If you are willing, please let me know and I will send the Word Docs to your email address. I have three, the NC letter to my WW, the NC letter to the OM and one to his parents.


Thanks,

FN

Fourth,

Just to let you know in case you don't get any responses, usually people post them on the website for feedback. You'll get much more exposure, which in turn will get you more feedback.

Good luck.

Ok, I was a bit nervous about posting them here but I doubt my WW has gotten to this site yet <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Here's my letter to her:


W,

The time has come for me to make this a formal request. I have asked this of you once before and you promised to try, but to this day, I doubt your sincerity.

I am asking you to cease all contact with OM. No more emails, no more cell phone or regular phone calls at all. In return for this, I will do my best to meet your needs as best as I can. I will refrain from causing any pain, misery or annoyance by stopping the actions that make you cringe or bitter.

I will be very attentive to preventing love busters from pushing you farther away from me than you already are. My goal is to become your best friend again, and through this, show you that you can once again trust me and open up to me.

I have asked you repeatedly for your forgiveness but feel to this day, that you’ve only paid lip service to it because I can still hear the bitterness in your voice. My neglect of your needs over the years is still fresh in your mind and weighs heavily on your heart and with good reason. I was not there when I needed to be to help with the kids, the house, the bills, etc.

I was always doing my own thing. I do appreciate and thank you very much for letting me follow the dreams I have and do realize that many of them were just dreams. Most of them were out of the will of God and I realize that now.

I am asking you to forgive me for this. I am also asking your forgiveness for my addiction. P has ruled my life for twenty years and I could never shake it. I woke up each day feeling dirty and worthless and this was reflected in the way I dealt with you and the kids and I am so sorry. Through God, and on my face in prayer, I have been able to come to the place where I needed to finally be free and have done just that. That’s not to say I may struggle, but it holds me no more, you can trust me on that.

Also, please forgive me for sending you down this path that you would have never gone, had it not been for my selfishness. You have always had the sweetest spirit. That is what drew me to you in the first place. You have always had a heart for God and I feel I have tainted that. You would have never done what you did had I closed the door to all these things long ago and I am sorry. You were my beautiful virgin bride and I have placed you aside for my own selfish needs and we have both paid the price for it.

I also beg your forgiveness for not being the father to Hannah and Austin that I have needed to be. I love those two kids with all my heart and have finally come to the place where I can’t wait to be around them. They are the lights of my life now and God is leading me to a place where they can be proud to call me Dad.

Finally, I am asking you to forgive me for something God has reminded me of that happened when we lived in NC. Please forgive me for going into that online chat room and having internet sex. I had forgotten all about it, but I believe that you haven’t. Looking back on it, I think this is where it all started. We, or rather I, never treated that like an affair and we just went on with our marriage like nothing happened. At least I did anyways. I was unfaithful to you in that and I am sorry. Sorry does not quite fit. I have tucked that in the back of my mind for some time not wanting to deal with it because I was so ashamed. You see, I have set the precedent in the family and I should have dealt with this long ago.

I know I’m probably not deserving of your forgiveness for this but I ask for your grace and mercy. I can now understand what you must have gone through so I’m asking you to please forgive me.

I know I am placing a heavy burden on you, but I have all the confidence in the world that you can handle it, because you are your Father’s daughter. Your Father God will give you the strength to overcome the withdraws that will take place without contact with OM. Please be patient and see this through.

God has a better life for us waiting for us to walk into it. He has a new beginning and a greater purpose for our family. I think that through the lessons we have learned, God will give us a ministry to help others in similar situations, I know He’s planning that in light of my addictions.

So please, give me your word that you will talk to him no more. That you will email him no more and that you will erase the things that remind you of him from our lives. I would like you to write him a final letter, telling him that you have chosen this. I know this is a tall request, but please, come home to me and do this for me. Open your heart to working this out and give me one more chance to be the man you married to begin with; the man who has finally woken up from his sleep and has seen God moving in his life.

I ask that you let this be a contract between us. If either of us breaks it, the other must be honest in letting that person know. If I walk on your emotions or act uncaringly, you must hold me accountable. Likewise, I need to know that you are honest in your not contacting him.

The following are items we will need to pay attention to:

I will do my best to meet your emotional needs.
I will do my best to make our "home" a warm and inviting place to be.
We must place emphasis on what has worked in our marriage.
We must show consistent self improvement in areas where we were previously lacking.
We must stop lovebusting behaviors.
We must communicate with a calm reassuring voice and relaxed body language, even in the center of a verbal storm.
We must become the people any reasonable spouse would want to come home to.
We must remain open to the possibility of recovery.
We must always offer forgiveness and understanding.


Thing that are harder, but must be done:

We must expose adultery where it matters most. This may mean exposure that takes the form of a swift and sudden unexpected tsunami of truth.
We can not apologize for exposure or speaking the truth in a kind yet direct way.
We must directly communicate the hurt and devastation that the affair has caused.
We must establish boundaries that disallow the affair to effect children of the marriage, financial security of the marriage, and otherwise ruin innocent bystanders.
We must stand up to infidelity as a beast that must be slayed for the good of the family.

I found this following passage online, from one of the main posters on the Marriage Builders website, talking about honesty.

“When the sun sets on my life I want to die in my wife’s arms. I want to be able to look back and BELIEVE with all my heart that even though I made mistakes; I took every possible step to be a great husband and do the right things for our marriage. I want to UNDERSTAND all the facts of my marriage and what it really is. I would love to actually be a good father to my children.”

That pretty much sums up my desire, W I love you, and pray that you come back to me, our children, and God.

Love always,

Me

===========================

I'll post the letter to the OM next.

FN

My letter to the OM:

OM,

I suppose by now you had to have known this letter was coming. You don’t know me but you know who I am. I am W's husband, and father to two children whose lives are being torn apart. I promised W that when I wrote this letter, I’d do so with no malice or anger and that I’d do it as maturely as possible.

Know this, I do not consider you the center of all the problems between W and myself. There has been a history of neglecting each other’s needs for some time now and it took something like this to wake me up to my faults and go to God to get them straightened out.

I am however, letting you know that as long as you are still in the picture, W has no desire to commit to restoring this marriage or coming back to God’s purpose for her life and I can’t let that happen. She has told me time and time again that you are a Christian, so I am appealing to your faith and belief and am asking you to step out of this and stop all contact with my wife.

I have taken responsibility for leaving the door open for my wife, who I love with all my heart, to have gone down this road. That’s something I’ll always have to live with. My once unblemished, virgin bride has now been tainted with the sin of adultery and I was the one, through neglect, who started her down that path. I have a hard time living with myself for that and have asked her forgiveness.

She pays lip service to forgiving me, but I can tell that the pain is still there. It will continue to be there because she won’t confront it or deal with it as long as she believes something can work out between the two of you, which brings me to another point.

It has come to my attention, through her tears and what she’s told me, that you do not feel the same about her that she was hoping for. Although she hasn’t come out and said it yet, she feels used for that. The thought of her being used in that fashion rips my heart out. You have it easy right now, what you have is this beautiful, lovely woman saying wonderful things to you in her emails and on the phone. She’s even been willing to fly out to NC and sleep with you on one occasion.

What you don’t have however, is the problem of dealing with her screaming kids, her dirty dishes in the sink, her bills and all the other things that come with marriage. You have the best of both worlds and it’s unfair to string a wonderful woman like her along this way. I know you and W have always been close as friends and I feel that this friendship has been taken advantage of. Not deliberately, but inadvertently and now has spun out of control.

Again, I am asking you to please step out and stop all contact with my wife. God has brought the two of us together. The evidence of our love is in the faces of the two beautiful children we’re raising. I’ve enclosed their pictures so you can put faces on the pain and destruction the breaking up of this marriage will cause.

I am not only a betrayed and jealous husband, I am a caring father and I see the confusion and pain in my oldest child’s face everyday because she know her mother and I are having serious problems. She knows nothing about you and W however, but I have told W, that when the time comes, it’s her responsibility to tell her what happened.

I will always be accountable for my sins and my mistakes and have never made excuses for them, I will tell my children what I have done. When the time comes for W to talk to DD about this, will it be as a result of either being divorced from me and having to tell her out of fear and shame, or while still with us and having a restored marriage and talking to her about the victory God brought to this family? You can’t make that choice, but you can help.

Yes, I am asking you as a Christian brother to help me try and get my marriage back together. My life has been like that of a drug addict hitting the lowest point in their lives and finally realizing that he needs to do something or lose everything he’s ever cared about. I have come to that point in the face of all of this and have finally learned what it means to love my wife as Christ loves the church. I’d give everything I have for that woman many times over.

My love for her goes far deeper than for any other person I’ve ever know with the exception of my Savior. W is a wonderful woman and I fell in love with her because of her beautiful spirit and her love and devotion for God. I don’t see that in her anymore but I know it’s still there. She misses her God and has a hard time getting close to Him again because of all of this. Please help make her decision to come back to Him and her family easier by walking away.

You have my promise that things will not be the same. I know what she has told you about me and how hurt she’s been over the years. I have come to see the monster she’s lived with and I am doing what it takes to kill that monster. I am trying to give her the marriage she’s always wanted and be the loving husband and father of her children that she’s always needed. You have my word on that. As I put myself and my marriage in God’s hands, rest assured, she will be in good hands again as well.

Finally, you told her that you would be willing to step out of the picture in order to let her save her marriage; I’m hoping that you didn’t simply say that in order to make yourself look like the hero to her. I’m asking you to do what is right and call her to tell her it’s over and to cease all contact with her. This is the right thing to do and it’s also the Christian thing to do. Please do not try to tear apart what God has brought together and is in the process of restoring.


Sincerely,

FN

Letter to the OM's family:

Mr. & Mrs. OM,

You do not know me, my name is FN. There is no good way to break this news to you other than to come right out and say it. Your son OM and my wife WW, formerly .... of NC, have been having an affair for some time during the past year.

They were friends in high school at HS and they found each other online through a website that reunites old classmates. I only found out about this in November and only discovered the depth of it a couple weeks ago.

They had been talking through emails and by phone and in discussing their lives, I’m sure my wife started talking about our marriage. While I have not been the best husband, I have always tried. I’ve been busy with work, the military and many other projects that took up way too much of my time, leaving my wife to raise the kids seemingly by herself.

This discussion of her disenchantment with our marriage helped send her to another man, of this I have no doubts, and I accept full responsibility for my part. However, I can not, nor will I take the blame for her going the extra mile. While I was deployed with the military to (undisclosed) - W flew to NC with the sole purpose of meeting with OM. It was at this time that they slept together and committed adultery.

When I returned home after a five week deployment, she moved downstairs and told me she wanted a divorce. I have been trying my best to keep this marriage together, which is why I’m writing you today. I have come before God and have repented of all the things I’ve done that have left the door open for this and am getting closer to Him every day. Right now, we’re both attending marriage counseling and are working on our own issues.

This is an uphill battle as she is enamored with your son and is disillusioned with what may be after she leaves me and the kids. Two weeks ago, in order to alleviate some stress and get this to work, I asked her to not talk to him anymore. I asked her to cease all emails and phone calls. And while she told me she didn’t know if she could, she did promise to tell OM what I had asked of her. When she called him the next morning, it became apparent that he does not feel the same way towards her that she does towards him and this devastated her. Now she feels that she has been used and understandably so.

W has been emphatic in letting me know that OMs is a Christian, which is why I’m writing you for your help. I am writing him as well and am appealing to him as a father, a husband and as a child of God to do what is right and step away from this affair and to never contact my wife again. You see, I have two wonderful little children whose lives are being destroyed at this time and can’t understand why. I have attached their photos so you will be able to put faces to that destruction.

DD, my oldest, likes Barbie dolls, Star Wars movies, drawing, her pet gecko and music. She dresses like a little hippie sometimes and I often catch myself rolling my eyes, but she’s daddy’s little girl so what can I say. Her entire room is pink, green and blue, very bohemian with little beads hanging from the walls, typical nine year old girl.

DS, my three year old son is a big Spiderman fan. He loves watching cartoons anytime of the day and eats ketchup on just about everything. That’s DS. He likes cowboys, army men, dogs and snakes and wants to play football when he gets older. He loves his mother very much but misses her because she’s spending all her time at school and work so she doesn’t have to take the time to work out our marriage.

I’m telling you this so you know that there’s more behind this story than a betrayed husband. There are lives, very young lives at stake here and any continuation of this affair will no doubt scar them for life. You see, I can not in good conscience, let my kids be raised by a man who is willing to stand between their father and their mother. Nor sacrifice the happiness and wellbeing of two young children on some affair that was conceived in betrayal and deceit.

I don’t know what influence you may have on your son, but I am asking if you are a praying couple, that God moves on this and does not sacrifice the marriage that He has brought together, nor forsake the two young children involved. While I may have been betrayed I have no problems forgiving my wife or W for what has happened and I will fight, through prayer, for my family. I love my wife and I love my kids and will do what it takes to keep us together.

I apologize for having to break this news to you this way, but I feel I have no choice. I am also writing OM and WW’s mother in hopes that someone will finally listen to reason and do what is right. I have enclosed his letter in hopes that you will pass it on to him as WW will not give me his address.

Please do not think that I wrote this letter to you to incite any division or strife between you and your son. My goal was to expose what has been going on and find some way to hold OM accountable for his part. Being across country and so distant from the center of this problem keeps him well insolated and as of yet, he answers for none of it. He has told my wife on numerous occasions that he would step away from this if it would help restore our marriage. This has made him look very noble and heroic but if he truly meant it, he would have left long ago. Instead, he drags her along and torments her by playing on her fantasy that everything will be better if she leaves her family.

If you have any questions, please feel free to call me anytime. My cell phone number is .......... I thank you for your time and pray that God gives you the strength to handle this news.


Sincerely,

FN

All I have to say (because I am crying and can't get my thoughts together) is if your wife cannot tell by the letter to the OM that are truly in love with her and a keeper, then this must go further than fog.
I think it was beautiful and an ultimate example of love.


Probably not the feedback you were looking for, but couldn't not comment.

Actually, it's a glimmer of hope, thanks Tex. Is it raining near you yet? We've been overcast all day but nothing <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />


FN

Sorry for the bump, but these get lost on this board real quick. I'm going to read these to her at our MC session on Monday, should I wait to mail them after I do or go ahead and mail them today?


FN