No, Lexxxy, my old job was temporary and would be ending now anyway. I have nothing in Old Town, no family, no job. I do have a few friends, but professionally Old Town was not good for me. My family lives in a different state where I have never lived and have no connections.

OW2 doesn't live near us-- she's in this state but it's at least 6 hours away. OW1 is only a half hour away. I think OW1 will move back to Old Town if they don't hook back up.

I like it here. This job is the best I've ever had. And I like New Town, too. I feel duped into getting here, but I do like it.

Very sorry to hear that this has happened, SE. I think that you should seriously consider a pitch black plan B just as soon as possible. Since everytime you've pulled away, he comes back to you, it sounds to me as though a plan B might be effective for you.

Set some STRONG plan B ending guidelines tho. Some serious, measureable things that he MUST complete before you'll CONSIDER working on reconciliation with him.

MC, NC with any of them, complete honesty and openness, total accountability...etc... If he balks or says no to completing any of these BEFORE you accept him back, turn your back on him and remain in plan B.

Time to take care of yourself...

Here's my Plan B letter so far. I didn't know about including financial info in it, is that something that should be separate?


Dear H,

You know I love you and adore you with my heart, my mind and my body. When we married I thought it would be forever and have never considered that we would be apart one day. The thought that we may not grow old together truly pains me. We have had great times and we had bad times, but we had each other.

I know we had problems. You have told me that I began questioning you, that I did not respect you. I cannot change the past, but I have learned from my mistakes and I sincerely apologize to you.

I have thought a lot about our marriage, our current situation and about where we are going. You know my thoughts and feelings. I love you, I want to be with you and work on making our marriage the best ever. I cannot guarantee it will last 50 years or 5 years, but I know that when we try together we do well. I am ready to work wholeheartedly on our marriage.

I commit to you and our marriage. We need help, we need counseling, but it takes two of us, I cannot do it alone. You are my friend, my lover and my husband. I only want true happiness for you and do not wish any harm or ill to you. The past nine months dealing with your affair with OW1 have been the most difficult time of my life. The pain and emptiness that I experience on a daily basis is almost too much to bear. My only saving grace is the thought of us being together and happy again some day. Unfortunately, I find now that is slowly being shattered as well as you have begun a new affair with OW2. Before I lose that hope of our future together completely, I must take some drastic steps.

To preserve the love I have for you, and my own sanity, I have come to a decision of my own. I need to stop seeing you until you decide one way or the other what you want for your future. The current situation is becoming extremely stressful and hurtful for me. This is not an ultimatum or a threat, it is just the only way I know that I can survive. I know that I risk losing you forever, but I cannot continue to see you without putting pressure on you to make a decision. And I don’t want to pressure you any more, it is not fair and it is not respectful of you. If you choose to come back and work on our marriage, I want to know that you have done it because you love me, not because you have felt pressured into doing it.


I am still willing to do whatever it takes to correct the mistakes that we have made in the past and make our marriage together stronger and closer than we ever thought possible. I simply cannot do this until you end your relationships with OW1 and 2. You must know and realize about the pain and suffering that I have endured because of your relationships with them.

As soon as you are willing to permanently separate from OW1 and OW2, ending ALL communication with both of them, and commit to marriage counseling, I will be ready and willing to discuss our future together. I need to know that you will put all the effort you put into your job into taking care of our marriage, and that means complete honesty and accountability as well.

I will send you by email all the information you need to take of the bills that are your responsibility. I will pay {this and that}, you will be responsible for {this and that}.

Please respect my decision and do not contact me until you are willing to make the commitments necessary to save our marriage.

I love you very much, and I hope that we will be together someday.

All my love,
Wife

Also? I can't get out of the house until, at the earliest, next week. I have to take care of some things and make sure I have all my important things snuck out of the house before he gets alerted to my plan.

So, tonight, when I see him after work... how do I pretend that I don't know anything? How do I act like everything's fine? How do I keep him from suspecting that I'm planning something?

I don't think I can do it without having an outburst. I am so angry and hurt right now I don't know how I can hide it.

I messed up.

Last night we had it out. I cried, we fought, etc.

I told him that I didn't like him talking on the phone to OW2, and he said (predictably) there was nothing between them, she was helping him with work stuff, he didn't think I had a problem with him talking to her. I said, You had SEX with this woman! He then looked at me like I was crazy and said that he didn't, that I had assumed that. He never did say that had happened, looking back. Anyway.

So he said he would stop contacting her and agreed to MC. He said all the things that he knew I wanted to hear. And I am happy about that opportunity, but I am also doubtful that he means it.

Last week he told me that he wanted to go camping for Labor Day weekend with some guys from work, and I know that he wants to do that kind of stuff (outdoorsy stuff is the thing in New Town). But I think he was going to be with OW2. I have pretty strong evidence to that fact, but cannot confront him that b/c I don't want to expose my snooping method. Anyway, I told him that I wished he wouldn't go, that we could do something outdoorsy together, that I wanted to spend time doing fun stuff. He agreed, but in the "I can't believe you won't let me go have fun with the guys" kind of way. But I'm not backing down from that. I told him that I wasn't "not letting" him go, just that I would prefer that he didn't. If he goes, I will be gone when he comes back.

Anyway, that's my concern-- that going to Plan B right away is a bad idea b/c of the awful way that things went last night. I don't want to go dark and leave him with THAT memory, cause that was AWFUL.

So what would be best? Wait a while, see if he's serious about recovery, Plan A it for a few weeks and then go dark if he's just playing me, which I think he is.

If it were me, I would go buy a GPS to hide on his car ASAP. Let him go "with the guys." Once I had his end position, I'd go to where he is scope it out and make sure he's not really with the guys and, then, confront them both head-on. I'd look at the OW and say, "Hi, its so nice to meet you, I'm WH's wife." Then, I 'd look at my WH and say, "At least, for now...." I'd walk away and just wait......you will ruin their secret rendevous because all your WH will be able to thing about is how he's going to "fix" this one. He will also be obsessed with trying to figure out how you knew. You might even wig her out enough that she doesn't want to be involved with him because there's no telling when you'll show up again and whether you'll be as "polite" the next time. By the time he got home, I'd have all his clothing sitting in plastic garbage bags on the front lawn.

Okay Exhausted, I have some observations.

If you peruse thru your sig tag line above, what jumps out at me is there is too much waffeling, and I'm not talking on your WH's side of things.

Believe me when I tell you I know how hard it is to stick to a plan, I lived it myself and broke it more times than I like to admit.

If you read that thread that someone started a month ago titled "What would you have done differently", most the responses were they would have stuck to a short Plan A timeline and then go to a very dark Plan B if their WS continued contact because it was depleting the little love they had left for their cheating spouse.

Why have you given your WH so much control? Where is your control of you? I know you can't see it, but your WH will only thrash you around this way as long as you continue to allow it.

He's begging for you to enforce your boundaries so he can end his addiction. He knows the OW(s) cannot meet his full emotional needs.

Its not too late. What are your new Plans (A/B)? And how are you going to implement and ensure you stick to them?

Jo

And BIG p.s.

You are not a moron. You're a loving caring trusting woman who is trying to do her best to save her marriage in the face of one of the worse situations imaginable.

Love,
Jo

Thank you for your responses, Brit's Brat and Jo...



I do like that idea... very much...



That's just it, I'm so knotted up I'm not sure what to do. I was planning to go to Plan B, but then last night I ruined Plan A so badly I wasn't sure I should go dark until I could shore up my Plan A again.

Since he promised last night the things I would require for Plan B to end, including 1) MC and 2) NC, do I proceed with that until I have proof otherwise, then go dark? That's what I was thinking, but I welcome suggestions.




Thank you, I appreciate that. So many people that don't understand (you know, the ones that say "I would NEVER be able to stay with a man that cheated on me" but haven't experienced it).

I do want to make this work, and I've been studying up more on Love Busters today, and printing it all off the MB website. I want to do it right.

It takes tons of courage and resolve to do what you are doing. And its well worth it because I know the Harley's principles (Plan A/B) work.

I agree that you are now in Plan A. But be prepared to move into Plan B when you feel you're losing your love for him. You'll know its depleting because you won't be able to keep from lovebusting. That is the reason you go to plan B. Its not designed to punish the WS for contact, its to protect the little love you have left for him from evaporating altogether.

Jo

I'm not usually this negative, but I have very little faith in this man you are giving (yet) another chance. Two affairs, and these long calls to OW#2 are obviously not work related. Comon, you know this. Yet he is still managing to convince you that just maybe.... just maybe they were talking about work even though they messed around... that is absurd.

He can't go to the restroom now without you wondering if there is a woman in there with him... am I right? This is going to be one of those relationships where the lack of further affairs is dependent on you lack of snooping, definately not lack of occurrence. Are you willing to do that for the rest of your life?

You have every right to say 'yes' in response to that question. But once a WS has had more than one affair, they are wanding into a totally new and distinct region of infidility. A region where you very well might spend the rest of your life living heartbreak after heartbreak.

You have no children. You are young and an attractive woman to caring and faithful single men out there. Please think this over carefully.

You are right. And I tell myself that over and over again. And yet I still want to be with him.

I was divorced before-- Married at age 25 and divorced at 27. It was not a smart marriage in the beginning, looking back it was really just my desire to be "the bride" and yada yada. ANYWAY, I really don't want to be twice divorced at age 32. It scares me.

But this 2nd A... that terrifies me.

I personally would rather be divorced twice than be betrayed for a lifetime.

His affair isn't your fault. He's a big boy, he made his decisions, and he made them poorly.

You may very well have good reasons for sticking in this marriage, but I don't think fear of another divorce should be one of them.

If he turns out to be a serial cheater, which he has already proven to be the case, do you not think divorce is inevitable anyway?