jmwc95: Thank you, but it is not that easy to get rid of all contact info. They have common friends and quite a lot of them too. If any of them would want to contact the other there is surely someone who will help them. And I don't think it is a good idea to ask him to get rid of his friends if someone was going to suggest that.

I too think he is afraid of being alone. When I started this thread I was planning to let him miss me and guess if I still wanted him but after his letter and our conversation today I want to continue plan A. If he really is going to decide what he wants I think he should see me in all my plan A-splendour.

Also, the affair started when he felt lonely and started talking to OW who was taking care of him. If he feels lost and confused and I am there for him I will fill that need, right? If he does not commit to our marriage or if I learn that he is seeing OW I will change my plans.

Ok, I am going to say that hard words that are SCREAMING in my ears. This is the part that scares the poo out of me:



Your WH got "lonely" and accepted the attention of a married woman, with children. Another mans wife, a mom. Your WH is still hoping that this mans wife will dump her H, take his children, and turn him into a part-time, every other weekend type of Dad.

And some day, you will have children of your own. You will have nights when you are exhausted from cleaning up after a sick child. You will go days without having a single quiet moment to yourself, and your H will once again start to feel lonely. He will accuse you of spending too much time with the children, and not enough time with him. You will long for 15 minutes alone to take a bath, maybe have a glass of wine, just relax, but your H will expect you to meet ALL of his emotional needs instead. And when you don’t - he will quickly go find some one else. Heck, 5 years from now this same OW will likely re-surface. And then where will you be? In this same exact position. Only then, you will also have children who will be hurt by their walk away Dad.

You could likely do a great plan A, and this man will remember what a kind, loving, beautiful woman you are, and he will wnat your attnetions again. But is this really a man that you can count on for life? To be with you even when you are too tired for sex?

Marriage is hard work. Marriage with kids is harder. Is this man really ready for the long haul?

He has all ready said that he doesn't even trust him self. That does not jsut go away. IF you decide to take him back - and I am sure he will eventually come back - you really need to makre sure there is a huge change in his actions. A true aknowledgement that what he did was WRONG.

Right no you are making excuses for him. He CAN stop all contact with her. I don't care how many mutual acquaintances they have - if he becomes the man he needs to be, in order to be a decent father, he will need to stop ALL cotnact with her, forever. Please don;t make excuses for him - you aren;t helping him. you are only setting yourself up for future heart ache.

At the very least, please read "Love Must Be Tough" by James Dobson, as another poster suggested. You need to see that it is not enough just to have a marriage, any old marriage. You need this man to step up and be a part of a GOOD marriage. if he can't do it, or won't do it, then please do not have children with this man. He is not a good father figure. Your babies deserve much better.

amen!

womanoffaith5: Thank you, I will think about all you have written.

But I want to explain what I meant when I wrote that it is not easy to get rid of all contact info. I meant that there is no way to prevent her from contacting him if she would want to (or the other way around). There will always be someone who knows someone who knows them (unless we break contact with all friends and family and that is not an option to me).

The only solution would be that he does not want to see her. So I agree with you, he must make that choice to be the man he needs to be.

WH came by yesterday and told me that
a) OW has told him that she will leave her husband (she has done that many times before and changed her mind)
b) He will see her again.

I just can't understand this! He tells me himself that he thinks I am a great person and that he has always been happy with me and he still does not want our marriage. I am tired of this and the only thing I can do is shake my head and consider him a moron. I am pretty sure that OW will change her mind again next week and WH will feel as the idiot he is (at the moment).

I told him to go and see OW if he pleases but I also told him to look at some old photos and look me in the eyes (me on the photos that is) and tell me that he does not want me in his life.

You see, he basically worshipped the ground I walked on when we started dating. That was probably one of our problems since I thought that he would always do that even if I did not take care of him. But still, he has loved me for so many years and I am an important person to him.

The madness of "falling in love", I hope I will never be that stupid.

Maybe my friends are right when they tell me "let him miss you, then he will want to kiss you". I have done the best plan A I can for the moment, now lets see what happens if I don't give him any attention.

Somehow I hope that OW would leave her husband so that WH would see the true colour of the grass on the other side. But as I wrote, that is very onlikely. I expect that this will only be another round similar to the ones before and everyone will get hurt. Again.

I would appreciate any support or advice. I am not as tough as I may look...

Immediate Plan B. No "if"s, "and"s, or "but"s about it. Write a plan B letter detailing the conditions.

Do ***NOT*** allow him to cake-eat any more! Explain to him that the ONLY way you will continue any sort of contact with him he will have to meet your terms: Require a NC letter from him sent to her with your approval. Require him to change all his contact info (phone, email, etc.). No contact with him until he has agreed to (and followed through with) your terms.

Go DARK. Very DARK. Do not ask his friends about him. Do not discuss your situation with anyone that will "report" how much you miss him. Join a gym. Start a hobby. Move on without him until he is ready to recommit.

You gotta shake him up to wake him up.

cathys01: Thank you. Where can I find an example of a plan B letter? Is recovery really possible after plan B? I am afraid that the result will just be that he will stride away even further. I have left him a lot of photos of us through all years, I guess I can't take them back. Is it a good thing that he has them?

I also wonder about contact with the opposite sex during plan B. I am really beginning to miss attention and body contact and it is eating me. Now that WH has told me once again that he wants to see OW I feel that I don't want him because he is not the man I have known anymore. If some nice man would want to see me I can't see why I should not. Besides, I don't think WH would take me seriously if I don't start dating, in that case he would just think that I am still waiting for him. I know that he should not get any information about me but we live in a small town and there will always be someone who knows something about me.

Dating is a bad idea. You are still married.

If you really feel like dating, divorce him, and then date.

Otherwise get a plan and stick to it. Your husband is cake eating, trying to keep both of you while he decides which one will make him the happiest.

believer: Thank you for reminding me of that. It is just that I am so tired of all this. In one way I think it would be easier if he did not like me and told me that he has found the woman of his dreams (all this blah blah people hear from their WS's).

But he really likes me and what bothers me is that he seems to think it is normal to move on in life and leave his family just because he thinks it may be better somewhere else.

I did not sleep well tonight but I will do my best to be strong and happy now.

I will write a letter to him but I don't know if it will be a proper plan B letter. I will tell him that I think we can recover our relationship and our love but if he persists with the affair I will not see him. I will not tell him that I will be waiting for him and I will not tell him that I am moving on, just that I will not see him for now. Maybe I should do a 180?

I have been thinking about the events of the last months and I have a psychological theory. The affair blossoms every time WH gets depressed and down. It started when he was depressed and I did not support him. OW approached him and they went around as if they were mad. Then they withdrew from each other and it was quiet for a while. Then WH and I had a fight and he was all upset, did not sleep for a week and started to fall back into depression. Bam! OW came running and told him she would leave her husband. All calmed down again but last week I talked to WH and sent him that letter and he was upset and worried again. A few days later OW comes running and tells him that she will leave her husband.

I know that it is not my actions that make WH have an affair but do you think it makes sense? I think that when he is depressed and goes around looking sad and down it triggers something in OW, maybe she thinks he looks like a dangerous and exciting man. According to WH they have not spoken for the last weeks but I know that they are in the same place sometimes and eye contact is also a kind of contact. I also suspect that he seeks OW to escape his depression and thinks that she will make him happy.

Anyway, I am almost sure that OW will change her mind again and stay with her husband (if he allows her). That should be a love buster for WH, or am I wrong?

OK, this is not a plan B letter but it is what I want to say to him. I don't think there is any need to tell him that he must stop contact with OW, he already knows that he can't have our marriage and see her. My idea is to let him float without any information from me for two weeks and then send him the letter.

I would appreciate your comments:

"Dear H
I truly believe that we can make our marriage work and that we can love each other again. We have been happy together and we still have so much in common. But I know that it will not happen as long as you don't want to.
If you want to have our relationship I expect you to start working on it and give it 100%. You can let me know if and when you are ready to do that, I don't know where I will be by then.
I love you and I am sorry I have to do this.
why_us"

I wouldn't send the letter. I would go to Plan B. I also would not take him back until he gets treatment for his depression and counseling. You don't want to have THAT hanging over your head - that everytime you have a fight, or he is depressed, he looks for someone new.

why_us

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=37;t=019428

Here are some example Plan B letters.
Hope this helps.

MyBad
-------------------
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.

believer and MyBad: Thank you, I will read the examples and work on another letter tonight.

I am really up and down today. In the morning I was thinking about OW and wondering if she really is a more caring and loving person than I am. Then I went to an aerobics class and had lots of fun and sweat for one hour. Afterwards I had a delicious lunch and felt on top of the world.

But I have been thinking about OW and what kind of person she is. I have talked to her husband a few times and the first time, when I exposed the affair to him, he told me a few things about his wife. He said that she is an emotional person and requires a lot of attention to be happpy. When I am in a maybe-she-is-a-great-person mood I think that she may be very loving and make WH feel great in a way I have never done. But then I think about her lies and cheating and the fact that she betrays not only her husband but also their children and I think of her an egoistic person who follows any feeling no matter how temporary.

Besides, I don't understand what WH thinks their relationship can lead to. Even when I talked to him yesterday he said that one things which is important to him in life is to have children. OW is almost 40 years old, she already has two children and is busy with her carrier. Would she really want another child? What kind of castle in the air does WH think he will be moving into?

Why:

What castle in the Air?

Plan B will MAKE WH see this castle. And be troubled by it.

But before the true Plan B can start, you have to do a Plan A, that shows him how great a wife you can be, and will be in the future, and that you know how to treat him.

How have you done in Plan A?

Sounds like OW Husband needs to know about Plan B as well.

WH running to OW when he's stressed/depressesd/addressed? Well Duh. The weakness of the Wayward.

Life is hard, and OW will always be an escape....

WH has to make a choice to turn back to you to resolve the Stress/depression that haunts him.

I learned. He may not. It's easier to blame others.

15 hours a week. Undivided attention. You give your H that, the M will be strong.

And remember, most of the process around here is on working on YOU. And then by YOU getting better, the Wayward's follow.

Doesn't always work, but when it does, OMG!

LG

lousygolfer: I just meant that if WH imagines that he will move in with OW in a cosy little flat, have her attention day and night and start building a family with her I think he will soon realise that things will not happen that way. I don't think he has even seen her children (at least I hope not) and they have never even spent 24 hours together. Maybe that is what you meant when you wrote that WH will see the castle and be troubled by it???

I don't know how good my plan A has been (I have done it since February). I have done my best to be more positive and give him attention and appreciation of all kind. When the affair started I was just working on our new house and when he told me he was unhappy I did not care about it, my only goal was to finish the house. The last few weeks before he left we almost did not meet. So I understand that undivided attention is important, I guess I have learned that the hard way.

During plan A I have been understanding to him, we have had lots of talks about him feeling confused and scared. He moved to a decent room two months ago and when he said that it was his fixed point in life where he could feel safe I offered him understanding and really tried to be the calm and caring partner I want to be. I feel that he is confused and has a big void in himself but he does not admit it to himself.

I have also started some new hobbies, joined a discussion group, I exercise more frequently (which I have always liked but not put priority on), I try to be more social (he has complained in the past years that I have become less social). I have cleaned out my closet and got myself new clothes that make me look great, I care about my hair and make-up more and try to be attractive in many ways. Ironically enough, one of the things he likes about me is that I am good at making a place homely and welcoming although that was what made me stop caring about our marriage.

I think my most important lesson is that it was wrong to think that he would always love me no matter what I did. I have a pretty good idea how a good wife should be and I have not been the best I can be. Unfourtunately.

lousygolfer: I forgot to ask you, what is your experience with depression and affairs? You wrote that it's easier to blame others, would WH blame someone for his depression/state of mind?

I have been reading the plan B letter examples. I must think more about this. In one way it would be nice not have any contact at all with WH. In another way I want to show him that I can be the wife he dreams of and I have not lost my love for him.

I am not sleeping well tonight either :-( I will try to find some sleeping pills for tomorrow night, it can't go on like this.

I am thinking about plan B. My guess for what will happen in the near future is that OW will see WH a few times every week for 2-4 weeks and then change her mind and want to stay with her husband. It has happened a number of times before. If her husband makes her leave their house I don't know what will happen. In one way that would be a good thing, I think reality would hit them soon and the affair would not be fun anymore.

But at the moment I'm not sure if OWH knows what his wife has promised WH. If OW changes her mind once again I think that WH should see that her "love" for him is not real. I don't understand how he can be so stupid to believe it again and again!

Anyway, do you think that my best option is plan B in both scenarios?

I am not quite ready for it. For example, last week I bought some luxury chocolate for WH to give him at an appropriate time. I would like to go to him and hand over the chocolate without saying much. But maybe it is a good thing to continue being nice and caring until the very end of plan A?

Y-us,

Take a look at your posts, here is what I see:

1. A confused WS.
2. A fickle OW
3. A frustrated OWH (also a BS)
4. A frustrated BS (that's U)

Items 1 & 2 go up and down with their emotions. The OW knows how to reel the WS in and the WS is stupid enough to believe it.

What part of your life would you entrust to either character?

Items 3 & 4 are more stable but allow the roller coaster into their lives. It is nauseating.

When do you want to get off the roller coaster? Do you want to know what it will take to do so? Do you want to stay off or jump back on when there is the slightest progress (not permanent, just slightest)?

Plan A or plan B is implemented by you and for you. It is NOT meant to teach the WS anything. Why? Because WS' are not capable of learning. They are in the fog, both in mind and body.

NOTE: It is a good thing he is confused. A confused WS is a weak WS and that's a good thing.

Have you read Surviving an Affair?

When you have digested, this post, come back and we can share more steps you can consider. Not all of it is hard. You have started down the correct path. Don't turn aside to help a WS.

Most importantly: Do NOT give good chocolate to a WS. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> That is a waste of a valuable resource. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

take care,
L.