LOL!!!! Those babies are 45 pounds of Scottish granite. About $800.00 each. They estimate that the sport will change dramatically in about 50 years because the granite they use to make them has been pretty much depleted.

We'll she finally clued in this morning that if she wants a separation agreement drafted she should get in touch with the mediator. This is one week after saying she would call him.
I know nothing has really happened yet, but just the mention of it tears at my heart.
I’m hopping that the reality of it might help peek through the fog, I doubt very much it will do any more that move it around a bit.
I had to go through Jaccs list before I left for work this morning (After she asked me if the mediator had called me again). I needed to remind myself why I'm putting myself through this and that it is not my W I am speak to. Didn't help the pain at all, but at least it stopped the wheels that are turning inside my head.

It feels good to just rant sometimes.

TMTS,

I have to agree with you that there aren't 2 better advisors on MB than the Dubyas!

Anyways, here are my thoughts on your sitch. Mr&Mrs W step in here if I'm off base. It is ok for you to take responsibility for your part in the marriage that allowed this to happen. You were both 50% responsible for the state of your marriage, but she is 100% responsible for making the CHOICE to step out of your marriage. What you want to do here is admit your part and be willing to work on those issues, but at the same time not let your WS us it as justification for what SHE choose to do. Had she choose to be open and honest with you instead of accepting the OM's advances you wouldn't be here.

You need to express your desire to work on the issues that existed before this happened, but at the same time don't sugar coat the way you feel. If things don't work out, make it perfectly clear to her that it won't be possible for you to part as friends because it would be too painful. That you would pick the pieces of your life and rebuild a new one without her. In that, she will be solely responsible for her new life as well. If she runs into financial trouble or babysitting issues, or any other obstacle she faces in her new life you won't be there to help, because you will be busy rebuilding your own life. Tell her that you love her very much and this is not what you want. That you are more than willing to work on building a better marriage for the both of you, but you cannot do it alone.

Hope that helps! Hang in there!

W2S, thanks, you perfectly summed up the message that JHC help me send with the letter after I talked to her (Mr. &Mr.s W, what are your thoughts on that letter). Except for the part about being friends afterwards. In terms of responsibility we did take ownership of our mistakes, but she will throw it out there as babble to help justify it to herself. Sometime I think she does it to keep herself convinced. My F is convinced that she is in a state of denial and has completely "brainwashed" herself into thinking that she is doing what is right. I do sense that there is some self worth issues cropping up in her head as well telling herself that I will be better of without her.
But it really comes down to giving herself a shot with the OM.

Now here is where I am right now... Plan A is in effect and going much better for the last two weeks, only a few LBs and many ENs met. I am by nature a pretty pleasant guy, and we have always got along great, so much of the RC and conversation part was pretty easy. As far as FC, DS, FS goes these are the ENs that she is not paying any attention to right now. I do most of the cleaning up around the house, I love to cook so I do all of that, garbage, laundry, and all that kind of stuff, and I make a pretty good salary. In terms of HO I've opened up more about my own feelings and started dealing with the past A my F had. PA, I've lost 40lbs up to date, down to 193lbs. My folks think I'm looking too skinny.

It all comes down to Affection and Admiration...This is what she found in the OM, and tells me was missing from our marriage. I have been working hard to improve on this side while keeping up the rest up to the usual standards.

Unfortunately the fog is very thick, she sounds determined, and no one really knows what is going on with the OM. MR. W's assessment does make allot of sense... he could be waiting in the wing for her to leave, or she's hopping that her leaving will solidify their relationship.

So what I'm wondering is this....

When do I present the issue of our separate relationship?
1) While she's still at home during Plan A.
2) Once she has moved but still in Plan A.
3) After Plan B is implemented.

Any thoughts are welcome.
Thanks

First I simply MUST take a moment to LMAO at the above quote...Ya gotta laugh with me TMTS-C'mon, admit it, it's FUNNY!!! Here we go...BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Well that is one way to be O&H, but I don't think you should probably call her that-lovebuster don't ya know! KIDDING, I knew what you meant, just never seen it abbreviated like that! Thank you so much for the comic relief! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Thank you for the nice compliment W2S! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Okay as far as how you tell her about how things will be if she leaves...Bring it up by asking her very neutrally how she sees things being between you if she leaves...Let her paint a word picture for you...Then politely get out your eraser and show her your mental picture...Calmly explain to her in no uncertain terms that being her friend outside of marriage is absolutely not an option, not only would that be too painful for you, but also would be a terrible example for your girls (Mr. W's abuse reasons)...Let her know, without emotion, that you are firm on this and will not change your mind...No matter how nuts she goes, you remain calm...WWs don't like consequences and this will be showing her a preview of her future consequences, so you can expect some fog spewing...Hang tough

Mrs. W

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> - I didn't even realize what was so funny until I looked at the line again and it struck me. LOL!!!!!
<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Let me see if this makes sense. I can't see her being ready to go anywhere until at least Feb. 1. So I run this by her ASAP to give it time to sink in and still allow me some face to face plan A time.

What do you think? How about your red wing loving H?

For the holiday's she is working while I'm off for the two weeks. She also is working on the weekend, so I plan to go see my folks on Saturday, while she will drive down Monday morning. I'm thinking I might be best to do this tonight.

TMTS...

Mr. W and I just discussed this over lunch...The best thing to do is to wait until your WW brings up moving/separating in a conversation...You don't want this to be a forced conversation by you if possible, although you do want to get it out there prior to her signing a lease somewhere...Try to let this flow within a conversation that she starts...If you can for your sake and the sake of your DDs let this happen after the holidays...

Mrs. W

Thank you,

The question of how to bring it up was going through my mind and this will be allot easier, especially if she does talk to the mediator today, it will give me the opening I am looking for.

I do have one question that will seem simple if not silly, but it's floating around my head and I can't come to an answer.

In her shoes the first question I would ask is... well, if we're not friends then what will we be?

Possible answers...
-Acquaintances - I've know her for 21 years...
-Co-parents - I'm not even sure how to explain that one.

I'm struggling with this one...

You two are great... period! I've been reading some of your other posts and I can't come to any other conclusion.

Thank you TMTS...

Okay, you would be co-parents of course, no getting around that, but that is all...Even as co-parents things would be separate...Things like buying Christmas presents for the girls...she'd buy hers, you'd buy yours...No going in together to buy gifts...Separate lives...very sad, I know...

There are times that I am overwhelmed by emotion when I look at our DD and realize what I tried to steal from her...In my wayward state I remember going along with the societal lie that children of divorce will be "fine" and "unaffected"...I believed that-I had to for my fantasy world to remain intact-affairs fall apart when reality and truth are injected into them...And yes, I also had thoughts of Mr. W being better off without me-a lot of insecurity at the root of that thought...I could not be more grateful that I no longer possess those thoughts...that I now know the truth...

Your WW has no clue right now that she will NEVER again be loved as you love her...I pray that she wakes up...

Mrs. W

It is people like you, Mr. W, Mark, Lala, and Bob pure, LG and of course my own parents that help me keep my hopes that she will wake up from this, because you are right, no one will ever love her as much as I do... (See what you did, now I'm crying). I will continue to show her my love in hopes that this for will someday lift, and that it does sooner than later. I hope that what I have learned about taking care of her ENs is sticking in her mind. The light bulb really came on when I read the 5 love languages.

She is really nervous about visiting her parents. I spoke to her M yesterday to confirm that I was coming for Christmas Dinner, and they are still in complete shock over this and cannot understand why she is doing this.

I do not understand why my WW is walking around the place and talking like her move is no big deal. Tonight we went through the kids stocking stuffers and she was acting like everything was normal and nothing was going on. I'm sitting there with a smile on my face. I know not to try to understand it but you would think that someone who is looking to move away from me would want to spend as little time with me as possible. It's not like I follow her around the place. When we were done I came downstairs and she was not far behind, she was looking at the flyers so I asked her for the electronics shop flyer. All conversation was normal until she mentioned needing to get a laptop because she will need it to do her banking. She doesn't have a place to stay but she'll have a laptop!?!
I don't know where she getting all this money, (Credit cards), but is this normal fog behavior as well? I just told her, oh that will be nice to have and came downstairs to come and post. That was an hour ago. She came down about two minutes later and we chatted about the cat, Christmas and the kids not doing their chores... like everything is normal. I have learned though not to even bring anything up that could lead to R or A talk, so we live in a nice little make believe world where my heart bleeds and she goes on like nothing is out of the ordinary.
I guess it's better than constant war, but it still breaks my heart when she says things to my ODD like "Your chores will be the same at my place".
It's very frustrating to know that if she put in a little effort and established NC we might be able to get somewhere.

Does anybody have any advice on how I might get my WW to talk to SH? She is completely committed to find her own place to live and talks about it like its matter of fact.
Mr.W, Mrs. W, Mark ... anyone.
I keep reading posts where he has been known to break through the fog, and I would like to give it a shot before she gets a place. But how do I approach the subject and not give away my game plan?
Please....

TMTS

Ask her if she would agree that she would be happiest if she were in love with the father of her children. Don't make it about being in love with YOU, you must take the focus off you and say father of your children.

Tell her that you want her to be the happiest. Say you've been talking to a guy who is convinced this ideal senario is possible. Tell her you don't want to believe in something that not true and all you want is for her to check it out and see if its a croc.

If she won't do it for her happiness, tell her it will make it easier for you to deal with the situation knowing she at least listened to Steve. Thats how my WW agreed. She said ok I'll do it for you.

Goodluck

However, I would recommend you speak to Steve yourself first. You can give him the details as they are. And you really have to hear it all from the master.

He will give you great answers to everything that your WW will come up with. He will also help your state of mind and he doesn't mess around!

TMTS...

Tell her that YOUR counselor needs to talk to her about YOU so that he can help YOU...Really though, I would call SH myself and get his input about that...He will want at least one session with just you before he talks to her...And he can help you with your Plan as well as explain some of the seemingly unexplainable to you...

A couple of reasons why your WW is making bold matter of fact statements about moving out...

*She wants to bait you into a fight...She NEEDS you to be the jerk that she has made you out to be in her own head and to OM...Plan A throws that off track...If you aren't really a jerk then that makes her what??? Listen, Mr. W was SO good at Plan A that towards the end I had NOTHING to complain about...Know what I did? I made fun of his TOOTHPASTE...Called it "Grandma Toothpaste"...Talk about stretching to look for things that were wrong...SHEESH!!!

*She is trying to warm you and the kids up to the idea and normalize it...You know kinda like how after you've seen certain things on tv for a while, you become sort of numb to it? Years ago you would NEVER have seen even a married couple in bed together on tv, but now, are you shocked to see that or worse? NOPE...It's been normalized sadly...Btw, when she makes these kind of statements, THAT is your "in" to ask her how her view of the future looks...As I said before you may wish to wait til after Christmas...You'll have the opportunity, she'll keep talking like that...unfortunately...

Make no mistake about it though TMTS, she IS very conflicted right now, so you will see some of the old her along with the alien...sigh...

Mrs. W

Unfortunately she's not making the statement directly to me; she's making it to my ODD. I think this will mess up the poor kid, so I make sure I talk to her more than I ever have and ask her how she feels. But I suspect I will get the chance. The frustrating part is that with me it's like we are like the Walton’s where everything is ok in the end, except that she's playing it like we already are at the end. Is it possible that she has no idea of the devastation that will be caused by her leaving? My F tells me that in his experience, it was about a month after he left that it really hit him hard. He tells me that he went through the same stage where in the WS's own mind there is a list of things that WILL happen that will make their lives better, but once something on the list doesn't work out as was planned in their mind, they start to make that trip towards rock bottom. (I hope that made sense).

I am having a difficult time controlling my temper with my DDs. It's something that I am worried about and need to gain control of. The stresses of this whole situation are not helping the matter at all but that's no excuse.

I will look at the finances and probably arrange a call to SH. I spoke to JHC the first time, is she as good with the WWs? She sure straightened me out pretty quick and had me in Plan A turbo mode.

TMTS,

Sorry I haven't been around much in the last few days. Work is crazy-busy and I have all this other stuff I need to do when I'm not working.

Mr and Mrs W can help you more than I can anyway right now. When my W talked about moving, I just let it drag out and she never did. But I'm too fried to really give it much thought right now, so I'm probably not the best one to advise you at the moment.

I'll be around to slap you silly when you start whining though, OK?

Mark

You must be beat!!! After the last couple of nights.
Thanks for keeping me in-line. I'm feeling much more confident now and much of it is because of your guidance. Feel free to slap me around anytime you see me going off the path.

I can only hope that she comes to the same conclusion as your W and decides to give up the OM and this search.

Thanks again.

I had a nice long talk with my ODD last night. I showed her the MB site to help give her some hope that there is a possibility that her M can reconcile. I went into a little more detail about the concept of Plan A, and she understood the basic idea. But then she told me something completely startling... Her M told her "he wants to change now, because he's sees the consequences". I'm not sure what that means when coming from WW. What do I make of this? Just good old babble? Mrs. W,Lala, Maggie... any thoughts on this?

She found out that her uncle has lung cancer last night. I did what I could to comfort her, as I'm sure with all that's going on, this is the last thing she needed to hear.

She's also carrying her cell phone everywhere she goes. She went to the next door neighbor’s last night to pick up an Avon order, and brought her phone. I'm sure she's trying to call him, but I don't know if he's answering. The theory that he took off may make sense. In June she told him not to contact, he did in September. In Nov. she told him the same thing, then 4 days later she said she wasn't sure what she wanted to do, and then in December she told him she was looking for an apartment. I wonder if this guy figured that she is too confused or too much trouble and decided to move on. I can only hope.

Mark - When and if you have the time... How deeply did your W get involved in looking to move out?

TMTS,

She was actively seeking a job in another state. Since she is a financial type, I always assumed she would have no trouble finding a job anywhere. She is CFO of a small corporation right now.

She was actually caring for her step mother's property out of state at the time and that is where she met OM. She started leaving for there on Friday nights and returning Saturday night at first, then it was Friday night till Sunday night and then Thursday night till Sunday night and finally Thursday right after lunch till late Sunday night or sometimes early Monday morning. (All this while her S-M was on active duty with the Army.)

I guess what I'm saying is that my W could have lived in a 2800 sqft house on nine acres and only would have had to even share it with the owner (her step mother) after a little over a year. She also made friends down there including a divorced woman who owns a house on 20 acres.If she had really wanted to be gone, she had plenty of chances.

I don't know if your wife really intends to move out or not. I can tell you that if things were as bad for me as a WS tries to make it seem things are for them, I'd be gone before the sun went down.

Keep making it better to be married to you than to not be married to you. She hasn't left already because she has it pretty good. Her only real complaint is that you won't share her with OM. That's what moving out is all about. That is what all the drivel about needing "space" and all that other [email]cr@p[/email] is about most of the time.

You see, if it was REALLY awful with you, she would already be somewhere else. It wouldn't matter where as long as she was away. But she is looking for a comfortable place to live. She also "needs" a laptop. She has all these things she can't live without. They are all things she already has...If they were lacking, she wouldn't stick around. She wants to have her fun with OM, but she doesn't want to give up what she has already, and believe it or not, that likely includes you.

I think that in most cases when a WS threatens to move out, but doesn't pack and leave the same day, their threat is intended to try to get the BS to cave in to the demand of allowing them to continue the affair while remaining married. I would bet there have been many marriages where the BS didn't even know about the affair and the WS never even talked about moving out. They hid the affair and had both. Once the affair ended, the BS can usually tell something is amiss because the WS goes into depression for a while, but things improve and the BS never even had a clue there was OP.

I'm not suggesting letting the affair slide, just pointing out that many affairs start, evolve and come to an end without any drama over moving out, sometimes without any of the ILYBINILWY types of things and with no threats of leaving by the WS because they haven't been confronted and their fantasy threatened by the BS. It is when we try to take away their addictive OP that the WS melts down in most cases.

IMO, that is why so many BS come here with exactly the same set of conditions though one WS was having an EA for 2 weeks, another was having a hot and heavy PA for two years and still another was living with OP while the BS was away on active duty. And yet everyone arrives soon after confrontation has taken place and the events from there forward are so similar as to be a statistical anomaly.

Having the affair creates serious problems for the marriage, but it is the threat of taking it away that results in all the drama. If I had not confronted my wife when I did, she never would have threatened to leave permanently. She was already off taking care of business for SM 3 or 4 days per week and living next door to OM more than she was home and all with nothing to do while there in the way of having to go to work etc and OM was retired, so they had all kinds of time together while we had almost none. It was when I confronted her and she going to lose her fantasy life with OM that she flipped out.

Of course it had already had a detrimental effect on our marriage, because I was actively snooping to see what was wrong, or more precisely to verify what I already suspected. But she never said one word about leaving me until I let her know that I knew about OM, though I did get some of the "I'm not happy" type of stuff and while she complained that I was too critical of her, she would pick at or take exception to everything I said or did, even in public setting for a couple months or more.

In fact, when I discovered my evidence, she was there and remained there for two more days. She came home to being confronted with overwhelming though circumstantial evidence. If she had really wanted to be gone, she already was...

All just my opinion...

Be careful that you don't put too much on ODD. You need to be her rock right now. She may be handling this well in your eyes right now, but a teen does not need this kind of stress to be a part of their life. Don't let her get dragged into the fight and have to choose sides or have to shoulder the burden of what WW is doing.

Get your support from other sources, but avoid seeking any kind of help from any woman. The risks are too high right now. (Talking to Jennifer is probably a good thing) but don't commiserate with SIL or old HS friends or anyone at work if they are female...even if the look like the Soviet women's track team of the 1970s...

Mark