeling is still there for you. I will have no contact with you. It hurts me too much.

Of course, there will be issues we need to address as parents and to sell the house. Elizabeth has agreed to relay any messages we have for each other. As for the children, they love you and need you. I want you to be able to talk with them and them to know they can contact you for anything. I will allow them to call you whenever they want. You can call the house to speak with them also. I only require that you do so from your cellular phone so I know to not answer. If you let me know, through Elizabeth, when you plan on visiting we can work out times for you to see them.

I do believe that we can rebuild this marriage and that it can be better than ever. We have been given the opportunity to look deeply at what we want in our marriage and have a roadmap to find happiness. It will take work, but I can think of nothing more important and worthwhile than this fight for our marriage. Our greatest chance for happiness lies with each other. I believe that and hope to prove Steve correct in it.

I love you. I want you to remember that. Think of it on your trip back to Texas. Remember it when you are going through your daily life. I love you and can’t wait to see what lies around the corner in our life. Should you want to find out with me, I need for you to end your relationship with her, never speak with her again and commit to this marriage. I can not move forward without that promise. We also can not begin the work on our marriage until you have come home. If you decide that you wish to begin the adventure and start rebuilding you must end your relationship completely and come home. Then and only then, can we design that roadmap to our future.

<small>[ November 23, 2004, 06:19 PM: Message edited by: faithinme ]</small>

Of all the Plan B letters I have ever read (and that's ALOT LOL)....this is by far one of the best. I would not touch it....it's beautiful. Blessings to you and I wish you peace from turmoil!!!! kudos!

Ya know, I have not responded to your other thread recently because my response would have been:

"What kind of walk in the dark is this? What exactly are you doing? You seem to be enjoying rubbing your H's nose in the pile of deficant he created! This is not a walk in the dark - this is very likely counterproductive, unless you want to really, really leave him."

This would have been counter to what all the others were saying, and I might be wrong, so I chose not to say it at all.

But now, it looks like you're preparing for a smarter thing. A REAL Plan B.

I have one suggestion for your letter:

"My deepest desire is to be together to work on these and other aspects of our marriage. Your affair hurts me though."

Change to read: "My deepest desire is to be together to work on these and other aspects of our marriage, but this cannot happen while you continue contact with [OW]. Your relationship with her is destroying our family."

WAT

<small>[ November 23, 2004, 04:31 PM: Message edited by: worthatry ]</small>

simply lovely... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Our greatest chance for happiness lies with each other. I believe that and hope to prove Steve correct in it.
Is this Steve Harley you are referring to?
Does you husband know this quote from him?
Put his last name (Steve's) so your h KNOWS who you are referring to.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by worthatry:
<strong> "What kind of walk in the dark is this? What exactly are you doing? You seem to be enjoying rubbing your H's nose in the pile of deficant he created! This is not a walk in the dark - this is very likely counterproductive, unless you want to really, really leave him."

AND

I have one suggestion for your letter:

"My deepest desire is to be together to work on these and other aspects of our marriage. Your affair hurts me though."

Change to read: "My deepest desire is to be together to work on these and other aspects of our marriage, but this cannot happen while you continue contact with [OW]. Your relationship with her is destroying our family." WAT </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">WAT:
Part 1: You're right about the walk in the dark. It started out as such, puttered and failed. It should have been more like.... FIM's scattered attempt at PLAN B and discovery of limits or something like that. I DO feel good about what I am doing right now though. I think his visit home followed by PLAN B will be the catalyst for change, if there is any. About a week and half ago, I think, is when I really looked at what PLAN B is about and decided to implement it upon his departure back to SAT.

Right now, I honestly can say there are more hours when I DO want to leave him than when I want to work on things. BUT, by the same token I suspect that in the beginning the WS has more hours that they want to run to the OP than stay in NC and work.

Both of us are going to have to dig deep and find the strength to save it. That's probably why I have been so scattered through the last month. I haven't had a consistent goal I'm working towards. It occurs to me right now, that I'm a lot like the fence sitting WS. One minute this side, one minute that side. It really does make it hard to keep in line. Hmmmm. Something for me to think about.

Part 2: I really like your suggestion. The wording is great. Thank you.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Chris -CA123:
<strong> simply lovely... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Our greatest chance for happiness lies with each other. I believe that and hope to prove Steve correct in it.
Is this Steve Harley you are referring to?
Does you husband know this quote from him?
Put his last name (Steve's) so your h KNOWS who you are referring to. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Thank you:)
This is from Steve Harley and it is something we have talked about A LOT. In fact I would say it has come up in quite a few of our discussions in the last two months (referring to WH here). It was the first statement that REALLY made WH start thinking about what he was doing.

<small>[ November 23, 2004, 04:49 PM: Message edited by: faithinme ]</small>

<small>[ November 23, 2004, 04:48 PM: Message edited by: faithinme ]</small>

Faith,

Since this is not Dork's 1st time, maybe you should add something about no other OWs ever again.

Also, how are you going to get him out of the house if he doesn't want to go?

I do think the letter is a little bit wordy to get thru to a dork in a fog.

If you could state that you love him but leave out the part about how you knew when you first met he was special for you (doesn't he feel that way about his OW so it isn't always an accurate measure of a true love).
I would also not mention how I had been to blame for things in the marriage. You've already told him many times and seeing it in print isn't necessary and a bit overkill.
Do mention that his affairs on deployment showed you that things could have been confronted earlier on to make a better marriage.
The rest of the letter is great. I agree you should mention not only OW being completely out of contact with him but that there must be no other OWs in the future if he is to rebuild with you.