Just got this email. Need help with responding.

WH wrote: "Fighting with you always has been and still is one of the last things that I want to do. For the past few weeks I've been struggling with my feelings for you, not knowing exactly what they are, but also knowing that I miss you more now than I had before. That is why I wanted to spend time with you this week. Granted it did not go very smoothly, but I still wanted more time with you to try and completely figure things out, which is why I once again invited you to the pool tounament. You seem to misinterpreting some things that I have said to you lately and I just want to know that I do want to be fair and most of all friendly no matter what ultimately happens between us. You keep saying that you want me to come home, but you keep doing things lately that are pushing me away. I know you're just trying to look out for yourself financially, but I can't give you what I don't have. I really would like to sit down with you face to face and try to sort some of this out, before we have to involve lawyers. We should at least give it a try. I can come over Sunday if you'd like. Please let me know."

I know that I will tell him that I think only a lawyer will look out for my best interests. Should I mention that he cannot "figure things out" as long as OW is involved? Any other suggestions?

Also, after much thought, I emailed his coworker the following. Please give feedback.

"Hi *****,

I didn’t know how else to get a hold of you so I am using this forum. I’m sure that it is still a secret at work, but WH left me at the end of December. He has been having an affair with OW pretty much since she started there last summer. That’s a shocker, huh? You can imagine how I felt – we always had a great marriage and friendship. There were never any signs so I was taken completely by surprise. He told me at the end of August that he had been thinking that he might want to have his own child, but wanted to do it the “natural” way. It made no sense to me and I asked him if there was more to it than that, but he denied it. Anyway, long story short, he confessed after Christmas and moved out.

So, why am I telling you this? I am trying to get a hold of OW’s husband because I think he has a right to know and she is carefully screening all their phone calls. I understand if you don’t want to get involved, but if you know where he works or how I can get a hold of him, any information you give me would be appreciated. I would never reveal that you were the source. I think it is also important to let you know that it is my hope to repair my marriage and I think that exposing this affair to the light of day is one of the best ways to end their affair. I don’t know what went wrong, but I do know that what WH and I had doesn’t come along very often and if there is any chance of getting that back, I will do whatever I can."

Back to you soon on a response suggestion.

In the meantime try crafting a response that parrots his words right back to him, i.e., our marriage, "We should at least give it a try."

Post it here for review.

WAT

OK, lizzie - first you need to recognize that his email is laced with typical WS fog. He sees the conflicts that have been created, yet he doesn't see that he's responsible. He's trying to assign responsibility to you. He cannot see this in his self absorbed stupor. He probably actually thinks he's being reasonable. He thinks he's being compassionate with you. He thinks he's being fair and objective. This is his current reality in his me, me, me world.

Scary, isn't it?

His current objective is to have it both ways - remain in his fantasy yet have you as a "friend." In so many words, he's asking you to let him go with no strings attached including escape from any consequences. Very typical. Can you say "adolescent"?

What I offer below is a sample Plan A letter with places for you to elaborate. The purpose of a Plan A letter (my invention - you won't find it discussed in any MB guidance) is to communicate in writing what Plan A typically is supposed to do face to face - when separation has already occurred. It's a love letter. It's a Plan B letter without the punch line.

The timing for you is excellent in your approach to Plan B. His e-mail offers an excellent opportunity for sending such a letter and his own words are applicable. His words, ironic as the are, illustrate the metaphor that he's painted over all the mirrors in his life - he cannot see how hypocritical his "We should at least give it a try" statement is.

So consider a response like I offer below. He will very likely change his mind about coming over Sunday because you are standing your ground. An alternative for you would be to remove the "standing your ground" language (the part about working on the marriage). He would be more likely to come over on Sunday, but then you would need to communicate face to face the working on the marriage stuff. Either way you remain steadfast and squarely atop the moral high ground. At the same time, you take responsibility for your contributions to the poor marital state and show humility.


Modify this at will. Consider posting your mods for review.

OK, I just got up. I work nights and this is my weekend on. WAT, your letter is perfect and it even sound just like me - so I did very little editing and am planning on using it almost verbatim. Here it is.


"Dear Scott,
Thanks for taking the time to write and express your feelings.

As I’ve said before, I still love you and want a chance to repair our relationship. This is despite knowing your affair with OW is continuing. I am painfully aware that I was not meeting your needs as a wife and I apologize for my part in creating an environment that helped make your affair with OW possible.

I have grown tremendously from this experience and I ask you to see the changes for yourself. I have looked at myself from your perspective and have recognized that you were probably feeling like the house mattered to me more than you did. I did not realize at the time that you were feeling so lonely. Perhaps, even my working nights created too much distance. I never meant to make you feel like you didn’t matter to me. I thought my words were enough, but I can appreciate now how much louder my actions spoke – specifically on the day that you have mentioned – the day that we hung the ceiling medallion in the bedroom. Whatever happens to us, these changes are permanent in me and I am a better person because of them.

During this experience my efforts have been on changing me, not on blaming anyone else expecting them to change. I am the only person I can change. I know I have other improvements to make - and you can help me. In short, I will avoid the mistakes I’ve made in the past and we can create a new life for us that will meet all of our needs. It won’t happen overnight and it’ll take a lot of work, but we owe it to our family to try hard to make it work. Choosing not to try is the blind way out and it leaves the same problems unsolved and creates more difficult ones.

I will support any need you have in a non-judgmental way when or if you decide to end your affair. You can come to me in safety, knowing I will embrace you. Even if you’re not sure, I will understand and provide empathy.

I really would like to sit down with you face to face and try to sort some of this out, before we have to involve lawyers. I’d be happy to have you over sometime soon so we can start the process of rebuilding our marriage; however I am working this weekend, so we will need to schedule another time. I have a plan that has worked for many other couples facing the same challenges we face. We should at least give it a try. I am willing to do whatever it takes to put our family back together. I want us to be able to rebuild our marriage so that we meet each other’s emotional needs and to avoid doing anything to hurt each other. We can build a new relationship in which everything we do makes us happy. Then there will never again be a reason for us to separate.

I am here for you and I love you. "

Before I send, wondering if I should postpone the relationship talk a little longer though. He has asked me again to acompany him next Saturday. Thought that might be a good opportunity for a great Plan A day which could be followed by the Marriage talk part of this letter.

Still waiting for feedback on the above post. In the meantime, I just got this -

"please don't ignore my last e-mail. I really want to work this out with you. I'm sorry I got so angry yesterday and hurt your feelings. I'm going to be at your house tomorrow morning at 9:00am unless I here differently from you. I'll even cook breakfast while I'm there if you want for you and the boys."

I work nights - tonight 7P-7A and have to work again tomorrow night, so I will be sleeping in AM. Oldest son will have NOTHING to do with WH. Need help with reponse. Have been reading Caren's thread and see many similarities with the "dance" between us and our WH's, and I am following the advice that someone gave her - to post here before replying. I was actually thinking that I might let him do this, but maybe I should send the letter I wrote, not sure if it should be with or without the marriage talk.

Also, I just did more exposure - see letter to coworker - so I am waiting for the fallout.

bump ^
Still need advice.

Hi Lizzie-

Just read the whole thread <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I think you are doing very well, actually.

I am also in the health care field, I was attending school doing pre-req's for nursing until all this *A* bullcrap and I just couldn't concentrate, my life was literally falling apart, so for the time being, I've dropped out. (Been out of school about a year now)

I think that your situation shows real promise, you seem to be able to take the advice you're given and implement it really well.

I understand about being hyper and having everything all worked out in your head....I am guilty of the very same thing. (It's hard for other people to follow the plan in our heads though..lol)

Just wanted to let you know that I checked up on ya...I've actually been eyeballing this thread for a while, hadn't actually read it though, I'm guilty of shying away from threads if they look too long...lol, I'm so lame.

God Bless,

-Caren

Ok, well I emailed my letter above to him. I really don't want him to come to the house in the AM and I do have to work tomorrow night, too. I offered to meet him in town for breakfast and said I would be willing to listen to what he has to say. I know it will all be fog talk, so I will just Plan A. I decided to not shy away from the marriage talk. I think the letter was really good - non-threatening, non-judgemental. Thanks again WAT.

OK, lizzie - I think your letter was terrific (of course I would <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> ) and I'll be curious to hear his response.


Well, your letter should NOT convey angerness with his e-mail, but I expect he'll be angry with you because you don't suggest that you have any intention of "working this out" the way he wants to.

When he says, "I really want to work this out with you," he means, "I really want you to not resist what I'm doing."

Stay strong, lizzie. Chin up, shoulders back. You're doing a good job.

WAT

Another thing - did you notice how his tone changed when you did not immediately reply? All he got was darkness? This maybe is clue as to how Plan B will be.

You and he may be a textbook case for Plan B. Look ahead and start planning to go completely dark. It's tough with children. Real tough. Some communication cannot be avoided when kids are involved.

Be thinking about candidate intermediaries. If none are available this doesn't mean Plan B can't be done. I and others did Plan B quite effectively without an intermediary.

WAT

No response to e-mail and he did not show up this morning. So, I will lay low. He may have also found out about my exposure to coworker. Also, I think I found out where OW lives!!!! Drove by the house on my way home this AM. It's less than 2 miles from our house - so I will watch and wait for an opportunity to contact her husband.

The kids aren't his - they are his stepkids and he has had minimal contact with youngest only since D day.

This is me with my chin up <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Yes, I forgot this important fact.

It'll just make Plan B that much easier for you. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

WAT

Just got this short little email.

"Hi - I'm available Monday night, Thursday night, or Friday afternoon around 1:00. Do any of these days work for you?"

I'm thinking that later rather than sooner is better. Apparently, he doesn't like it when I am not immediately available. And I still want time to contact OW's husband.

Do you get he sense he's in a hurry?

Let him wait.

Time is on your side.

You are in control, whether you realize it or not. You have something he wants - control. That's why he's eager, I think. It very well could be that your "normal" desire to get things legally tied down has him scared. Very scared. - because it wasn't in his so, so easy fantasy world to have to tend to those nagging everyday chores.

WAT

Got a nice email back from WH's coworker. It looks like I might have some help there.

"As for work, it's the biggest non-secret nowadays. No one says anything but everyone knows. I guess I'm just thick or naive when I first saw them hanging out at work. I knew she was flirtatuous but you and Scott were so close that I didn't think anything of it. Scott did confide in me last fall that he had been thinking about being a dad and having a child of his own and that you two had thought about marriage counseling when he started acting differently. By different I mean more quiet, short with people, and moody. He told me how you couldn't have any more children and that you had told him that several times before you got married. I told him that you two had something very special and that you can't have everything in life and if that was the only problem he had that he should count himself lucky. I really don't know what makes a person throw away everything for something they know deep down is wrong. I agree with you that her husband should know."
He is going to try to find out OW's husband's workplace. In the meantime, I am working on an exposure letter for the OW's husband in case I get the opportunity to give it to him. I would much rather talk face to face, but the letter would serve the purpose just as well.

Emailed WH that I could meet Friday. That was it - short and to the point. I have a feeling that now that I have indeed confirmed to coworker, people might actually start "saying something" at work.

OK, good!

It would be typical if your H thinks no one at work suspects anything. WSs convince themselves that they are excellent secret keepers. This apparently is part of their rationalization; it plays into their justification - that no one will find out so the affair is worth the risk. The intoxication gets worse and worse and they get careless until - BINGO! Exposure takes place either by accident or by intervention.

Please remind me how close he was to your kids. Did they treat him as a Dad? Other than a biological connection, was anything missing?

WAT

Hi WAT,

WH was very close to the two boys. Their biological father sees them only sporadically at best. WH did all the ususal "dad" things - baseball, cub scouts, fishing, homework, etc. Youngest child doesn't ever remember a time that WH wasn't here. Like I said before, he has had minimal contact since he left. 18 year old is very angry and says he will never speak to him again. 12 year old is just lost. For him WH was a dad in every sense of the word. Back when A started, WH began pushing the boys away first - started talking about wanting his own child. Then he started pushing me away. Started finding fault with all of us.
Interesting email from the coworker. WH apparently talked to some people back when A started and told them about his desire for a child. I guess he was hoping to have someone validate his justification for "thinking about leaving his marriage". Everyone told him he was crazy. Guess that's why he has tried so hard to keep this a secret. Like I have said, from the outside looking in, and even from the inside, there wasn't anything wrong. I have had to look very hard to find out what EN's I wasn't meeting of his. I don't by any means think that I am without faults, but, after living through 2 other failed marriages, I know I put my heart and soul into this one. I vowed that I would never take him for granted or let things get stagnant. I always told him he was my hero, and my Giver was pretty much in ccontrol the whole time. I picked up his hobbies enthusiastically, I left cards and love notes for him, made his favorite foods, arranged my schedule so I could have a hot lunch ready for him everyday (he works only 3 miles from home), made it a point to flirt with him, and never once refused him sex. We are both very sexual people and were perfectly matched in that department.
Sorry. Getting that email from his coworker again reminds me how impossible this all seems. I still have moments where I don't believe that this can be real.

This is the letter that I have written to OW's husband. How does it sound? Any suggestions?

"Dear Robert,

We have never met, but unfortunately, we are connected. Your wife Toni has been having an affair with my husband, Scott, pretty much since she started at (their company) last June.

Here is what I know.

The flirting began almost right away. She told him that she was very unhappy in her marriage and that you were abusive.

Things really escalated the day they went on the “business trip” to *** Raceway. On that day, my husband told her that things couldn’t go any further because he was happily married, but, apparently, that changed.

Throughout August and September she would join him when he was fishing and they would hang out. She would let him know when she was going to be walking or running on **** Road and he would be certain to drive by so he could see her. They would arrange to meet at Home Depot or Wal-Mart.
On September 23 while I was home sleeping (I work nights), Scott told me he was going to his father’s grave in ******. Toni went with him that day. It was the first day they slept together. They never made it to ******. After that, they would meet in the Wal-Mart parking lot and have sex in her vehicle.
Scott told me all of this on December 28, 2005. I called your house to let you know. Toni answered and when I confronted her, she told me she had nothing to be ashamed of. She told Scott that she already told you.
Scott stayed at ****'s motel for the next few weeks and Toni would meet him there. I have motel receipts for Jan. 22 and 28 when they met there while Scott was staying at his mother’s.
Scott now lives in an apartment on ***** St. Ext. behind ********’s and that is where they meet now.
On Sat., February 18th, I was playing pool at the ****** in (next town). Someone pointed out Toni’s mother, Julie, to me. I introduced myself and told her who I was and what was going on. She told me that Toni had told her that there were rumors going around about her, but they weren’t true. She called Toni and apparently, after I left, Toni went to the bar. Kathryn, who knows about this affair as do all of our friends and family, told Toni that she thought it was time Toni told her mother the truth. Toni told her mother that you were abusive and that she wanted to leave you but couldn’t afford it. Her mother told her she would help her financially as long as there was not another man involved. All of this I found out from my brother-in-law who was there the whole time. Toni went to Scott’s apartment that night.
Toni plans to take the kids and leave you. She and Scott have talked about how they can manage financially. You should know this since they will be counting on your child support for four children.
They have also been having unprotected sex, and have decided that if Toni gets pregnant, that would be great.
I have exposed this affair to Jim ****** at (their company). My understanding is that everyone there knows it is going on, but no one says anything.

I don’t know if this is news to you or not. Maybe she told you that it is all over, but they are still seeing each other. I just thought that you had a right to know this.
I can be reached at ***-****. My email address is [email]lizziedora@yahoo.com.[/email] If you would like to talk or if I can be of any help to you, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
I don’t know what your feelings are, but I am hoping that they end this affair and we can rebuild our marriage. It is not just about the two of them; there are a lot of people who will get hurt, especially the children. My children already know and are devastated. As a matter of fact, my son is in the same grade as Colleen and they eat lunch at the same table.

I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I am sorry that both of us have been treated this way."

Found out where OW' husband works <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />. Tried to call but they do not put personal phone calls through. I am going to drive there and leave letter on his windshield - saw his truck yesterday when I found their house. I am in the wrong line of work - should have been a detective instead of a labor and delivery nurse <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />!!