Please help me word this so it retains the message but is non-threatening and non-LBing. This was a draft to brain dump the idea but

WW seems scared to honestly communicate and I want this to not be perceived as a threat:

Dear WW,

I don't think we can make any real progress as long as I believe there is a possibility that you are not being 100% honest with me. By

honest, I mean VOLUNTEERING to provide me with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I also see that you are not at

this time in a place to be able or willing to be proactive about it. I want to work with your strengths and weaknesses in mind so I

would like to provide you with a jumping off point for your assignment.

In order to be able to comprehend things, I will treat these as three seperate affairs, Affair1 being the period when you first became

involved with OM in '98-'99. Affair2 being your affair with OW and Affair3 being the renewed affair with OM that I guess, was resumed

in '06. I will also refer to the period of time '00-'06 when allegedly there were no affairs, but you and OM kept in touch as the

Interlude.

I will also provide my understanding of the Recovery Plan as it currently exists: We have both agreed that we wish to have a happy,

loving marriage. We both agree that being raised by both of their parents in the same happy, safe home is what is best for Jack and

Grace. We have both agreed that the Marriage Builders program probably provides us with the best chance of achieving these goals, and

have agreed to use Steve Harley as our counselor in this program.

To recap the steps we have taken so far, you have agreed that your affair with OM is over. I take this to mean that ALL of your

affairs are over, forever. Over means no contact for the rest of your life and resuming contact means resuming the affair and is a

deal breaker for me. This was agreed on February 2. You have written OM a "No contact" letter, I have sent that letter to OM and a

copy of that letter to his wife OMW along with a letter of my own explaining why she received it. OMW and I have spoken on the phone

to exchange information in early February and have not spoken since. OMW had received an email from me on February 8 with the other

documentation I had at that time. she confirmed receipt of that email and we have not exchanged email since. On February 12, OM

received your letter and called you to discuss the situation. You did not take the calls and he left a total of three messages with

that escalated form a request to discuss whay you were so meain-spirited, which when not returned escalated into threats to return your

mean spiritedness with publishing a sex tape of you two on the internet and it getting worse from there. Despite my advise and request

that you not accede to his balckmail, you called him that evening to defuse the situation. After this call he sent you a text message

advising that he had gotten his say and would leave you alone and insisted that you leave his family alone.

From this point we have both read Surviving an Affair and Love Busters and counseled with Steve Harley. Up until our session with

Steve on February 22, those session have been individual counseling and there have been no coordinated activities, they were setting

the stage for implementing the Marriage Builders plan. On February 22, you received and assignment. We apparently had different

understandings of this assignment so I will lay out my understanding below. After the completion of the assignment we should share our

Love Busters and emaotional needs questionanaires.

In order to proceed past the point where I am, I need to be confident that we will not repeat these past mistakes. In particular

though, I need to be confident that you will not resort to having any more affairs. In order to be confident in this, I need to

understand how each started, progressed and died. I need to know your emotional needs which were not fulfilled, how the affair

fulfilled those and how the affairs stopped providing those needs so they could die.

You have expressed that you are willing to answer any questions that I may have regarding the affairs, but you have not decided to

volunteer the "whole story". Since it seems to me that you would prefer to react to my requests, instead of proactively volunteering

this information, I will get the ball rolling with a series of questions. This is not intended to be an interrogation, but rather a

launch point for the discussions. If you choose not to answer a question at this time that is fine, you may do so in your own time. We

can remain deliberate in our progress and not try to bite off too much at once.

Now to the detailed requests:
The following are the over-arching questions I am asking myself. I am hoping that more detailed discussion will allow me to see the

answers. These cannot be answered with words alone but must be backed by actions, and examples that I can cite to myself:
A)How have WW's views and actions changed?
b)How has WW changed her role in creating the problems that we have in our marriage?
C)How have WW's problem solving skills changed so that an affair is no longer a problem solving tool?
D)What has WW done to indicate that she has a better understanding of marriage, vows, and her role in the marriage?

With regard to each individual affair, please tell me the following:
1)At the start of the affair, what emotional needs were not being met?
2)At what time did WW begin to allow these needs to be met by another person? How, where?
3)At what time did WW realize that this was not just a frienship, but a romantic relationship that worth jeopardizing her marriage, and

later her children's futures? What triggered the realization? Did she have an urge to tell me? If not, why? If so, why didn't she

tell me?
4)Once WW realized the relationship was serious, what specific things di she want from the relationsip? Did she get these things?

Why/why not? What did she do to try harder to get them?
5)When Affair1 went into the cooling off period, what happened? Why did it cool? What was WW's reaction to those events? What was

OM's reaction? Where did she then turn to start having those needs met that were being met by her affair?
6)When they remained in contact during the interlude, who called who? What did they discuss? Were there other affairs that I have not

discovered?

Finally, I have found that I can trust my instincts, they are accurate and reliable. I do not always feel that I believe what WW is

telling me. When in doubt I am going to trust my instincts, not what she is telling me. My instincts are screaming that WW fears

being completely honest with me. Why? Do we need to look at this before we can even begin this Assignment?

Oh, wow ....

What exactly was her assignment?

To me, this letter seems pretty harsh, lecturing, and long. I'm not sure exactly what points you were trying to make .... was the point of it to get the questions out? To tell her to hurry up and do her assignment? To recap events? What are you trying to get across?

Steve has told my H and I both that it's HIS job to be the enforcer when one person is not doing their assignments. And that we could avoid some big LB's by not putting ourselves in that enforcer role. Has he suggested something different in your case?

I'm not a WS, but this letter would scare the heck out of me, and probably would not make me want to open up much. If you can give some bullet points about what you're trying to get across, maybe people here can help you come up with simpler, gentler, ways to do it?


-AmI.

Super AmI,
That's what I was looking for. So really yes the questions I guess are the real point or to hurry up, I don't know. BUT getting an outside opinion on the stream of consciousness confirmed what i was suspecting, too much, too intense. I will go break it up into smaller pieces in order to have some focus and digestible pieces.

Thanks

I'm curious why you want to have any input into HER assignment.

Because her interpretation of completing the assignment was to tell me that she realizes that her affair(s) was the result of her allowing someone else to meet her EN and she will not allow allow that to happen again. When I responded that that was great, and asked what those ENs were that were met by the A, she shut down the conversation immediately and has not approached the subject again. I do suppose that I can simply ask her when she believes she will want to resume the conversation and see what she says. On considering it, I believe a better option. I suppose that I am becoming frustrated with her as I perceive an outward agreement to following MB principles but no follow through.

This past weekend I told her that I was going to back away from driving the agenda because I sensed that I might be pushing her too hard, she told me she did not want me to back away from driving.

Ask some more because I don;t think I am asking myself the right questions.

i for one, dont see the "because" connection.
The assignment isnt to give back to you, it's to give back to Steve, isnt it? Unless Steve explicitly said that part of the assignment was to let you comment on it... what you are doing is only building up tension between you two. you should let Steve respond to it. dont even try any kind of response to it yourself, unless Steve says you should.

I agree with Techie. I was looking for your story, and only found bits and pieces. Has your wife had more than one affair? Do you have children? How long married?

What was the marriage like BEFORE any affair? What did she complain about?

I agree. Let Steve be the judge of her assignment. He will ask you for your input. Let him be the enforcer.

And I'm with believer, I don't really know all of your story. A synopsis would be helpful.


As for your questions, I have to go back to my original question -- what are you trying to get out of this? Do you want a full recounting, with all the dirty details, of the story? Do you want a guarantee that you have "the whole truth", or that she won't ever be capable of having another A (and do you believe that that guarantee is possible?), or what are you looking for?

"The following are the over-arching questions I am asking myself. I am hoping that more detailed discussion will allow me to see the answers. These cannot be answered with words alone but must be backed by actions, and examples that I can cite to myself:
A)How have WW's views and actions changed?
b)How has WW changed her role in creating the problems that we have in our marriage?
C)How have WW's problem solving skills changed so that an affair is no longer a problem solving tool?
D)What has WW done to indicate that she has a better understanding of marriage, vows, and her role in the marriage?"

These questions seem so acusatory and harsh. Do you really want her to answer them? And if they were turned to you, could you answer them? How have YOUR views and actions and roles in creating the M problems changed? How have YOUR problem solving skills changed? What have YOU done to indicate that you have a better understanding of marriage, vows, etc.?

What are you really hoping to get from asking these questions? I'd talk to Steve before presenting her with anything like that.


"With regard to each individual affair, please tell me the following:
1)At the start of the affair, what emotional needs were not being met?
2)At what time did WW begin to allow these needs to be met by another person? How, where?"

Maybe an FWS will weigh in here, but I can't imagine that she'd be able to answer these questions. I can't imagine that anyone would be able to.

It seems so much more productive to focus on meeting each other's needs NOW. Finding out what her needs are and filling up that love bank. Was her assignment to tell you which needs the A's met?

"3)At what time did WW realize that this was not just a frienship, but a romantic relationship that worth jeopardizing her marriage, and later her children's futures? What triggered the realization? Did she have an urge to tell me? If not, why? If so, why didn't she tell me?"

Have you read here about the fog and the rationalization (or lack thereof) of WS's?
They don't think "Hey, this is not just a friendship, it is now a romantic relationship worth jeopardizing my M and kids! Think I'll tell my spouse about my good fortune!".
They think "I can handle a little flirting, it's no big deal, and it makes me feel good ... Mmm, this feels good, and I DESERVE to feel good. ... Hmmmm, need a little more of that feel-good stuff ... I am ENTITLED to it ... " etc.



I think it's ok to ask questions, and natural to want to know some of the answers. If you're counseling with Steve, then I think the best thing you could do is let him guide you through the process of asking what you need to ask. As he says, you have to handle each other with extraordinary care right now.

-AmI.

GameFace,

My business is communication. I actually analyze language, its meaning, its underlying meaning, and the like.

I want to help you, but the letter, it's out. Completely. Please, don't send it.

Because it doesn't come close to saying what you feel or think.

It sounds like a lawyer wrote it, not a husband who wants to recover his marriage.


The letter you wrote tells me that you are afraid she doesn't know what you have been through so far, that you have fears she will not follow through with the hard work and assignments in counseling, that you feel the need to propel her through the course of recovery, that you want more time to talk with her about the A, that you haven't gotten the answers you want to your questions, and that you feel a need to control things lest they go awry again.

None of which this letter will affect/change/solve/cure.

If you absolutely feel the need to write her a letter, it shouldn't be this one. If you write a letter, try again, but come from a place of love this time, not hurt, not anger, not fear. Remember, she's not the enemy, she's someone you love, and you are trying to reconcile with her. So maybe a letter that talks about your hopes and dreams for the future......

She knows where you've been, and what has happened.



I think you are a little off track here, because Steve's assignment to her is just that - HER assignment. You cannot control it. You cannot do her assignment for her, and it isn't your job to police it. While she may not be doing the recovery work the way YOU want her to, your job at this point is to let her do the work SHE needs to do in her own way. Because you have your own work to do.

In school, the teacher would tell you to keep your eyes on your own paper. (Please consider this a foam-covered 2X4)

All of this unfolds in time, GameFace. And unfortunately, (or fortunately), we cannot take it all in and fix it in one day. She needs the time to process what she has done, as much as you need time to work through the pain.

All in its own time. This is a rollercoaster ride that you didn't buy the ticket for, and you aren't in control of when you get on or off, when it starts or stops, or how steep the climbs or sharp the curves are. You're on for the ride. But you learn to sit down, be still when you need to, and hang on.

You are in great hands with SH. Do your homework. And don't do hers.

SB

SB:

THREADJACK:

Hi, SchoolBus!

Threadjack over.

All,
Thanks for the input. Actually after AmIok asked me WTF are you doing? I just backed away from the whole thing and realized I was really looking to vent and I certainly don;t want to vent in FWW direction. So the letter is in the round file and I am instead going to the doctor to discuss a prescription for sleep aids...been sleeping 4-5 hrs per night and this is really the most immediate thing I need to address to get my head back on straight.

Thanks again, I appreciate that i can trust the board for sanity checks.