Not yet, my WW want to wait for the week of the Aug 22 so we can get her brother's wedding over with. Should I call them for myself of both of us?

She has said she won't give the MC any intimate details so I don't know how effective it will be.

Call .... you are struggling way too hard trying to decide about a future Plan B.

Call and make a solo appointment. You will get more out of it than your WW at this point.

You will feel more confident and less scattered after you call .... for yourself!

PLUS .... you need to call for an advanced appointment... so call today.... and the soonest appointment may be a ways off.

What do mean by "advanced" appointment?

You don't get a same day appointment in most cases.

You set up a time to call ... and some instructons.

Have paper and pen ready.

by "advanced" I meant future

If/When you move to Plan B it is best if she moves out of the house...

How this will work?

The next time she says she needs some space, say to her...
"That doesn't sound like a bad idea, do you have a plan? Do you have any ideas?"

You can see if she has any plans or not, the wheels may already be working.

Often the WS guilt is so strong they just want to get away and escape and won't fight too hard to keep anything...

BTW, your conversation sounds like it went REALLY well.

I'm serious about the self-awareness of keeping tabs on how much love you have left and how fast it is trickling out. How long can you keep up Plan A, do you think?

I've read many a folk that have waited too long to move to Plan B, then they have no love left or strength to continue, or reconcile...they are done. Don't get there.

She will probably expect me to move out since she will not leave the kids and really has no where to go. So how would I reply to her then?

Yes my love for her is dwindling, but there is still lots left for a few more months, I think.

I felt really sad after the conversation. You don't like to here those things. I wish she would just admit that she has feeling for OM so we can get on with this. Her denial is making things more difficult since I can't push her on it.

She was offended that I was reading "What's so Amazing About Grace" because there was a small write up about infidelity and she thinks I'm reading it to help me deal with something which is not happening.

She is very sad and confused right now even though she puts on a good face.

Hope, I would ask her what her plans are for seperation since she seems to be thinking about it. It would help if she understood that she would have to be the one to move out and could not take the children. She needs to be under no illusions that you will be the one to move out or that she can rip those kids from their home. That might wake her a bit and vanquish all these seperation thoughts.

After our conversation yesterday, where I didn't raise my voice or try to correct or judge her, WW seems to be in a much nastier mood today. Could it be the fog settling in as she has to deal with her guilt? I wasn't a nasty conversation at all we just talked about her feelings. I thought this was supposed to make her feel better?

It has also been about 2 weeks since she has see OM and probably about 1 week since she has spoken to him. I wonder if this could be a factor as well?

Her family is putting more pressure on her to quit her job. Is this a good thing or do you think she will resist even more.

On another note she went to the library last night and borrow "Bridget Jones Diary" (her favourite movie) and 3 romance novels. She must need a fantasy hit!

Just wondering out loud today.

Hope, it is very good that her family is pressuring her to quit her job. In order to withdraw frm the OM, she will have to be seperated from him.

I don't know why she is being nasty. Often is because they feel guilty and are trying to bait you into a fight. If you respond with nastiness, then she can demonize you and thusly, justify her affair. It's a pretty common tactic.

Romance novels?? ugh! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

ML,

Currently, everyone is opposed to how she is acting and what she is doing except OM and her girlfriend. My MIL, FIL, BIL (both), SIL and my parents are all opposed to her and want her to quit her job. My FIL just went over to talk to her and told her "you don't look right", "think about what you are doing", "leave your job before and work on your family". She just sat there and didn't reply. So I'm sure she is feeling the pressure, but she is steadfast in her resolve to keep her job. She is rude to my in-laws almost like a teenager is to their parents.

My BIL's have also said they want to see the OM and have a talk with him <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />. I told them that might only make it worse. She seems to be heavily in the fog right now. I don't know what all this pressure from everyone will do to her. You would think sooner or later she has to break a little? I hope she does so I can be their to start the recovery.

I will not stop exposing at her work if it continues. The OM threatened to sue me if he lost his job. Well, that would be the last of my worries. Maybe he should concentrate on his job and not other people's wives! Maybe you can tell I'm a little frustrated today and venting here before I leave for home since I want to unload some of this frustration and anger before is see my family.

She has been transfering the blame to me lately and I haven't really defended myself since I just wanted to let her emotions out, but I think she is trying to fool herself if she thinks I was that terrible a husband. I may not have been as affectionate as I should have. I may have had some resentment on how she treated me on occasions. There is no excuse for what is happening right now. She needs to take some of the blame for this and I need to know how to defelect some of that blame.

Any suggestions...

Thanks for letting me vent <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

At the height (or bottom, if you prefer) of FWW's withdrawal, she bought the DVD version of The Bridges of Madison County.

It was a romance hit, for sure.

I could not watch it for the triggers.

Ugh I still won't watch it.

Aphelion,

Bridges of Madison County? Sorry to hear that <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
I can at least stomach Bridget Jones.

Are you suggesting my WW could be in withdrawl? I noticed she hadn't read a romance novel in a few months, now all of a sudden she is heavily into them again. I'm not quite sure what to make of this, maybe she just needs that fantasy drug like everyone suggests.

ugh! What a truly disgusting, stupid movie. It's about as "romantic" as 2 pigs rutting in the pig pen. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

Hope, why do you think it would hurt matters if her brothers had a chat with loverboy? Perhaps it might convey the message that her family is quite concerned about all this and have no intention of dropping it until all contact is ended? Better yet, why don't you call him up? Steve Harley once counseled one of our members to pay a visit to the OM and ask him what his intentions were with his wife. SH suggested that it gave OM a chance to put a human face to the man that he and WW had been demonizing. It also conveyed the message that the BS was not going to take it lying down. Anyway, its a bold move, but something you might think about.

Hope,

You asked
You should expect anger, frustration, etc. However the withdrawal I am talking about is not the same as from the OM. I am saying she has disengaged from you, withdrawn herself from you, and therefore conflict is probably going happen before she enters the stage where she becomes engaged in you and your life again.

Does that make it clearer? Hope so.

God Bless,

JL

How did you control yourself? Ugh..I think there would have been a worse outcome if that were me. Hmm...like a book bonfire in the front seat of his car! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

Well we had an interesting weekend. Saturday morning, my WW wakes up and the first thing she says is "do you want me to file for seperation papers". Well that kind of took me by suprise, but I was able to reply "no, I want you to work on our marriage". To which she said "everytime my family grills me it pushes me further and further away". So, I said "you know when you are in contact with Om it hurts me deeply, well I can't accept contact with him and it would mean alot to me if you would at the very least ask for a transfer from his facility". She replied "do you promise to stop recording my phone conversations and talking to my family" and I said" if you agree to no contact I will stop recording you conversations and ask your family to back off". She then said "I'm genuinely telling you this, but I don't know if I can trust you". I replied "We have to start building the trust again somewhere".

So we negotiated a NC and then she said "I want to move away from here because I can't stand my famuly anymore...sometimes I think we should split the house and I would buy a smaller place and you can come and see the kids whenever you want and we could maybe date and start from scratch". Well this didn't go over well with me, but at the risk of loosing the NC agreement I just said "I do not like to think of that". What I really felt like saying was, there was no way in ****** I would have my kids taken away from me. If you want your space, then just leave, but the kids stay here. That statement still upsets me becuase she thinks she is entitled to the kids.

After we agree we huged for a bit and went to have breakfast. She said I took everything out of context and she could explain every conversation she had with OM and her girlfriend. I'm not to sure about that. I also found out that she was told she could no longer have any contact with OM at work, however she called him and when I asked her about this she said "it was about work and he is my friend and he needed some advice so I couldn't say no". I replied "your work told you not to contact him and you said call me here so it cant be traced?". Well you could tell she was trying to dance on this one and she said "you don't believe me do you, I can tell by the way you are looking at me". I just said "why would you risk contacting him when your work told you not too". She said "he is new to the job and needed adivce". I just looked at her in disbelief.

So we will see how this turns out. She is still disengaged from me and cold and distant. To be honest I am starting to loose some of the love I had for her with all this. It is really draining on you emotionally and phisically. I just weighed myself today and I have lost about 25 lbs so I am now down to 150 lbs and I am 6 feet tall. Almost everyone is asking me if I am sick or what is wrong. My WW doesn't seem to care at all. She is in extreme taker mode currently.

The next time she brings up seperation I will be ready for her and tell her the following:

"Honey, I love you very much and I would love for you to stay and try to work on our marriage. But if you are certain you would like to leave, I will not hold you back, the door is open. But the kids will stay here in their home."

I have just bought a guitar and started taking some lessons since that was something I have always wanted to do. I am getting tired of her being a jerk and treating me like I'm not even here sometimes. I have been so nice, kind, considerate and thoughtful to her over the past few weeks. I know I'm not supposed to expect anything in return, but it does wear on you.

So that was my weekend and I would love to hear some feedback form everyone on what you think.

Thanks

Today seems to be a slightly better day. My WW is intiating some conversation with me and has even done a few more unselfish things including saying thank you after I said "bless you" and getting me a bottle of water before I got to the fridge, after I had said I was very thirsty. Just small things but she defenitely would not have done them even a few days ago. I have been Plan A'ing it for some time and even told her she looks lovely in her new dress to which she also said "thank you".

I called her family today and asked them to back off a little to see what happens. I just need to continue depositing in her LB$ and hopefully she will come out of the withdrawl stage.

JL, you stated..

She already has some anger and frustration, but my Plan A'ing has probably kept it to a minimun since I will not excelate the conflict. I am sure if I started arguing back there would be plenty of conflict. Could this mean she is in the conflict stage, just that the dampening effect of my Plan A is not making it as eveident as it would normally be?

I remember reading from Dr. Harley that in the conflict stage you "do whatever you can to make yourself happy, and avoid anything that makes yourself unhappy, even if it makes your spouse unhappy." My WW falls under this description, however there are times when she does the odd thing for me. I think my WW is going back and forth between withdrawl and conflict. She does communicate with me even though she doesn't give me much more than is absolutely requires sometimes. I hope my Plan A is giving her some hope and breaking down her emotional defenses. She still doesn't want her EN met by me, but I'm trying to meet them as best as I can.

Since I am getting the odd "thanks" from her now, it gives me hope that she is lowering her emotional defenses a little and allowing some of her EN to be met by me. I have disengaged from her a little, but I'm still Plan A'ing so she doesn't think I have lost interest. I just don't say ILY or try to hug or kiss her at all. I hope for the day when she gives me a hug or tries to cuddle with me in bed.

So all in all a slightly better day today so far. Who know what tomorrow will be like.