I haven’t posted for a few weeks. I got very exasperated when I tried to reply and gave up till now. This is a long one so please be patient if you can. I posted before about starting Plan B while the MB was down. I will copy my letter below. This is what has happened since and I have never felt lower than I do today…

On Easter Sunday I cooked a wonderful family dinner and invited the WH to join me and the kids as he was leaving later that day for California (where he was going to be seeing the OW) I wanted to be able to give him the letter after our dinner so that he would have a nice memory to think on. He gave me a hug and told me thanks as he was leaving. I hadn’t give him the letter at that point and he left to go back to his place for get ready to leave. A while later he sent me the following via email:

Shelly,
Thank you so much for allowing me to enjoy family time today, I know this is not easy and I want to acknowledge how you showed up.
You are amazing and real.
Love
WH

Once I got his I sent the Plan B letter to him. I felt dumbfounded that he could be so fake loving to me as he flew off to see her!

This is the letter I sent via email:

Dear WH,
I write to you today with sorrow, but also with a sense of peace and hope
for my own future.
I love you to no end, and my commitment to you and our marriage was
unending. You are an endless source of joy, friendship and I admire the
goals you have set for yourself and that you have been able to accomplish.
You are a very warm, funny and sexy man with lots of love to give to those
in your care.
I regret that we find ourselves in this place that is lonely and confusing
for both of us. Until you spoke to me of your unhappiness in November I did
not understand how truly miserable you were. I did not realize how my
depression, unhappiness, anger and resentment affected our marriage. I was
lost and did not know how to change. I did not understand how to properly
display the love that ran so deep, to the very core of my being, to you. I
repeated the mistakes of my past, and showed you love the way I learned in
my bad years, with fear in my heart. I didn't understand what your needs
truly were, and how I could meet those needs in order to allow our marriage
to flourish.
I have done much introspection over the last five months and believe I have
found the tools we need to make a marriage in which we are joyful, loving
and supportive. I have made many changes in my life over the last months.
Some of these you have noticed, some you have not. Some you may never know.
I must continue with my changes and have demonstrated to myself that it's
possible and they are permanent. I still have much work to do, but with
every success I have, my hope for MY future brightens and my confidence in
my ability to make positive changes is bolstered. My hope is that I will be
able to share this bright new future with you.
As my hope for my future increases, so does my sorrow over how easily I have
been cast aside by you. I find my love for you dying. In order to preserve
the love I still have for you and to stop my bitterness from overwhelming
me, I must remove you from my daily life. I cannot visit with you or speak
with you on the phone. I must also give myself a fresh start in a happy,
positive environment. This is not a punishment. This is a safeguard of my
love so that if there should come a time when we can both commit to working
on rebuilding on marriage, there is still love and hope left with which to
do that.
If you must contact me regarding the children, financial or legal matters,
you may do this only through email. I expect our current financial
arrangements to stay the same.
WH, I have the greatest of confidence that we could build a wonderful
marriage if we both committed to making it happen. I have learned so much
these last few months and would like nothing better than to share it with
you. Should there come a time when you feel you could commit wholly to
trying to build a new foundation with me, it is something that I would like
to discuss with you. For me a commitment toward working for a reconciliation
would entail an agreement for you to break all contact, even professionally,
with Kelly, an agreement to marriage counselling for at least six months,
and a realistic plan of how we would actually reconcile if the counselling
were to show us that path. By realistic, I mean the logistics of what home
we are to live in, my business, etc. My hope is that you will think hard on
this and choose this commitment. If you do I would welcome a discussion with
you about it. Until then, I ask that you respect my wish for no contact with
you.
We were best friends once. I cannot imagine who I would rather spend my life
with than my best friend.

I Have Always Loved You,
Shelly
P.S. I will have all the arrangements for the kids organized so that when
you return Friday April 8th we will not need to speak. You know my flight
schedules and if you could be with the children until just before I get home
that would be good. I thank you.

This is the reply he sent back:
“Thank you and I will respect your requests.
I do ask that you consider the wellness of our children in how we model our relationship as we move forward in our lives. We have the opportunity to create a sense of security and care for them which cannot be set aside. I know you know this and I ask you to consider this perspective.”

I did not speak to him again until just before I left for my trip last Friday. It was our DS15 birthday on the 29th of March. WH made a short 1 min call to him but other than that he never contacted the children at all the whole 10 days. I was bothered by that fact thinking that he must be to distracted by her to think about it. When I emailed him regarding the kids he said it was because I had gathered the wagons around them. Bull sh*& I said, they have cell phones and I never said you shouldn’t call them!

Anyways, I was away and the kids stayed with him for 5 days. The oldest is 16 and he preferred to sleep at my house as he works part time. I thought that would be fine but I wanted his dad to make sure he was checked on and fed meals etc.

Cut to the chase, WH called me to tell me he had a dinner conversation with the kids while I was gone and told them about the OW. He wanted me to know that she wasn’t going to leave his life!!! How will they do that, she is married, 16 years younger, has two young kids and lives in the States. We are in Canada!

I never thought that would cut so deep in my heart but it did and I feel like I am right back at the beginning of the pain. I told him I could not talk to him anymore as it is too hard for me. So that is where things stand now and I am not doing well. What should I make from all this? Has he really left my life for good now?

Shelly -

I am sorry for your pain...I know how it hurts...

Why did you contact him at all? You need to stay dark...I feel like a hypocrite for giving this advice, because I am having trouble not contacting my WW...but it is the truth.

What makes you feel sad is the renewed contact. It seems like every time I interact with my WW, whether just a text message, or a short conversation, it triggers me. I had some unfinished business that I had to interact with my WW about, but now that it is taken care of, I am really trying to stay completely dark.

Remove yourself from the chaos. It is for you. I am much happier when I go about my life and don't concern myself with her daily activities.

If you can't keep from discussing your R via email, then have someone be an intermediary. And don't LB - cussing at him only makes things worse.

I am sure those much wiser than I will be along soon...


TM

I am constantly dismayed by the words and actions of WS. Your WH sounds so much like my WH. They are so clueless and hurtful. My WH came to Easter Dinner and wanted to put his arm around me for the family picture. EWWWW!

I'd say your WH is in the deepest and darkest of fog about OW. The logistics of that relationship must be boggling. What does her H think? How about her kids?

How are your kids doing with all the revelations? Were they prepared for the OW announcement? Has your WH had contact with the kids since you came back?

I will be going into Plan B soon myself. I think when they hurt us this deeply, it's better to back away. Good luck!

(((((((((((((((shelly)))))))))))))))

I finallly figured a way to reply without getting the boot!

Thanks TM and GG for your supportive responses.

When WH called me it was a phone # I did not know, so I answered it and it was him. Took me off guard. I do not have anyone here to be a third party who wants to be in the middle of this stress and I do not want to put anyone there either!

He uses all his "coaching" phrases on me, like he is the wise and wordly one. So is she by the way!! Can you imagine them life coaching anyone?!

The kids don't seem to care what he does, which I understand because he has not been very present over the last few years. He travels lots and does things for himself that didn't include us and he says that he is going to be a better father now that the awful marriage is not bringing him down.

The kids are even encouraging me to date so that I can be happy! It makes me think that maybe I should just pack it in for good and let him go! I want the pain to be gone for good, I am having trouble focusing on my business and that doesn't help the stress I am feeling right now.

I want to forget my H and only remember the WH that he has become so that I can stop feeling the love I have for him that is unreciprocated. I am like you GG, the further away he is and when he is not in my daily life I feel so much better and stronger.

Should I give up? Is this a lost cause? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

My kids are better at blowing off their dad than I am. Somebody said it was because I chose him and they didn't.

Your WH sounds like an unrepentent idiot. (Just like mine.) It's all about them. (Was it your WH who was ensnared in some group that philosophy was that it IS all about them?) I've asked my WH where our marriage would be if he had put as much time into building it as he in lying, betraying, cheating and generally destroying it. If the marriage is awful, he is still 50% of the problem. The crap from this relationship will follow them to the next. And those awful children just don't seem to go away either.

Get yourself into a strict Plan B. Don't have any contact with that jerk. He certainly seems like a smooth talker. Plan B is designed to help us get away from these cheaters who have all the answers. Get away from the spell then start thinking about what you want to do.

I'll help you if you help me.

SC and GG,

Boy do I know where you're coming from. I not even 3 weeks into this, but I have to say that this is probably the worst, suckiest (funny word) thing I've ever had to go through in my life... and leave it to me to have to do it twice!!! UGH

If you haven't read it yet, then read Surviving an Affair, I'm actually working through it right now and I'm amazed at how much of my life and the words that fly at me from WH are straight from the book. You can only do what's right for yourself and there is still hope because your WH is still in the fog and the reality of the A will it him and the logistics.

I don't really know though other than what I've read from SH and its some pretty amazing and intuitive stuff.

<<<<<<Shelly>>>>>> Lots of hugs and prayers going up for you. Hang in there.

Gee Just Married I hope that you really did not get married and are dealing with this stuff already? Or do you mean that you are just married as in alone?
Sorry u too are in this mess along with me and GG and it would seem too many others! There is strength in seeing that others make it through as we will eventually get to the other side. I just want to be happy and content however that looks. Alone or ? is okay as long as the pain is gone!

Grapegirl, I read your thread about your trip. You sound so connected to your kids and their lives. The WH do not and will never know what they have missed out on until they are old and alone and no one has time for them. Karma I say!
Yes my H is an idiot, and it was me that talked about the coaching training as being a breeding ground for selfishness and me me me stuff! I was right about it! Almost everyone we know sees a difference in him and not a good one at that. I guess the fog will never lift now that he has had a whole group of "special" people tell him that he is on the right path of personal enlightenment!

My kids tell me they just want me to be happy, I know they think I should forget about making it work and move on. I have cried too much and for too long now. My eyes are permanently puffed.

We have a legal separation in place and at the end of one year he can file for D without any problems. My guess is that he will do that as soon as he can so that he can be with her.

I hope by then I will not care!

Shelly

Shelly, I think that someday the crying dries up. I notice that I cry a lot less than I did at the beginning. Part of my anxiety is that I can't get WH to discuss anything. He avoids everything. He won't talk about money, the future, the kids. Just says that he'll always take care of us. It's like he'd like to do what he's doing and then just drop back into our lives when it convenient for him.

I really love my kids. In fact, I really like them. We get along quite well and they are my biggest supporters. This crap has made my kids and I even closer. How many college students talk to their mom almost every day? Maybe WH feels shut out of the circle that he has never tried to join. He has become a joke in the family. When we were driving through Nevada, we'd have a good laugh about watching out for Dad as we drove by Area 51. That he was probably there with the rest of the aliens...

Our WH are idiots. They will spend the rest of their lives outside, looking in. How funny what you said about karma. On my computer monitor, I have taped a little sign on each of the upper corners. One says "OW sucks!" The other just says "KARMA"

Let's be strong together!

Is her husband aware of their relationship?

Susan <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Hi Susan,

I was told by WH that the OW had talked to her H about him and her. I do not know for sure. I do not have a home # to call him, her name is different and I only have her cell and home address. I tried an internet search to try to find a home phone# but had no luck. So I have not talked to him.

I also have mixed feelings about contacting him, part of me wants to know his situation and the other doesn't want to get into more drama, just want to make it all go away!

Apparently he lost his job in January, so I guess she is a "stand by your man"kind of person! as I said before, they deserve each other!!!

Any suggestions on how to find his #? or should I let it die?

It might be worth the $29.95 people search. If you google on white pages or people finder, there's places that fill find stuff out. There's got to be marriage certificates or birth records. I assume OW would put her husband's name on her kids birth certificates.

If you haven't tried those sites, you might just try a quick search.

Personally, I think it's worth finding out.

I did a search thru the internet that cost me over $100.00 and I could not determine who was who. There were too many with the same name. I do have an email address that I think is their main home address but I can't be sure.

I tried a google search and found her at the address but no name for the H. Is there a way to find out who lives at a certain address thru an internet search? Should I keep trying? I know if I called her # that it would get me absolutely nowhere!

Any detailed suggestions I can try anyone?

Shelly

shellyC, I'd be more than happy to find out the info you need...without giving too much away and how...I can find anybody.

If you want your marriage to survive and recover you know that exposure is needed...and OW's husband needs to know absolutely!

Anyway you can e-mail me at flagrantkindness@yahoo.com and I can have something for you in 24 hours.

I don't know if this is OK to offer so all you other MBer's out there feel free to let me know if it is or isn't. I don't want to overstep my boundaries unwittingly.

Thanks for the kindest offer Reborn. I have emailed you the info I have. I will wait to see what is found.

I wonder if this drama is worth it, was it for you?
<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />
Shelly

Exposure to the OM/OW's spouse can cut both ways....

While I feel we are somewhat morally obligated to do so, I, for one, am sorry I did.

My WW's OM had been wanting out of his M for about 4 years, and he is such a weak, weak man, that he would never just D her. He wouldn't even tell her about the A, long after I knew. I finally got her number, and exposed to her....she promptly took her child, and moved back to her parents - about 6 hours away...

So what does the OM do? He moves in with my WW.

Great.

I believe things would have been better had I never exposed the A to her - but I have no way of knowing for sure.


I would say go ahead and expose - I think my sitch is a bit unique in that he was essentially having and exit A...


Keep us posted...

TM

Reborn Man have you found anything yet?

I think you guys are right, I have a gut instinct that the OW H does not have the whole story. I can't imagine why any man in his right mind would be okay with his W having an A with another man who lives in another country. I would be concerned that she might disappear one day with the kids and go to the OM. Or even leave without the kids, I think that is more her style!

Can you imagine my WH having to deal with her and possibly her kids in his 800 sq ft condo? He is so into himself that I cannot see him wanting to take on anothers family, he is on limited funds now that he has to give so much to us!

I really want to know what is going on down there in her house!

Reborn, I look forward with great anticipation for any info you might find for me.

Shelly

Ahh...not a good question to ask me...

Was it worth it?

Well, the pain sucked but I wouldn't trade who I am RIGHT NOW for who I was a year and some months ago.

Not that I was a bad guy at all but my priorities are much more in order and clear cut to me.

The difference is you are still trying to save your marriage, a noble pursuit, while mine is over done and signed off on.

I don't live with the daily nonsense in my life anymore, just the fallout and consequences of WW's decisions.

I have custody of my 4 kids, my health, and peace of mind...doesn't get much better than that.

RebornMan

(peace of mind courtesy of MB's)

Today I sent an email to the coaching group responsible for the training of my husband and his OW as life coaches.

I exposed the affair and asked them if this is what they wanted representive of their group. I also stated that I thought they should be teaching that great rewards for personal growth come from getting to the other side of the mountain with hard work over the top rather that finding an easy path around the bottom to the other side where the grass looks greener!

I know that if and when WH gets wind of this he will be furious and all he** will break loose!

I still have not contacted the OW husband as I am not sure where he is at this time. Rebourne Man has kindly found a few pieces of info for me, it seems maybe OW has left her H and moved to CA. from Arizona. Not sure what that is about yet. Hope to find out more.

My plan B has not been totally dark, WH keeps calling and needing info re taxes etc. I do as little communication that way as possible. He wonders why I am still angry? DUH!

He said in one of his last calls that he was alone and had no one! I asked him if that was not what he wanted? I guess OW is having troubles filling is needs being soo far away! Anyways I think I should go totally dark now, I feel so much better when I have no contact!

I am planning my 50th birthday for June. I am a caterer and party planner so it will be great! Doing Louisianna BBQ party with tents and everything! No WH is not invited!! He thinks he should be.... go figure!

Rebourne Man, if you read this I wouldbe very interested to know if you found out any more about the OW and the H.

Thanks to all, I am feeling stronger every day!