Here is my Plan B Letter. I welcome any advice on content & tone.
Dear WH,
I write this letter to you today with some sorrow, but also with a sense of peace and hope for my own future.
I love you very much and have always loved you, and my belief in our marriage vows has always been strong. You have always been my "rock" and I have leaned on your many strengths throughout the years. I am sorry that I never told you that often enough. I wish I had done that and many other things to let you know this.
I regret that we find ourselves in this place that is lonely and confusing for both of us. Until you left, I did not understand how truly miserable you were. I did not realize how our behavior patterns had negatively affected our marriage. I tried many times, but did not know how to meet your emotional needs the way you needed for them to be met.
I have done much introspection over the last several months, and with IC's help have been learning a lot about myself. I have made some changes in my life. Some of these you may have noticed, others you may not have. I will continue with my changes to become a more attractive, independent & healthy person. I have demonstrated to myself that it is possible for me to do this and that these changes are permanent. I still have much work to do, but with every success I have, my hope for my future is more confident.
As my hope for my future increases, so does my sorrow over your limited efforts to mend the hurts of our marriage. I know that you love me & care for me deeply, I want to be more than friends--I want us to be working to recover our marriage. But I do not see actions to support your words. I hear you saying that you will be committed and that we can be exclusive, but I don't see active followup to that on your part.
I would feel safe in trusting that our goals for Marriage Recovery are the same if you showed me by:
marriage counseling with Steve Harley or someone locally, no contact with OW#1, OW#2 or OW#3, transparency of any passwords, discontinuing the use of dating sites, getting rid of the cell phone in OW#1's name, spending quality time together, reading and discussing marriage recovery materials, etc. These are things that you could do that would help me to believe that you are working toward Marriage Recovery and actively protecting OUR relationship.
Whenever you can become comfortable working toward Marriage Recovery, instead of being "friends", then I have every confidence that we could start over and build a wonderful, new marriage if we both committed to making that happen. Should there come a time when you could commit wholly to a new "US", then I would be willing to discuss this with you along with your needs as part of our reconciliation and recovery. My hope is that this will be possible at some time in the future.
In order to preserve the love that I still have for you and to keep my Love Bank from dropping any lower, I feel it is necessary to limit contact between us to financial, legal or family matters. You are very familiar with the MarriageBuilders concepts and I believe you understand that this is not a punishment. This is to safeguard my love so that if there should come a time when we can both commit to working actively to rebuild our marriage, that there is still love and hope left with which to do that.
We have always been best friends. I cannot imagine who I would rather spend the rest of my life with other than with my Best Friend.
Love Always,
cgw
