Last week, I wrote a letter to OW. A friend of mine's mom who has been both BW and most recently WW, suggested I do it. Her A ended up in her abandoned her teenage kids, moving out of state and marrying OM. While she says she's quite happy in her new M, she says things might have been different if OM W had written her. Yes, it was a bit of an awkward conversation.

I wrote it how she suggested. A heartfelt letter said how I loved him, a little of our history and what I felt. Empathic and not angry. If WH likes her, she probably is an intelligent, decent person. In part, they were setup by the situation the company put them in. How I particular hate the way the kids have been drug into this. How OW has let WH around her kids and how WH hasn't spent anytime around his kids.

Well, last night WH came home after a late night at work (at least his car was there) in a very bad mood. He talks more in the evening, so I nudged him along. When pressed, he said he'd be here this weekend because he doesn't have anyplace else to go and I know what I did! He won't say the word letter or how it effected her but it seems she said enough is enough. Will it last? Who knows!

It doesn't feel like a victory. It feels a little weird and maybe cheap. I suppose this may be the start of NC and perhaps Plan A. I think it will make our MC more effective. He's going to be mad for a while but maybe the fog will lift. Right now, WH says he doesn't want to be around me at all but was civil this morning. We need to work on our marriage and without her in the wings, maybe he'll work harder. I don't know where it's going to go from here. All I know is that our relationship has to become different for our M to survive.

Any advice, prayers?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Strangely enough, it worked</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">What was the desired result ?

I don't know if you've accomplished what you've hoped to accomplish.

I hope it works out the way you hoped it would, I'm just really skeptical on this approach, for a variety of reasons.


You can't be sure of anything right now. OW may be out of town visiting family, she may need time to think...countless things. She may have been pissed off that you contacted her, and is punishing WH, who will in turn punish you.

Plan A, should already be implemented. If it's not, all this could backfire.

Hope all goes along for the best.

Sure, prayers are always plenty. You can count on that.

Perhaps your letter hit a mark with OW, perhaps not. You won't really know until your husband oepns up to you about whatever it is that is eating at him. And that could take time.

In the meantime, keep giving Plan A your best shot and stop your contact with OW. The more contact you have with her, the harder it will be to make a clean cut when your H is ready to do that. You've said your piece to her. I'll pray it bears fruit.

~ Snow

It all took me by surprise because things were so bad around here. WH wasn't talking at all. I think I wrote the letter as a way of having some control, some say over what was happening. I expected it to be ignored. After this, I don't wish to have any further contact with that woman.

Right now, I think it's really important that we get into MC as soon as possible. The tension level has been lower here but WH isn't really with us mentally yet. He has been nicer.

I think we really need to work on our relationship now. Without the distraction and fog of OW, maybe we can get to the other issues. Issues like his lack of boundary between work and home, communication, time spent with the kids, time spent with me. How he can come out of himself and be a part of our family. Things are not going to be like they were before.

Dear Carol,

I had a strange phone call last week. The OW of a friend of mine called ME. Because she knew I was trying to help my friends wife, who is really depressed by her fence-sitting, cake-eating WH.

I was tempted to hang up but she pleaded with me to please tell my friends' wife how to "handle" her WH so their M would work better and she (OW) could let him go, knowing he had a good M.

It was really weird. Afterwards I realised OW was looking for a gentle way to dump my friend...

I guess OW's also get tired of fence sitting men. And your letter might have been the last straw for her, convincing her she could be waiting forever. Or making her realise she's STEALING somebody's H.

Who knows... your H will probably go through some serious withdrawl. I hope it all works out for you my dear.

Carol,

I approached my sitch from a different angle. I actually went to OW house one morning. I don't really know why and I wouldn't recommend it but I did it. I was on my way to the Drs. after getting a pos. STD test (nothing uncureable) and his car was there. I said to myself if it is still there on my way back I am stopping. He was supposed to get rid of her and tell her about the STD instead he spent the night. Well his car was still there so I stopped. She answered the door and I told her to go get him. He came out still half asleep wondering what I was doing there. I ended up just letting it all out. Everything that I had held in for 8 months. He never even told her she had an STD, or that he had come home and slept with me three weeks prior to that, or anything. Yet this was a woman that he could talk to about ANYTHING, hmmmmm that was interesting to me. Must be not!

Well she was very very hurt and very surprised to find out half the stuff I told her. Esp that he didn't like her kid, (his mother told me). So once I shared I told him that our M was over and that he was just a wallet to me from that day forward. I believe she dumped him that day. He was willing to do anything to come home, MC, IC whatever it took. But he did contact OW three times after that. Once a month for three months. The minutes they were on the phone got less each month. They went from 105 minutes to 28 and now there is NC at all.

Don't be surprised if he slips backwards a little. FWH didn't move right back in either. He had to do his 8 sessions with the IC before I would have him live here again. He was also very distant and angry in the beginning. He treated me terrible for a couple of weeks. I even wondered what I had fought for at times. I hope you get what you were looking to get. Good Luck and prayers to you.

HINY

HC, Certainly will pray for you. But I agree with some of the other posters that you may not get the results you are hoping for. My experience with H's two OW was that they didn't give a darn about my feelings or my children, they did whatever they justified in their minds. OW#2 went so far as to write ME a letter detailing their R to try to get me to D my H.

HC, plan A is your best chance. Focus on changing yourself, you cannot control the situation and the harder you try the worse things will get. Please believe the voice of experience here. Prayers coming your way though.

It's kind of like a thread we had here once about the one thing that really broke through the WS's fog. This may or may not have been the thing that broke through hers. Only time will tell. Perhaps the relationship was strained enough by this point that your letter was the straw that broke the OW's determination. Or maybe it's just a temporary setback. Keep Plan A'ing your butt off while you have this golden opportunity.

I don't know if this has any bearing, but I will share it anyway.

About 20 years ago, I was seeing a man who was separated from his wife. We were together for several months.

I was really into him for awhile, but I was also very uncomfortable about it, even though she had thrown him out and a few people told me that it was ok in those circumstances.

(I was a believer, albeit kind of a newbie).

Two things happened:

I called a believing friend one day, and she said,

"Shul, I know you might not want to hear this, but what you are doing is wrong. Other people are going to tell you that it is ok, but God says not."

(Sure enough I asked a couple of other pastors and they gave me the "if you love each other its fine", bit).

So I went back and forth for awhile.

By this time my conscience was bothering me so much- I just didn't know for sure if it was sin or not. Also I had started to not really like the guy that much.

The second thing that happened was this: I broke it off, but I still saw him as a friend. I stopped by his place one day by myself, to use the shower. The phone rang and his wife was calling him. She started yelling at me and calling me names.

And I realised that she must want him. I told her I didn't know that she wanted him , and that it was over anyway, and I was sorry. She was crying.

Anyway, I didn't see him anymore after that, and he went back to her. As far as I know they are still together. I hope so. They had two kids.

I was so relieved that I didn't marry him.

What bugs me is that I really wanted to know Gods will about this, and I didn't have a clear answer. I wanted him to say, "Shul, this is not my will for you- stop seeing him".

It felt like a 'gray area' because she had kicked him out etc.

Anyway, I think some ow might care and some might not. I talked to the ow in our sitch , and told her that what she is doing is wrong, and she was hurting me and our daughter. (She smirked)
Also my H, and herself (by getting in the way of her own happiness). I told her that God has someone else for her who will love her and her kids, and be a husband and father to them, and that my husband is not him.
I also warned her that she is getting in Gods way.

She will soon find someone else with a bigger bulge in his pants (more money) and my h will be history.

Anyway, I pray that your H will see how blessed he is to have you, that you are still there.

Shul

I don't know where things are going. I don't think he even knows what he wants. I've asked him to work on the EN and LB questionaires. WH has his first IC session tomorrow. I think he sees it as a magic bullet to sort everything out for him. I don't think he realizes how much work it can be.

He just left for the morning. Says he'll be back tonight. Says he'll talk tonight. I think he's mad about OW cutting things off and for me writing her a letter. I'm not sure if he's seeing her today or not. He shows little interest in spending more time with our kids. He's been very critical of the house. I'm trying the FlyLady stuff but it takes time to get everything back to clean. Maybe he's in a mourning stage.

I don't have enough concentration at this point to really know what I'm doing with Plan A. I'm just trying to be nice to him. Ask him if he wants more coffee, fixing food he likes and trying, slowly but surely to get the house cleaner. I'm also trying to schedule activities as a family. Does that cover it?

I don't think MC is going to be a magic bullet either but I'm longing to start it.

Carol,

You know how Flylady has you tackle only one room in the house at a time?

I think its like that with recovery too, in a way.

Its like we have this big mess and we don't know where to start so we try to do everything and be everything, and fix everything at once, and end up kind of burned out and cranky.

We figure if we have the perfectly clean house, and look alluring all the time, and are always charming etc., they will want to be with us, not the ow.

I did that for so long- waited on him hand and foot and it drive him up the wall. It just made him feel guilty. My house was spotless, meals were the way he liked them. I was the perfect wife.

And the ow? Her house is a complete pigstye, she is overweight and not much to look at, kids and chaos everywhere.

But she has it over me in other areas; the main one being that she is not his wife.

I think they don't see us as women after a while, just as 'the wife'. We have heard all their boring stories and seen them at their worst. They want to be seen as fascinating heros or whatever, same as we want to be swept off our feet by some knight in shining armour who sees past the sweaty trainers- sees us as beautiful and fascinating and wise etc.


I guess what I am saying is that we need to take it in bits, not try to fix everything at once.

It might be that he is made at himself or disallusioned- he did a bad thing and it turned out not to make him any happier, and caused other people harm. He might feel like a fool.

Its hard enough to face our own mistakes without having someone there to be a constant reminder us of what we have done.

In our case, the issues that led to infidelity, are complicated hard ones that go back a long way. The roots have to be dealt with , and they are tricky ones.

Its not about me, and I suspect its not about you or how clean your house is either.

Its about them wanting to feel loved, needed and wanted.

I can only do so much, ultimately he has to find his security and purpose in relationship with God. All I can do is be a vessel of Gods love to him, the best I can. I think it is the small things sometimes, listening, not LBing, that make a difference.

I wonder if they appreciate that we love them enough to fight for them.

In nature, if another female gets too close to the mate, the female wolf will drive her off with teeth and claws.

We can be pretty strong and fierce when we are protecting our family unit, yes?

He is lucky to have you.

Shul

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I think they don't see us as women after a while, just as 'the wife'. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Shul,

That's so true it's scary. I hadn't quite seen it that way, but it describes what happens so perfectly.

Dobie

How true! I am just the wife, the babysitter, the cleaner, the organizer of things. Before all this came to light, I remember wishing that he would call me by a pet name. You like honey, sweetie, something more intimate than my given name. That was probably a symptom of the problem. I hope we can move past that.

I am not sure how we get them to see us as something other than appliances.

Maybe it has to do with how we see ourselves and how we see them.

Maybe if we see ourselves as priceless beautiful gracious alluring enchanting women,and treat them like they are our knights in shining armour , the way we did when we first met them, they will see themselves reflected in our eyes that way.

I know that my H felt that I distained him, that he could never measure up.

I have been trying to focus on the positive things he does, on his good qualities, give him lots of positive reinforcement.

I kind of blew it the other day when I told him that he has wasted the past two years. I think he has so much potential; it frustrates me no end.

I am not sure how we get them to see us as something other than appliances.

Maybe it has to do with how we see ourselves and how we see them.

Maybe if we see ourselves as priceless beautiful gracious alluring enchanting women,and treat them like they are our knights in shining armour , the way we did when we first met them, they will see themselves reflected in our eyes that way.

I know that my H felt that I distained him, that he could never measure up.

I have been trying to focus on the positive things he does, on his good qualities, give him lots of positive reinforcement.

I kind of blew it the other day when I told him that he has wasted the past two years. I think he has so much potential; it frustrates me no end.

Right. My mom was married over 50 years to my dad. However, they were separated when he died. (In his girlfriend's bed, BYW.) In recent years, I've thought the epitaph on her tombstone (and may it not be needed for many, many more years) should be "She never asked for enough!" With this marriage as a wonderful rolemodel and marrying pretty young, I came into my marriage not setting the boundaries and asking for the things I would now as a more mature person. I would put myself on that pedistal.