I am so sorry campdog.
I will most happily pray for your healing and your new start in a new state.
It is too bad that your w/w didn't see how lucky she was to have someone so dedicated to the marriage that he put up with the pain of the affair in hopes of restoring their marriage.
Your wife is the loser in this, and the sad thing about it, she has not the faintest idea yet.
((Campdog))

CD. I plan A'ed my hiney off while the affair was still active. Its fundamentally a plan to help END teh affair not just process the time afterwards. Its almost a secondary benefit that plan A DOES help prepare you for the next bit too.

I gotta say though. if you HAVE been plan A'ing as you seem to have been, then plan B is a good choice if you can do it DARK.

PLEASE don;t do any gesture stuff now CD like rushing to divorce or whatever. I know how you hurt - I REALLY do but there is hope for your M. Your W needs you to be ALL man now CD, and sometimes that means just choking it down and smiling for a while, only letting on your boundaries respectfully.

ALl blessings to you bruv'. You got a bad gig, but I seen worse get fixed with love and faith. K's for example.

{{{{CD}}}}

* KDH, dear me KD ! Nothing of the sort !! You have been getting wonderful advice from many of the folks who gave ME advice ! I can drop by and add some " yeah, what SHE said"'s to you if you like <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I'll stop by later on. But I am following your story and praying for ya.

Unbelievable. You have tried so hard and been so forgiving and she betrays you again by being with the OM. Enough is enough! You will have a brighter future without her. I wish you luck.

campdog,

Not a surprise. Again---think of the addiction model. It's time for you to be in Plan B. I also think it might be good to send a copy to your MC. It's a hard decision to make, and I can understand your anxiety. But this is the right decision for you and your marriage. Will you take kids, or are you going to leave them? (I assume the latter).

As Bob mentions, a solid Plan B will mean no contact. Let your wife have the ability to get word to you that she's ready to attempt reconciliation once she's met some key goals. And if your OM is local, I'm of the opinion that you need to put several hundred miles between the two of you and him if a reconciliation is going to work.

(With regards to morality and your wife. She's not moral at all. She is trying to not hurt people and make decisions---aka "fence sitting". This forces you to make this decision. She needs to live with the ramifacations for a while, and decide whether she wants to get over her addiction).

{{campdog}} Listen to K and BP. Keep posting ok? We are rooting for you. Are you taking the kids with you?

Campdog--

Don't even know what to say. How can she throw away the best thing that's ever happened to her? I think that's what makes me the most angry about people abusing kids. So many grow up and ruin their own lives and the lives of those who love them because they still believe they're worthless. You overcame that legacy in your own life. How I wish your wife would, too.

Praying for healing and peace for you, Campdog,

KathCA

CD,

Sounds like time for Plan B to me. But what do I know?

I still don't understand why you are the one leaving. It should be her. There are legal issues a court will use against you if you are the one to leave. Opposing council will call it abandonment. It adversely affects your custody desires, in particular.

There are many strong hands on your shoulder, CD. I hope you can feel them. There are many who have walked this path before you and many will take this road after you. Take heart.

with prayers,

CD, please don't leave if you are going to lose custody.

I think it's preferrable if CD's wife would leave, but it's often not a viable option. From an effectiveness standpoint, if CD is providing a majority of child care in the household, it's actually beneficial if he leaves and lets that burden fall on his wife. It's one more need that he won't be meeting.

Keeping copies of the Plan B letter, which should state a desire to reconcile after the affair is over, can help mitigate damages inflicted by opposing counsel. But a lawyer's advice before leaving isn't necessarily a bad thing. My lawyer told me to go---that if we were ending up in divorce, it would be highly unlikely that I would have physical primary custody---and that the Plan B separation would not do significant damage to my custody claim.

Aph, I'm leaving because she won't. We have discussed separation and my wife has made it abundantly clear that she would NEVER go, that she feels I should be the one. I
don't have to give a course in WS babble. It's all here to be found and it's like she has taken her words from various posts I have read. Basically she feels that if I go it's because I am CHOOSING to go. She has no conception that she has left me no choice.

My wife is the primary wage earner while I have been a stay at home dad since November. My pension has paid the rent and one or two bills besides. I plan to leave her $300 short of the rent, which she can easily make up, so I have something to live on in October until I find work. If nothing happens I will come in November and get my things. It's all in the letter. She can live out the security deposit until the end of November so there's a little time before we lose our home.

I am still agonising over whether or not to take my nine year old with me. I just don't know what the right thing to do is there. I lean towards taking him with me at this moment. I'll consult with an attorney once she ends her vacation but my only guiding principle is what is best for my son and I really don't give a flying **** if it's considered kidnapping. As for the baby he's too young to miss me and there's no question he would be better off with his mother. Leaving him will kill me but it's only one piece of an already unbearable situation. What's one more heartache all things considered?

Dear Kath thank you so much for sticking with us. I hope that some day my beloved will find someone like you in her life. For now she is fighting healing with all her resources and I just don't have it in me to stay and watch as she continues on with her lover. During my last session with my counselor I realized that I COULD stay and deal with everything else if she cut loose her lover, but she can't, and it is what it is. I know what you meant about child abusers. Dante was wrong. There are TEN circles in ******. The lowest circle is reserved for child abusers. May her uncle find himself there soon.

bOb, I am not one for dramatic gestures in something as important as this. I am following the MB script and you guys advice scrupulously even though I have little hope for the outcome. My wife has no idea that I am going to leave so soon. I have told her only that the situation was unbearable for me. I really don't think she hears me. As I said before I think the MB model is skewed in my case because of the child rape issues but then again what other course of action do I have? If it weren't for you guys and this website I have no doubt that I would be dead or in divorce court by now. We shall see what we shall see.

CD, please think broadly of way sto get your WW to leave. the best plan B's work when the WS experiences losing ALL the benefits of their marrige not just the presence of the BS.

Also this is advising outside my own personal experience,which I rarely do, but I'd take both kids with me.

Do you want OM dealing with your 9YO because WW think she's nice ?

All blessings

“From an effectiveness standpoint, if CD is providing a majority of child care in the household, it's actually beneficial if he leaves and lets that burden fall on his wife. It's one more need that he won't be meeting.”

Yes, totally true from a purely MB standpoint. But, it’s his nine year old who will pay most with this approach, IMO. But then, I guess our children pay the most in any case.

I could not do it this way mostly because of DS, eleven at the time.

My atty told me to stay in the home with DS no matter what. He said in our state, if W is out more than a month neither the judge nor the guardian ad litum will mess with the status quo if it came to a D.

So my W left when I would not budge without DS. Living elsewhere (the A continued another two months or so but OM would not move in with her after all) she didn’t even have a mothers ENs met during our separation. Aside: I didn’t want OM in my house with DS, either.

On the whole, her moving out was a much greater loss to her ENs than if I had left.

I’m not arguing with you, K. I'm agreeing there are down-stream custody consequences CD needs to be aware of if he is the one to leave.

Oh, and the fact that he is moving out of state makes it even more of a legal issue. Judges hate this. The don't like the loss of exclusive jurisdiction, if I can put it that way.

Get legal advice, CD!

With prayers,

Actually it's for everyone. 12:30AM here and I can't sleep. Just had a long somewhat acrimonious conversation with the wife. I keep going around and around with this and I'm torn in abut 20 different directions. I was sitting on my stoop for a long time just thinking and then I was going to write a letter to my wife. I figured that it couldn't hurt to organize my thoughts here first. Then I thought maybe it could. Follow along with my thoughts or not, I'm gonna do some musing and see what develops. This is gonna be a long one I fear.

I'm thinking that it isn't reasonable to try and fit human behavior into a box. I found this site and it has been my salvation but I'm wondering now if I am being too rigid in trying to make my life fit the MB model. I'm thinking that there is a lot of peril for me in thinking that I have all the answers and that MY way is the only way. This quirk of mine has led to a lot of problems for me in the past both in my marriage and in my life in general. Add to that the fact that I am myself a product of childhood abuse which has given me a whole bunch of complicated issues. Some of these may be coming into play right now in ways in which I am unaware. I don't know if this is the case but it's something to keep in mind.

Now, I've been of the mind that if my wife didn't break off ALL contact completely with her lover then my marriage was doomed and I was better off moving on. All the lterature says that NC is essential for the marriage to recover and of course that is the MB bible. I believe that it's true. But how true is it that complete and total NC must occur NOW for me to move forward in my marriage? My wife has said that since there is a baby involved that the OM will never be totally out of the picture and she's unfortunately right. I was just going to write all of the arguments that we've been having on this issue but I won't. Instead I'll just say that every time she has said that a certain thing concerning her relationship with her lover was true I have been thinking that I knew the REAL truth and that she was deluded. That belief of mine could be true but it doesn't have to be. Writing it down here makes it seem like arrogance. I think I know the REAL truth mostly because I read it here but what do I really KNOW?

I know my wife had an affair. I know she fell in love with him. I know she had his baby. I know she admitted to the affair and told me it was over. I know she continued to call him frequently and lie about it. I know I would rather have died than found out about any of this. There's nothing more to add to the list. Everything else is just conjecture and feelings.

So what's my point? I'm on the verge of leaving my family and wife because my wife is telling me that she can't promise to never speak to her lover again, for her own reasons, and that in fact he isn't her lover anymore. I have been discounting her statements so I have determined to move out in an attempt to make her come around to my point of view or, if not, divorce. My logic has been that I knew better and that she was either lying or deluded by the 'Fog' but could I be wrong? What if I am?

I know that she's been lying to me about calling him but I don't know why, I think I do. Could I be wrong? What if I am? If I didn't know about the calls I would be posting with a signature that said 'in recovery'. Everything else about my wife's behavior and efforts to strengthen our marriage has been superb. Would that be a fool's paradise or would it be indicative of the end of an affair? I just don't know.

Lots and lots of other things I don't know but I'm getting tired of writing. Is this all just my own resistance to making a move? Guess what, I don't know.

Anyway, Aphelion. You said that you thought you were in recovery for five years while your wife continued contact with her partner in adultery. I keep thinking about that and I'm not so sure that it's a coincidence that you popped up just now. I have seen God's awesome hand move in this place before. Are you divorced? I'd like to speak to you about your situation if you're willing. We could use this thread or start another but I would very much appreciate your input.

LOL, not so long considering some of my other posts. I feel like a sad and pathetic little man right now but I'm gonna keep right on slugging until I go down. What else can I do?

CD,

Your post left me with a feeling of concern. These forums are not where you should be getting your primary M advice. I believe we all mean well and have you, and your family’s, best interests at heart. But I, at least, am no expert in these things.

I once posted that I always know exactly what everyone else should do. I seem to know exactly what I would do if I were them. Yeah, right. Whenever I think of my own sitch the BS fog settles down around me so thick I cannot see the end of my nose. Always listen with a healthy sense of skepticism to anyone here. As they say in Al Anon, take what you need and leave the rest.

This is a good place to be, as far as it goes. But, I strongly recommend you call the MB counseling center. There is a link on the home page.

I agree that MB methods are not one size fits all. Dr H says so. And in our cases, our FWS have serious FOO and personal issues that mitigate a naive application of MB.

Yes, you are indeed at a crossroads. And it’s perhaps of your own making. I don’t know. But I do know the feeling.

Choose your path after talking to a qualified expert like Dr H and his associates.

It’s expensive; but, as they say, a lot cheaper than divorce.

I am not divorced or separated. I consider us to be in recovery, albeit an occasionally windy and muddy road.

I will be happy to communicate further with you. Post your email addr and I will respond off line.

With prayers,

No! No! You are not a "pathetic little man"! You are one of the best and bravest and strongest men there is! Campdog, you have been betrayed as deeply as I believe a man could be betrayed, and yet you have acted above all with love and compassion for your wife and for your children. You have conducted yourself with honor, integrity, strength, and faith, and I don't believe anyone could have done better than you have.

Campdog, you know I hesitate to respond to the question of what you should do now, because of my lack of expertise. I continue to trust that you are being led by God and that you will know what to do for your specific situation. I do believe that there are very few paradigms that should be applied universally and without exception, and I think you have raised some very important points in your post.

I just couldn't see you denigrate yourself without responding. You truly are one of the best people I have known, you will never know what an example you have been to me of carrying on in the most difficult circumstances. It gives me confidence that I can conduct myself with strength and dignity no matter what lies ahead. The effect of your example is signficant in my life, I want you to know that.

CD:


This isn't the reason that you should be leaving. The reason(s) are:

1. Your wife continues to lie to you
2. Your wife is unwilling to negotiate using the Policy of Joint Agreement
3. Your wife is unwilling to keep this marriage safe by eliminating major lovebusters (mainly around independent behavior and the aforementioned lack of honesty).

There are certainly ways that your marriage could grow and prosper that may not necessarily need to have the OM end up in a hole in the ground (or at least several states away). What I don't see with your wife is a willingness to address those issues in a win-win way for your marriage---something that makes you, her, and the kids safe in a happy environment. Those issues are the core issues here---and until she's willing to begin to address these with you together, you really don't have much of a chance in sustaining recovery. And without that chance, the issue is how long you can maintain the status quo without killing all the love you have for your wife. My impression is that you don't have an endless supply of patience for this current situation.

I also concur that getting professional help by one of the Harley's or other qualified marriage therapists would be the best idea. We can help point you, but their involvement is critical. I got through my marital issues not because of these BB's, but because I spent time with Steve Harley going over the concepts and practicing and reporting in on a regular basis.

I didn't mean to sound as if I were asking anyone to tell me what to do. I was basically thinking out loud. If I was asking anyone to show me the way it was God. It helps me to organize my thoughts if I write them down and these threads are my record of this whole horror for the future.

I am literally days away from leaving everything I love most in the world. I see no alternative to leaving and at the same time want nothing more in this life than to stay. To say I am conflicted would be a masterpiece of understatement. For the kind of man I am it's only natural for me to agonize over my course of action and I know I'll continue to do so even after I am in the car and on the road. I write down my ramblings here for the very reason that it is a public forum and I get feedback beyond my own endlessly spiraling thoughts. But I no wise expect anyone to write down a magic formula for me to follow. I am the only one responsible for my life and the decision on what to do with it is ultimately mine alone.

Aphelion (or anyone else) I can be contacted at campdog1@verizon.net for as long as the account lasts. I would like to speak with you if you're willing. I hope you have a broadband connection because I am a wordy SOB. I promise to send no attachments so you should be able to download my messages in a day or two. Just kidding <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />. What I mean is I won't clog up your bandwidth or try to monopolize your time.

Kath while I am not really 'little' I meant what I said about how I felt. I am Sicilian by descent and I was raised in a culture that would expect me to cut the throats of everyone involved as a matter of honor. Stupid of course but it was instilled in me. You and I know better than some perhaps how hard it is to leave your childhood behind. I was just acknowledging the small insane part of me that says I am pathetic. And I am sad beyond expressing in words about so many things.
Thank you for saying what you did. I'm glad that I was able to return some of the support and inspiration you have given me. I guess that's how it would always work in an ideal world and I'm glad our paths crossed.

Now I feel like I have to say something to the rest of you. How long do we have for the thank you's? bOb, Suzet, K, pops and all the rest (it would be impossible to name everyone but of course you know who you are) I am a better man for having been able to read and consider your words. For any newbies reading this post please be aware that there are some awesome people populating these pages and that God moves here as well. It's a humbling realization for me.

Just previewed my post and I realized it sounds like goodbye. It isn't. There's still a little time yet before I leave this IP address and I'll keep coming back even after, bandwidth permitting (I HATE dialup). Just felt like saying the above. Not much more to do at this point until I hear the fat lady start singing. See ya. Pray for me.

CD <-- You have mail.