BK, no I am not playing with you in any regard. I am very serious. I am also very confused right now about what has happened over the past 24 hours. And, I have read a number of your posts and respect your intelligence and knowledge.

Todd, 3 things:

1st thing: R = Recovery, am I right?
2nd thing: How old is DS3?
3rd thing: You are typing much better and you are much more together than you have been (apart from the WW sitch I mean). I think that is VERY positive in terms of your health.

Ok, answer me the first two and I hope you respect my intelligence and knowledge too. (Me, me, me - it's all about me LOL). Actually it isn't all about me, just got a few thoughts that's all.

OK Todd. Excellent. The MB Program works. Can you counsel with the Harleys? It's not inexpensive. Failing that, as long as both of you are willing to wholeheartedly throw yourselves into it you could try the MB Home Study Audio CD Course - it worked for us.

Again, the starting point is NC. If your wife commits to that and writes a letter, she will then go through a period of withdrawal. The end of withdrawal will be pretty much evident by the way the fog disappears and she starts to see things as they actually are instead of in fogese.

I am presuming of course that she is not in contact with OM. Is OM married? Have you contacted his spouse? She could be a good ally in enforcing NC.

Todd - NC is KEY here. I can almost give you a 100% guarantee that if NC is established and maintained that things will dramatically improve but be warned, they will get worse while she is in withdrawal before they get better.

I'm sorry if some of this is redundant but I really have taken a lot of this thread with a grain of salt and have skimmed much of it. I will be more attentive in the future so I can be more helpful.

oh and do the EN survey, read all you can on this site and start meeting needs - both of you.

Ok, Todd, you're not around so I'll say what I was going to say anyway.

I don't think people understand how your adult children are still very much your children. So often I hear that people will make their decisions when their children are "in college" or "moved out of home". I know the relationship I have with my children and how devastated they would be if anything happened to our marriage. They are 28 and 26 as mentioned in my sig line and they still look to us for the security of their world. But they're not stupid, they don't want us just to "be together", they want us to be happy together. The fact that we're happy together means far more to them than us just being together.

HOWEVER, they are adults and live in their own world and have their own trials and challenges and lives to lead.

If you can't love your w again I think you'd be making the biggest mistake of your life to reconcile with her. Even given your health, I can see you living to a ripe old age. Do you really want to spend it with someone who is not your support, your helpmate, your best friend, because your sons will be unhappy if you don't.

You will be doing your sons a disservice and you will be doing yourself a disservice.

If you really think you and your w will be happy, go for it, but only do it for you and her, not your family. I truly do understand how much your DS's feelings influence how you're feeling right now but it's YOUR life, not theirs.

I agree with KiwiJ (for once). WW created this problem and it is her responsibility to solve it. You going for R just to spare DS3's feelings simply continues denial.

BigK, OM is divorced. OMW knows all and is no help. Lives out-of-state I believe.

Now KiwiJ, apply your logic to my sitch. I promised my DD1 that I would not split our family apart. On the other hand, I am not the one who has done it. Gemela is the one who has split our family apart. Do I accept her back (assuming she will want that) just to keep the DDs happy?

And what the heck does all this mean?

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Forum error Pio - sucks but doesn't seem to cause a problem.

Pio - I would reconcile for no reason other than you believe you can love your wife again. Same goes for Todd. I agree with Jen on this.

Reconciliation and Recovery is a joke if you can't love your wife again.

On the upside, if you follow the MB program, you will love your wife again.

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

Well, I don't do logic, but that was rather a big promise to make to DD1 under the circumstances. She won't care if it was you or it was her mother who broke the family up, her family is breaking up.

They can't stay out of contact with their mother, you need a plan for joint parenting.

I really feel for your little girls. I think you are being a wonderful father to them and doing wonderfully under awful circumstances but you really do need to resolve things as quickly as possible.

Sorry, that sounds like a ramble.

That other stuff "failed to open stream" etc is just a PITA that seems to have happened recently.

Respect your what??? I mean really!!!!!!!

Just kidding Jen.
Acutally if I can say this properly; I personally believe that FWS can bring a unique perspective to a BS sitch. I badly need perspective. I care only, at this point, about the well-being of my sons.

Amd yes, I respect your intelligence and knowledge.

Thanks.

Well did we wake up on the wrong side of the world this morning or what? Wait - you DID!

I was only joking but you already knew that.:'(

Todd, I have NO idea what your wife wants. I just don't get it at all. Without MB, as you wife has been, she just won't get it. Who knows how everything would have turned out if I hadn't confessed in April about what had happened and had not been given the REAL truth from everyone about where I was and what was really going on.

Sorry, that's not very helpful is it?

I know the well being of your sons is paramount for you but as I said before, my kids aren't stupid, they don't want us to just be together, they want proof that we're happy and it hasn't been at all hard to give it to them.

Your sons will see through any falseness immediately.

LOL Pio. I didn't even answer your question. The answer is a resounding NO.

I didn't know you were joking, you hadn't put "warning, joke ahead".

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

BTW, DD is now in Paris. Remind me again, we LOVE the French don't we.

They will be meeting up with a couple of kiwi friends, my SIL's niece and her very charming French H and the b/f's parents (not all at the same time).

Soon they will be in the USA.

Well I will confess that I do love their mustard. I won't put anything but French's Mustard on MY hot dogs.

LOL, I thought you were going to say Dijon mustard.

French's Mustard is lost on this kiwi.

Anyway, Monday tomorrow and back to the salt mines of academia, so I might just be going to bed.

If you do a google search on French's Mustard, it is owned by Reckitt Benckiser PLC. So my French's mustard is really British mustard. But that sort of spoils it.

Well I don't believe in soulmates. I think it is very easy to fall in love with someone if you don't guard against it. Yes I could love gemela again. There is also a lot of pain that makes it difficult to want to.

I think a lot depends on what gemela says and does when she comes back. Right now I think our fate is very much in her hands. The UK hand baggage restrictions are severe - so much so that I will never fly BA again. But gemela is in Mexico with two hand carry bags that will not pass in the UK. I told her today that if she tries to take them, she will be refused at the security check, have to clear immigration and document the bags and then go back through security. If she does all that there is almost no chance to make the flight. I told her that her spending even one night in London is automatic divorce - no questions asked. I asked her to consider how much those bags meant to her and whether they were worth her marriage.

For all I know she may decide she wants to be divorced. I can live with that. I am not totally closing the door but she is going to have to fight her way back through it. If she fights for the M, I think we will be okay. If she doesn't, we will be divorced.

BK, Todd, Kiwi, Pio...anyone...advice

Prior to agreeing to MC H made tentative arrangements to move out...the new abode would be available sometime this month...the thing is, it is an arrangement made through one of the OWs for a colleague of hers and would be housesitting...the arrangement would last a year. I was all for it prior to his decision to try and recover M...I told him when he said he wanted to try MC and work on M that if he was serious about it he should not move out...I said that the arrangement was an easy out for whenever he decided he didn't want to work on M and that I would consider it a "love shack" for him to bring OWs to when he was going to supposedly be working on M.

His perspective is that it is a stable, viable, financially feasible plan in case "you pull your card and toss me out like you have attempted to 3 times in the past 2 months". It is true prior to his agreeing to recover M I have asked him to leave but for financial reasons he stays...he left once but came back after 48 hours b/c he couldn't stand to be away from the kids...

Do I tell him to move on with the move out...he hasn't mentioned it since he brought it up at MC over a week ago...I have no idea what his intent is...or do I plan B him from home with him living here or just go along with the MC, detach and see where things go????

I am so confused. I really do want to R the M and this is the most effort I have seen since the beginning of this nightmare in March...I don't know what to think...the last thing he told me is that he is staying for two reasons: financial and he is not sure what he wants