AMM: "One thing I do notice, Aphelion, is that your posts on this thread tend to be long..."

A: Got it. Sorry.

So???

I understand this Aphilion. I can not even begin to imagine the thought processes involved in LTA BS's minds.

I know that I think 2long needs to make a move, because of the possibility of shocking his WW into a behavior change.

But after reading all your posts for a year 2long, I understand a little of what motivates and paralyses you (I think).

It is so hard to know what to do, when confusion has been such a big part of the equation for so long. Also there is that unconditional love factor.

Also it is hard for me to understand the dynamics going on in a long term marriage.

So to make a long story short 2long. Still thinking of you but silent because I haven't a clue, really.

Well, I have a clue.

I believe I want a divorce.

-ol' 2long

Hi there 2Long,

After you have filed for divorce, what conditions would have to be met in order for you to cancel it?

If you can answer that question, it will help a lot while going through the divorce process. It is a rollercoaster of a different kind, but it has an END! Reconcilliation or Finalization. No in between. Doesn't that sound refreshing?

*NC forever (or at least until the last star in the Milky Way winks out)

*Proof of NC forever (verification, including shared radical honesty)

*A POJA'd plan for marital recovery.

Sweeter words were never spoken!

Oh, I'm not toolong. You sure you weren't talking to ALL OF US, Loving? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

"I believe I want a divorce."


Whoa, the earth moved at 3:10 PM PDT.

Car alarms are still going off here in Seattle.

Trix: "So your kind of like a frog being boiled to death. OR, you are kind of like victims of the Stockholm Syndrome."

A: Or, it's classic abused spouse behaviour.

I wish I knew.


(Hope this is short enough.)

My mental picture is a little different...

I picture some nice woman like Pep struggling to hold up a huge Wookie who can't seem to function for this giant gas bubble he's got from something he ate.

The woman is straining and sweating and patting this wookie on the back, saying "There, there, just you let it out, sweetie."

Meanwhile the bystanders are hiding their children and covering their ears in angst and anticipation for digestional revelation that is about to come.

After the tension builds for a while, there is this huge "BRAAAAAAAAAP!!!" from the wookie.

Windows break, two headed calves are born, the crowd cheers and the wookie non-chalantly lumbers off, puzzled at all the attention and says "Geez, I feel better."

WoW NCW..

that was ....

weird...

and...

I liked it!

We're going to see Star Wars this Friday at "the dome" in Hollywood.... looking forward to it ... and when I see a belching Wookie I will definately pat him on the back ...

LOL

Jiminy Cricket and Wookie all in one day.... I'm tired ... but it's a good kind of tired

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

I expressed myself badly. Aphelion was suggesting that LTAs were a different type of affair situation, qualitatively and from the outset. I was challenging that, and suggesting that they had EVOLVED into a different situation -- either by circumstances (finding out very late) or the way they were handled (not drawing boundaries soon enough, which I suspect is more common). It wasn't an attempt to blame or judge.

Of course, one could question how someone could miss a spouse's affair for years, so that it becomes an LTA, but I don't know your sitch and it's blood under the bridge at this point. Also, I just haven't "been there." You can only be responsible for acting on what you know, when you know it.



I expressed myself badly again. My point about long posts is that I was wondering ...

Well, maybe both Aphelion and 2Long tend to run things through their minds, and see them philosophically, analytically -- or at least, you run the A through your mind. It gets processed there, and that makes for an LTA-type situation. And, of course, longer posts.

For me, my reaction was more from the stomach, and didn't leave there. The idea of the sneaking and lying, an odious whack-o OW, etc., was something that could make me erp on the dining room table forever. So that's why it didn't go into an extended triangle, as yours has. It was a revulsion of the gut, rather than the mind -- and that's a faster process.

But this is all exceedingly speculative, and getting verbose. Believe it or not, my situation is still ongoing in a weird long-distance Plan B sort of way -- I just don't have anything to say about it anymore...which is kind of what I was trying to say...It's like I finished throwing up a long time ago. Dry heaves, at this point.

Maybe somebody can explain it better. I was waiting for my defense squad to leap in and protect me, but nobody did, so I had to jump in the mud pit myself. I just don't want Aphelion to feel his posts were "too" long -- they weren't!

2Long -

I've been trying to read back over your posts from the past few days to see what is going on.

Can you maybe just give me (us) the Reader's Digest version? I get the impression that you're trying to rejoin the Conflict Avoiders Club of CA, but I thought you had burned that card and promised to never attend another meeting.

So...what is your Plan?

Georgia

2Long,

We all know that if a BS stays in Plan A for too long, his/her love love bank will go into the red and eventually close for good. Are you sure you are not subconsciously using Plan A to destroy whatever love you have for your W? Are you sure that your aversion for Plan B is not because of its potential for failure but its potential for success?

TMCM

[quote]2Long -

"I get the impression that you're trying to rejoin the Conflict Avoiders Club of CA, but I thought you had burned that card and promised to never attend another meeting."

How 'bout the "Conflict Avoiders of CA", or CACA!!!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

No, I'm no longer a member!

Gotta hurry, though. Back in a 2ple hours or so with an update.

-ol' 2long

2MCM:

Good questions. I don't think I'll ever lose my love for my W. ...well, I wasn't going 2 post this here until I got 2 work and could edit it more, but here's the update I posted 2 our private iloveulove 4um. Maybe this will explain better what I feel now. In short, though, I think we're beginning 2 be able 2 start the depth of negotiations that might come at the end of a plan B in an otherwise "normal" si2ation, but one where DV, or the preparations for it, is an important part of the process of bringing us back 2gether without having 2 "officially" plan B (after all, I've now told her essentially everything that's in a plan B letter anyway). But I might be in plan B soon anyway, because she did say that "maybe we just need 2 spend some time apart". So, if she leaves, I'll plan B.

Anyway, here's the update, edited 2 protect the guilty! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />


Qfwfq: "Well, we just had the best convo about this "little problem" of ours ever.

I still think my marriage is over (more than just "it has been for 14 years") - it needs to be over.

I'm feeling pretty good. I stood firm on my boundary requirement that we can't do anything until RM is extricated from our lives forever, and she was able, better than ever before, to talk to me about her perception of my shortcomings, in such a manner that I could finally find a way to address them.

I learned a little more about RM's sitch in the process. And though it doesn't pertain to our marriage and whether it can or can't be saved, it explains some things and I'm going to write it down so I don't forget it:

*My W doesn't know exactly why he left his former job, but she believes he was "basically run off". She thinks it's because he's been drinking more heavily with time (and overcommitting himself and not finishing everything). She also says he has low self-esteem, and a light went off: She WAS rescuing him, like Pep said a couple years ago! (my W always did do that with strays... ...like my son's friend now. Too bad she got involved with this one.)

...think about it:
*Her dad was a violent alcoholic
*Her first sexual encounter with RM was after a party when they were both very drunk.
*She was hung over from a blind drunk one of the first times I went to visit her while she was working up north in spring 2002.
*She's complained about my drinking too many beers while working on the house (4 or 5 in the middle of the day at most anymore, before I can't sleep over night if I drink more).

She's was becoming what she hated the most about her dad, but ended up morphing that into an addition to an addicted person.

I asked her to tell me more about the contact with RM. She still insists that the recent contact reflects an innocent desire for them to work together on [subject] topics. That's fine, except for the fact that their relationship started out as an affair that ended his marriage, and she's made no attempt all this time after she insists "we aren't interested in having another romantic relationship" to convince me that this professional relationship would be harmless to ours.

I held firm. Nuke Rat Meat.

It became clearer to me too, and I told her, that the current problem isn't that the romantic affair has reignited, it's that the 15-year emotional attachment has a grip on both of them. And although she said things that indicated that he's told her he doesn't understand why she would rather be alone than work on her marriage, he clearly can't leave her alone because he keeps coming up with excuses (or buying into hers) for contacting her again.

This invitation to her out of state property and the proposal to do the consulting for her friend (and thus her if she takes over the job) are the two most recent, obvious examples. Re OOSP, my W had said that she had invited him to come out to look at a site several miles from her OOSP (remember? that was just a few days ago). This morning, she said that HE asked HER some time ago if he could come out and see HER OOSP, and she said that it would be great to have him come out and meet with the student volunteers next month (I forgot to ask her how she was planning to do that if DD and DS were going to be there part or all of the time, and I was going to be there for the first week).

I'm still of the opinion that this marriage is done for, but I can just start seeing a glimmer of realization in her eyes that she's not "excited" about losing it. I used the word deliberately, because I actually *am* excited, mostly by the prospect of being finished with this agonizing growth period of my life. I don't look forward to divorce, but I do look forward to losing the low-level aching fear that I've had for 23 years. But though I did say I would file for divorce if she doesn't agree to NC, I don't feel any urgency to do so right now. And so I can give her time to think about this some more. Probably within the next few weeks, though. I didn't tell her that I'm not going to OOSP with her next month, and I don't know if she's thought about it much.

She's still livid that I would read her emails, and when I said she can read mine anytime (especially my posts to MB), she said she didn't want to.

There was a lot more, too, but I gotta get showered up and off to work. More later.

Nuke Rat Meat ...with much love, of course,
-Qfwfq"



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

-ol' 2long

I thought you said she was asking him for sex. Did I misread something?



I know that feeling. You won't believe what a relief it will be.

Jokingly, KIND OF OT:

I'm reading a fascinating nonfiction book entitled RATS by Robert Sullivan.

It includes lots of interesting info. about RAT extermination and exterminators, RAT poison, RAT baits and RAT ways and behavior. Some people even EAT RATs....

I'm always wanting to learn something new. I know. Interesting reading material, huh? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

amm:

So did I. For the benefit of the doubt, I can assume she's telling me the truth. It makes no difference 2 me one way or the other, though.

She called me when I was on my in 2 work (she's up north with her friend until 2morrow). She'd gone 2 the wrong gate, and her friend had 2 meet her 2 let her in, which will take a half hour or so. But she asked me this:

"What if I have his GF come with him 2 the OOSP? Would that make a difference?"

2long (kindly): "Not really. If you had done something like make an effort many years ago 2 convince me that your friendship/working relationship was not harmful 2 our relationship or family, it might have made a difference, but not now. The attachment has become 2strong."

We exchanged a couple light words (really only one or 2 each), then said bye.

For a 2ple of minutes after the convo, I thought "2long, you should call her back and talk about that some more. She's trying 2 compromise! Help her out here!", but the pangs I felt for maybe hurting her unintentionally soon passed. It really is like what FGG's WW keeps trying 2 do with him "you and OM could be friends!"

But really, I wonder what she expects would come from such an arrangement. *I* certainly can't be friends with RM, I'd like 2 see him dead! (but not really, I'd just like 2 see him gone forever). I may be able 2 forgive someone like him for having done the things they've done out of sheer s2pidity and selfishness, but they bloody well better stop doing it first!

I do feel a renewed compassion for my W, though. She talked about how this isn't easy, and I agreed, saying "but it IS simple". She doesn't agree that it is, but it is (that's a fact, not a hypothesis or a theory). What could be simpler than an either/or choice? It's a 2-bit problem. A "1" or a "0". Pick one and discard the other.

Nuke Rat Meat,
-ol' 2long

[b]LOL Mimi !

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

Kind of like that, and something I remembered while contemplating the annoying phrase "moving on", is the following quote from the late Eric Frank Russell's satirical scifi novel "The Great Explosion" (it's from the end of the book, so if you haven't read it, download it from http://tmh.floonet.net/books/tge/tgetoc.html and read it before reading on):

"Come back!” howled [sgt major] Bidworthy at the retreating five [diserting on a planet of dissidents named after Ghandi]. “Come back!” He made extravagant motions, tried to tear the ladder from its automatic grips. A siren keened thinly inside the vessel and that upped his agitation by several ergs.

“Hear that?” His expression murderous, he watched Harrison calmly tighten the rear valve and apply a hand-pump. “We’re about to lift. For the last time—”

Again the siren, this time in a rapid series of shrill toots. Bidworthy jumped backward as the airlock seal came down. The lock closed. Harrison again mounted his machine, settled a foot on a pedal but remained watching.

The metal monster shivered from nose to tail then arose slowly and in complete silence. There was stately magnificence in this ascent of such enormous bulk. The ship gradually increased its rate of climb, went faster, faster, became a toy, a dot, and finally disappeared.

For a brief moment Harrison felt a touch of doubt, a hint of regret. It soon passed away. He glanced toward the road.

The five self-elected Gands had thumbed a coach which was now picking them up. That was helpfulness apparently precipitated by the ship’s vanishing. Quick on the uptake, these people. He saw it move off on huge rubber balls bearing the five with it. A fan-cycle raced in the opposite direction, hummed into the distance.

“Your brunette,” was how Gleed had described her. What had given him that idea? Had she made some remark that he’d construed as complimentary because it had contained no reference to outsize ears?

He had a last look around. The earth bore a great curved rut one mile long by ten feet deep. Two thousand Terrans had been there.

Then about eighteen hundred.

Then sixteen hundred.

Less five.

“One left,” he said to himself. “Me.”

Giving a fatalistic shrug, he put on the pressure and rode to town.

And then there were none."



-ol' 2long