Hang in there, LT... No need to rush, while WS stews.

HUGS.

My MIL just returned home from a week in the hospital. SIL and I traded shifts during the week so that a familiar person could be with MIL most of the day. This really seemed to help ease MIL's fear of being in unfamiliar surroundings a feel protected.

I broke my dark plan B!!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> The frog prince announced that come the weekend he was going away to the cabin with D17. I wrote him a note that said, "I am not happy about your plans to escape to the cabin this coming weekend. SIL and I will have been providing your mother with a lot of needed extra care during the week. MIL could use his help too and I could use a break. BTW when do I get a new key and access to the cabin again? It would be a kind and generous gesture for you to stay and help out this weekend and make it possible for me to take a much needed break."

We had to have the lock changed to the cabin 3 years ago and WH has not yet given me my own key (I now think that this is one of the places that he and Skunkypoo would meet).
WH replied back a note that he didn't really think the weekend through and OF COURSE <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> he would stay to help look after his mother and thank you for sacrificing so much of your time and here is your own key to the cabin.

So, over and done. Now, I'm dark again.

Meanwhile my daughters are really pressing to invite WH for Christmas and for us to spend Christmas just as we always have in the past with all the in laws celebrating at our home. I suppose I could go ahead and invite everyone and leave it up to them whether or not they come.

What do you all think? Should I break plan B for Christmas Eve? My daughters don't really "get" plan B and feel like they suffer because WH and I don't communicate with one another.

Despite what WH said to my girlfriend, he has not yet taken any active steps towards NC with Skunkypoo and reconciliation with me.

LT:

Sorry that I'm not fully aware of your situation..

However, I'm jumping in here to warn you that breaking PLAN B would be a BIG MISTAKE...

It would set you back tremendously...

PLAN B is not supposed to be an on and off situation or it won't be taken seriously by the WS....

It is for YOU and no one else..

I would say don't break your BOUNDARIES for anyone...including your children...

This will make YOU STRONGER....

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

mimi,

Thanks for your valuable advice. Even if you are not fully aware of my situation, I am sort of aware of what yours was and is. In my case, we are talking about a LTA, that I suspect started late 2001, but WH did not admit it until 2004.

My willingness to take my H back at all is disappearing. In place of my once admirable H is now a deceitful, spiteful, spineless worm of a man. Add to that entitled arrogance and you've got the full hideous picture.

Sounds like a typical WH to me..is just how I used to describe my FWH...

I say then, with even more conviction, stick with your PLAN B...you don't want to be anywhere near this man...regardless if it's Christmas or not...

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

LT, I have had the feeling for a while now that your WH is simply taking a Marriage Vacation and will be back to you when his affair is over.

In the meantime, he knows he can count on you to take care of his children and take care of mother while he enjoys his Vacation. He is counting on the fact that you will quietly wait for him while he's gone (Plan B) and then welcome him back when the Vacation is over.

Normally Plan B is highly recommended, but I think your WH is just using it to enable his Vacation. To him, Plan B means you are being nice and cooperative and supportive of his Marriage Vacation by not making a fuss and just quietly waiting for him until he's ready to come home again.

I would bet a lot that that's how WH looks at this situation. Is there anything that can be done about it? Do the Harleys have any advice about this sort of thing?
Mulan

Mulan,

I think you are right. Unfortunately.

SH made me PROMISE not to do anything until after the holidays and I have spoken with him the beginning of January. This is proving hard. Despite the extra pressure of being a working single mom and nursing a failing MIL, I am gaining strength. The old me is reappearing, but better, wiser, calmer. My daughters are doing well. Work is going well. I am soooo ready to leave this dirt behind me. I'm working on a D letter...

LT,

It will be hard for WS to take you seriously if you start finding 'occasions' to break PLAN B. I think the message received is 'with time BS will come around and accept situation as we will continue to share occasions more and more'.

I know that my WS is counting on this, which is why I need to have a very DARK DARK PLAN B, so that my message is clear. We both know of too many 'friendly breakups' and so, WS hope for this, with time, of course.

But, truthfully, LT, can you see yourself in the same room as WS without feeling all the tension and without your R being clearer?

I spoke with OWH once, and he had tried that, it was for a grandchild's birthday party I think, and WS was there (OW in my case), and ended up having a panic attack right after it... another time, he had a 'skin reaction' to it...said the 'atmosphere' was not the same.. he wanted to do it for the grandchildren's sake.... he knows better now... and is really sorry for the children, but he can't put up the 'front' without paying dearly with his health. Needless to say, OWH in my case is 'moving on' very quickly.

What the children want is how it was 'before', and you can't give them back the past.

I know... family occasion are the hardest. I just gave my S15 a party this weekend. I felt WS's absence at times, and the boys did, too, at times, but overall the atmosphere was really lively and not tense, and everybody enjoyed themselves.

HUGS.

Thanks, Luna, I feel that you are right.

And I've got to move forward. I guess that is why my eyes are on the front of my head. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

The Christmas celebrations of the past will be difficult to beat. Time to think up some new traditions. Any suggestions? I was thinking of a holiday with the girls, but D17 will be ski instructing during Christmas break.

I suppose if and when I do go on to Plan D, I will do it without warning and through my lawyer. I guess that this letter is just to prepare me:

Dear Prince Charming,

Our marriage was once a source of joy, love, and nurturing not only for us and our two beautiful daughters, but for our entire family and for many of our friends as well.

Adultery is like a cancerous tumor to a marriage and causes much pain, suffering, and destruction. When kept secret and hidden, adultery eats away at the marriage unhindered and damages the marriage’s ability to thrive, nurture, and spread joy just as an undiagnosed and untreated cancer can threaten our health and our life. When you have a cancerous tumor, you have the entire tumor removed and then follow a plan to heal the rest of the body and get strong and healthy again. You don’t ask the surgeon to leave part of the tumor intact so that it has a chance to spread and grow, making all efforts towards healing futile.

I have done everything I can to fight the tumor that has caused and continues to cause so much pain and suffering to me, our marriage, our children, and our family. I have done everything I can to convince you that our marriage and our family are worth saving, are worth healing. But I have lost hope that you will take the appropriate measures to give our marriage a fair chance at healing and becoming what it has the potential to be.

Who would have thought that you would have an affair with your best friend’s wife, godmother to our daughter? You’ve abandoned your integrity, your Christian values, your marriage vows. You’ve betrayed those that loved and trusted you the very most. You’ve sacrificed your children’s innocence and their security. All of this destruction has been made for the sake of a superficial fantasy, an escape from reality, a relationship that can not survive the light of day. Are there ever moments when you wonder had you invested your energy in our marriage instead of all the lies, deception, and manipulations necessary for your adultery, we would not be in this position? The only way I can possibly understand your behavior is to view your relationship with OP as an addiction. It is easier for a person to give up all their values and all the good things in their life and put the blame somewhere else than it is to give up an addiction.

I know that what I am asking of you is difficult. I am asking you to give up your relationship with OW completely and forever. That is the only way that I can be provided with a safe environment to heal from the pain and suffering that your betrayal of our marriage vows has caused me. It is the only way that we can rebuild a new marriage and restore love, honor, trust, and mutual respect. What I am asking of you is difficult, but not unreasonable and the demands I make on myself are no less --- to strive towards complete forgiveness, healing, and spiritual growth. I know that I am far from perfect, have my faults, and have made many mistakes. I have been successful in making positive changes in myself, have proven to myself that I can make them permanent, and I plan to continue this path. Yet I am not only striving to make amends for my own mistakes. I am doing the hard work necessary to help our children and myself cope with the wake of destruction that betrayal of trust has left in our lives.

Steve Harley has outlined a tried and proven plan for healing our marriage and turning it into a better, deeper, more fulfilling, and loving relationship than ever. The potential gains are tremendous and when compared to what we and our children have to loose, it is no question that I am willing to give this a try. Unfortunately, I see no signs that you feel the same.

Your boss has assured me that it would take only one word from you and OW could be transferred to an equal or better position in another branch that is closer to her home. No harm would come to her or her children. I now realize that your passive inaction is a decision. Instead of protecting your wife and children as it is your duty, you have decided to protect a destructive relationship which causes us much pain and suffering. This makes me incredibly sad, but there is nothing I can do to change this and I must learn to accept it. I can not save our marriage alone. It will make me sad for the rest of my life to know that our marriage was never given a fair chance and that our children did not receive the best that we were able to give. I have done all I can and endured all I can. It is time to let go before this destroys me completely.

I give up.

Other doors are opening up for me in my life and it seems that God is telling me that it is time to move on. At the beginning of the new year I will have my lawyer draw up plans for a divorce. I hope that we can come to a speedy agreement on all points as I am eager to make a fresh start and continue the progress of healing on my own. I shall put my future in God’s hands and even if this is not the path that I prayed for, I am certain that it will be fulfilling and that I will find joy and contentment.

Although you will continue to play a role in our children’s lives, you will no longer have a place in mine. I will be doing my best to forget you and drive the love I still have for you from my heart, yet I wish you no ill. May God hold you in the palms of his hands and help you find peace and happiness. I will continue to keep you in my prayers.

WH just sent a message via SIL that he wants to talk tomorrow...

we shall see.

B4 the holidays?!?!?! Hm..... Very interesting..... does he know about your original intent of waiting until after the holdiays?

L.

Ochid,

I hit a real solid point of synchronization of heart and mind.

I don't want WH back.
If H has not organized a transfer of OW to another bannk branch and written a NC letter before xmas, I want a divorce.
I'm ready to move on. If H doesn't realize what he is loosing yet, he never will until he does.

I gave him a similiar letter to the one above ala Dobson's Love Must Be Tough.

So, this is it. The turning point. All or nothing. I'm prepared. I've got my list of requirements. I'm not willing to even discuss them or mention them until a job transfer has been varified by WH's boss and I have seen and delivered a NC letter.
I want to do this right. I don't think that we will survive a false recovery.

I am fairly certain that he is making the first baby step pro-marriage, otherwise he would just avoid confrontation and wait for the D papers to come flying in.

Good. You know your boundary, goal and direction. Now your implementation skills will be tested.

L.

No 2x4 for the Tough Love letter?
It's not really MB, but that is honestly where I am. I am headed towards divorce and this is the Frog Prince's last chance to make a move...
just thought he should know.

I'll accept no excuses or further stalling tactics. A five minute phone call to his boss and 10 minutes to write a NC letter are all it takes to get the ball rolling. 15 minutes. Now or never.

If that is achieved, WH's reward will be xmas with me and the girls.
He can't move in though until he has done the 3 steps outlined for him by Steve Harley:
1. Taking complete responsibility for the A and all its repercussions. Revealing the truth --- all the wheres whys and hows I need answered in order to find closure.
2. Creating a safe environment for me and himself to heal (ie NC, radical honesty, POJA)
3. POJA a plan for recovery.

Orchid: No. Not from me. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />


Orchid: Really? I think it is more than u know. MB isn't a pansy place. Tough love is the backbone of it's strategy.


Orchid: Good boundary.

[/quote]

Orchid: Double good boundary. You sound firm and resolved. Remember this. Don't melt. ok? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Quite proud of you right now. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

g'nite.
L.

You're right Orchid, I need to stop trying to make WH realize how much he is hurting me. I need to realize how much WH is hurting me.

[/quote]

Orchid: Double good boundary. You sound firm and resolved. Remember this. Don't melt. ok? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Quite proud of you right now. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

g'nite.
L. [/quote]

Good night in the big blue! We got buried in snow here in the Alps over the weekend!

Good girl, LT.

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

Aph.

LT,

quote:------------------------------------------------------
I hit a real solid point of synchronization of heart and mind.
------------------------------------------------------------

Just here for support, and that I will be thinking of you.

Good luck.

So what did WH want to talk about?
Being able to communicate with me again... taking slow little "steps" towards each other again ... spending Christmas together again.

Me:
Sure, I said, as soon as you have severed all contact with OW.

WH: Oh, I can't do that ... we work together.

Me: Your boss said you can change that.

WH: Its more difficult than you think, she is a key person at the counter and we have several new employees.

Me: Well, I guess we have nothing to talk about.

I got up and left then.