Its been a while since I was here, but I started a topic called "Pregnant Wife Leaving" about two and a half years ago. Since then I haven't checked back and I thought i was in the clear, but... Anyway! I'm not sure if this is the right forum to post this in, but here goes:

My wife and I met seventeen years ago and we clicked beautifully. We married two years later and had our first child, a son. Our marriage has, as all relationships, had its peaks, valleys, gorges, ups and downs. Sometimes wine and sometimes water –and even vinegar on a few occasions! We have had two more kids since. Two girls aged nine and almost two. We both work full time: She as a department manager to a fairly big travel agency. I work for La Migra.

Sometimes we sparkle and shine and sometimes its just the everyday toil with all the trimmings that comes with full-time jobs, a home to tend to and now three kids that would be a logistical challenge to even a “Storming” Norman Schwarzkopf. A married-with-children-middle-aged-life in Suburbia, if you get my drift. Most times, when the crap starts hitting the fan, we close ranks and cooperate beautifully, but sometimes we nag and haggle over petty f-ing nothingness and we can be both sulking and nasty to each other. She is more of a controlling personality and I’m more of the bohemian in our relationship. She wants to set the standards as of how and when things are to be done, and I respond to that by becoming a obstinate child, refusing to be bossed about and not accepting that she calls the standards. This sounds really weird, but lets use the example of doing the f-ing laundry: I do the laundry and I don’t hang the [censored] like she wants it to be hanged and I sometimes use the wrong programme on the machine. She starts picking on me and sours over the fact that I don’t listen, while I don’t do things she wants them to be done because I think that if I’m doing the laundry, its me that does it! Ridiculous, I know, but you get the drift. This is just a petty example, but a good one.

When my dad died ten years ago, I inherited some money. Instead of using that the way she wanted me to use them, I went and bought a small restaurant. I used to be a chef and my dad and I shared a passion for food and cooking. He always said that when he retired, we should open a place together (he was an engineer and nowhere near a restaurant in any other way than as a client) and indulge in fine cooking. Anyway, me getting all that money all of a sudden, spooked me and I didn’t know wtf to do. I went and did a really stupid thing in a futile attempt to honor my father -and it blew all my money away within two years. I nearly broke my back in doing so. Putting in massive amounts of work all in vain and we had to live on her income and the few hundred bucks I could skim off occasionally. She has always had a hard time forgiving that and this still comes up in regards of her questioning my judgement. Well, she was right that time, but she has kept rubbing my nose in that mistake and I don’t like it one bit!

Well time flies and I got out in one piece and at least I didn’t go bankrupt or leave indebted. I since changed career and now work for the Government in a fairly secure outfit and with a reasonable salary with lots of free time for the kids. I work nightshifts and do only 13 days in a month. Less now, since our youngest daughter was born.


Anyway, for four years up until last year, I also worked for the Navy as an supply officer on a contract which meant I was on standby for overseas mission. I did about two months every year of training and commissioning and was than away from home. My wife was ok with that. She knew I thrived in this and came back home revelled and happy. It was a break-off from normality and a way to surface and catch some inspiration and be something else for a while. The last time I did this, I reckon the timing could have been better. We had discussed having a third child for a while, but when she finally found out she was pregnant, I was just about to re-enlist and go away for two months. We talked about it, and I wanted to go. I was set for it, and she didn’t want to deny me this, even if she secretly was miffed that I wanted to leave her in this first months of her pregnancy.


I came back home from a long tour to Holland and with colors flying. Happy as a vegemite! I soon sensed there was something fishy going on. She didn’t seem too happy that I was back. There was a distinct chill in the air. I confronted her and it turned out a guy on her office had made a pass on her. I bloke she has known for as long as she has known me and she has always liked. We even had dinners with him and his family and I thought he was a nice enough fella, but a bit on the boring side. I never said that to my wife, though, and kept my chin up. You see, we have, since we met, tend to be with my friends and mates exclusively. So this bloke and his family were one of the few of her friends we occasionally met so I didn’t mind at all. And besides that, it has not been a matter of me denying her friends and refusing to see her mates. It's just turned out that way because I've been sort of in charge of our social life for reasons you will understand soon enough. Its not that we hanged with this family to any larger extent, just one or two dinners annually. Anyway, this bloke knows me and he knows our kids and he now starts to express his long secret love for my pregnant wife while she questions mine and is vulnerable. She in initially taken back by his approach, but then her mind starts spinning and she senses that there is indeed something there. They starts to court. So this gets laid on me after a few days home from the High Seas and I, of course, goes into damage control mode. My wife says she is confused, he supplies her with something she is in want of: Attention, affection, dedication and commitment. When did I last show her this? Jeez! We go to counselling and somewhere we decide to try and find each other again. The counselling sessions, however, tends to revolve more about petty issues and we never go to any depths. Not that I would mind, I was ready for some serious changes and evolutions, but she was sort of setting the agenda and I let her do so. It was, after all, she that was not happy and I thought this was what was bugging her. After about ten sessions, we break from counselling , on her initiative, and I don’t push it. The new baby is born and we just bought a new house that we were really excited about. Things were looking sweet again! I never rose the issue of her drifting and this bloke. It was like it never happened. She is away from work on maternity leave and for a year and a half we focus our energy in the kids, the home and so forth. I go through a bit of a slope in my life where I’m not very happy with my particular work situation. I am a bit bored and here we go again with her controlling personality: Mrs Perfect and Control. I go back into my old slob-mode, somewhat improved however and not quite as bad as before, and eventually it’s time for her to get back to work. I don’t feel uncomfortable. I’m pretty secure and find no reason to be worried.



During her leave, her company has been bought up by a bigger player and is now a sub division of. Her job has changed and there is a lot of catching up to do. She has to spend long hours in office and I get a bit ticked off about her not setting boundaries to her boss. She comes home knackered and I do most of the household works. Shopping, cooking (no problem there) laundry, vacuuming, mowing lawn and taking care of our kids. Food in on the table when she comes home, we eat and then she staggers to bed or pass out in the couch before the kids go to bed. This is a recipe for Mayhem.. All work and no play. I become a dull boy. I respond with anger and frustration. Tells her to slow down, for f-s sake! I do this as a way to pep talk her into getting her [censored] together, but I now reckon she took this the wrong way. She is irritable. Lashes out! Blowing fuses over petty things and slowly we deteriorate over the months from February to May.



Eventually I start to suspect foul play again. I get a hunch that there again is something fishy going on. I sneak a peek in her mobile and find all calls and messages erased. Now that’s a familiar pattern. She did the same thing last time. I confront her two weeks ago and my suspicions are confirmed! He is back! The Rat! At it again! Started tossing his orb a few weeks back and she HAS OPENED THE DOOR again! I go into orbit! I f-ing blow my lid! Tell her to pack up and LEAVE! The betrayal! The HORROR! She has never been a good liar and she says things have not gotten physical between them. She is not even attracted to him in that way, she says, but the focus, the attention! Its like he is giving her a flashy powerpoint presentation of what a happy and beautiful relationship could be, while I’m fumbling away with old overhead pictures on foil tattered by sloppy half-assed images in worn out dressing.



Well, we got talking. Big talk! We started to talk in a way we probably have never done before,. Opened up in a big way. She FINALLY starts to come out with what has been on her mind for a VERY long time and it boils down to this:



She is sad about how our relationship has developed. There has been too much of bad medicine, sloppy handedness, carelessness and disrespect for each other. She claims she has not felt happy or at ease in a long time and she feels the train has left the station and we are beyond repair. Too much bad blood and bad karma. I don’t love her and I don’t acknowledge her.

She has never really felt comfortable. Always insecure and self aware in a bad way. We now have to go back into her background a bit for you to understand: She was somewhat of a geek when she grew up. A late bloomer, I guess you can say. Low self esteem. She had a few good and close mates, but in order to make this short and simple, and don’t read into this anything else than an attempt to explain where we come from! I was one of the “cool” people. I was a reformed punk rocker with a [censored]-eating grin and a happy-go-lucky lifestyle. I was the artist, the painter, and a good one too in some quarters! I got some recognition for my art in my time! I did drugs, played in bands and was unstoppable! I’m eight years her senior, so we never met until she was 22, but as I see it, I was more of a Danny in “Grease” and she was a Sandy. I know this sounds really corny, horrible and I cringe writing this down, but I don’t know how else to explain it! Please don’t read anything into this that don’t belong here!



Well, she NOW starts saying that her discomfort and my behaviour over the years has made her questioning herself. “Who am I really?” “This is not making me comfortable” and “I don’t like these people because they make me feel uncomfortable, self aware and awkward” “My husband is not proud of me because he never shows me off to people when in parties and social circumstances” and so forth. She says she has had to compromise with herself so much that she no longer is sure of what or who she really is deep down and she has always been afraid of losing control. I know some of this, of course, but my response so far has been to try to minimize her feelings by brushing them aside as nonsense, unimportant. “Of course you are ok, don’t be such a wooz” kind of. That, in return, has made her even more uncomfortable. “He doesn’t acknowledge my emotions”. “He thinks I’m a geek and marginalizes me” kind of. “My emotions and feelings are not important to him”. Well, to be quite honest, I didn’t realize the extent of her discomfort! I thought she was ridiculous to think she was not good enough and didn’t fit in, but I didn’t understand just how deep this was and thereby I tried to protect her and make her feel at ease the wrong way! My brushing her emotions away, has made her even MORE uncomfortable and further convinced she is somebody someone like me just cannot love. I love her for something she is not and she is afraid that by revealing true self, I will cease to love her! She paints a pretty bleak picture of our relationship with a lot of black and in broad strokes.



As we speak, we finally reaches a mutual UNDERSTANDING! It’s like a epiphany! I SEE her! I understand her and I see her fears and emotions clearly for the first time. I humble over what an [censored] I have been. A lazy slobbing moron just trudging along, running over and railroading her! [censored], man! I [censored] come apart! I come about to tell her that I love her, always has and there has never been anybody else since we met! And I love her even MORE now that she has revealed herself! I show her my heart! I tell her that she IS loveable and that I NEVER have thought of her as she believes I have. I manage to explain myself, my actions and behaviour and I realize that THIS is where we should have been two years ago in counselling! And, lo and behold, she now realizes me! She now understand my feelings, but the lack of communication over the years saddens her. She expresses guilt over the wasted and spoiled years and emotions! “I should have been more outspoken, more clear! Why haven’t we come to this before? Now its too late! All is ruined!”



We blow up a soft and cushy bubble around ourselves and for a few days its peaches. Sweet and tender. Great sex in major portions. Sex has always been great between us. She says that when it comes to sex, she has nothing to want for. It took her some time to able herself to let go of control and climax, but she got there. I have always made her feel relaxed, safe and secure while having sex.. I’m very happy with our sexual life as well and never have I strayed or sniffed about, looking for others. She, however, for a long time compared herself to my old girlfriends and just couldn’t figure out what I saw in her. “They were so beautiful, so cool, where I was a dull grey mouse”. So wrong! How did she get that self image? She is beautiful. Many times have I been getting shout-outs from mates in regards to what a fox an a-hole like me managed to pull.



Well, so I call our therapist again and says we are ready for a new bout and he hook us up with an appointment.. The session with the counsellor is more of a confirmation as of what has been said before. We talk it through and honors our respective epiphanies. I say that I am determined and committed to better and improve! I want us to give this opportunity a shot. We have been given a second chance and we must do this! She talks of how stressed out she is. Overworked and stretched thin. It’s a classic mid-life crises, I’ve been there myself, but this is with a nasty twist!

She says that her emotions confuses her. She is unsure as of what the other bloke really means to her. She expresses that his courting and attention makes her thrive and feel good about herself in a way she hasn’t in years.



Meanwhile our self-therapy goes on and every time we sit down for a talk, there is new revelations, enlightments and evolutions. Its like a trip into ourselves. Tenderness, affection and all that comes back in bloom. I am now very aware of her and give her my full attention. I want to ease her mid-life crises and support her. I’m standing by my missus! She, on the other hand, keeps maintaining the Rat and keeps trying to hide the fact that they are still communicating.



During all this, we still have the kids to deal with. I [censored] cringe over the fact that this is going to be [censored] HELL to them. They are so happy, so secure and confident. We may not have lived Life of Riley, but at least we managed to get three beautiful kids that are coming together like milk and honey. Going about their business yet not suspecting that mommy is about to pull the curtain down and introduce a new dad! I’m not going to linger too much on the kids now. At this point they are still important, but not when it comes to my wife’s and mine issues.



F-ing hell! The ANGER I feel, man!! I just want to rip his head off and take a d-p down his neck! I actually approached him via sms and requested that he ceased to text or call my wife while at home. He came back with a snotty attitude that I didn’t take to well and my anger has build since! By texting her, he could very well expose the kids a tad prematurely to the goings on. They sometimes uses her phone, and I don’t even want to think about what would happen if they read one of his slippery messages… The thing is, he [censored] KNOWS the kids! He knows them and has played with them while we have been socializing and yet he doesn’t give a flying [censored]-all! Just to massage his spineless ego, he is quite willing to throw them headfirst into a [censored] grinder! [censored]! His time will, indeed, come!

Look, I'm not a violent guy even if I sound graphic here, and I haven't been in a fistfight for ages. Never raised my hand in anger at neither kids or wife... Just for the record!


I spoke to his wife a few days back and she says that the goings on two years back damaged their relationship for good. They tried to get it back, but the loathing she felt got overpowering and she handed him the pink slip a few months ago. He refused to accept it, but she was adamant… Strangely this corresponds chronologically to when he picks his thing up with my wife again! Makes one questions his intentions, right?

.

We do another session a few days later where I tell her that I cannot deal with this unless she is committed too. She has to break off the fling with Mr Rat. If she wants to, I’m ready to take this to the hilt, but with that condition. The counsellor supports this and suggests that too. She agrees, but apparently she was not ready for this. I pushed her, but I was really only making that single condition! I cannot have her here by me, but at the same time pining for the Rat! A few days later, the mood has changed. She is cold, stiff, pulling away. I senses the ICE. Again a peek in the mobile and now I actually see two mssgs she has send him. One says “I know, and I am waiting to receive” as in response to “I have so much love to give you” and the other one says only “Yours!” as in response to “who’s woman are you?” or something in that context. His messages was erased.



Again I confront her, now more than a tad miffed, but what can I do? While we talk in hushed voices so the kids wont hear, her phone goes DING and it’s a text from the Rat! That’s it! I [censored] BLOW! Furious, I grab a [censored] baton I have and lurches for the door. His head is going to be made into a sopping pulp! The wife freaks! She holds me back, hysterical, and I collect myself and we get back to talking, but this adrenaline rush makes it almost impossible to focus. I’m boiling inside over what she is putting me through! She grabs the phone, goes outside and calls him to tell him not to call or text again!



I am devastated. Blown to cinders! I don’t know where to take this! The PLAN from the counsellor is [censored], nipped in the bud, only three days after it was set and signed! She is showing NO will to commit herself. She is willing to risk it all just to maintain the buzz with the Rat!

Another few days goes by and I try to maintain something, but its gone. No response at all. All I ask for is that she stop this [censored] feeding of the monkey! Give it a REST for [censored]’s sake! I give her a lot of lee way here. I’m not asking her to make up her mind. She can miss him and yearn for him all she wants to, just as long as she commits herself to give ME a [censored] chance to show her the magic…



I confront her again… And she keeps giving me some hope. She doesn’t want to break up the family, but she wants to know what this Rat-thing is. She is like a moth to a candle. She says that she now sees that there IS something of genuine quality within me, something for us. Something she wants and has longed for, but she just cannot receive it from me and it makes her feel bad about herself. Just by seeing me , and yet pining for the Rat, she feels like a horrible person and she loathes herself, but still cannot help it. She loves him, she now says!



Ok, looks like I’ve been given the walking papers. She goes off to work and I pack my bags and gets ready to evacuate once she gets back. The kids are at home with me, but asleep yet. I line up a place to stay for a few weeks. She comes back, sees the bags and a pretty grim face. She is somewhat startled over the amount of packing I do, suggesting I’m only going to be gone for a day or two, but how the [censored] shall I know! I’ve done some CONTEMPLATING while home alone and the perspectives a bleak!



She says she needs time alone. Time to think things over and come to grips with her emotions and feelings. She cannot focus while with me and it just makes her feel worse about things. I realize that the worst thing I can do, is having her associate me with bad consciousness and guilt. Since I cannot provide anything else than space, I do that and leave. For how long I don’t know. Where this is going, I have no idea. I now feel like doing a lot of sedative drugs and just drift into a blur where I don’t have to feel anything at all! Look, I don’t have drug issues and am not a reformed addict or anything, so if I want do this, I see no specific dangers. I just want to be sedated!

Elvis has left the building!

Welcome to MB. It is a great place to be under the circumstances.

I suggest you go back home. It is always a mistake for the betrayed one to move out. You can let her know that SHE can move if she wants to stay in contact with the OM.

Then Plan A (where you show her what a great hubby you can be - including doing the laundry right) is the starting point. It also includes exposure of the affair. You need to let your friends, her friends, her parents, and your kids know that she is having an affair. Nothing like shining a light on the affair to blow it out of the water.

And don't warn her that you are going to expose, just do it.

And yes, she will be FURIOUS, but your marriage can survive her anger better than her affair.

Let's boil this down to the key points...







My thoughts and advice:

1. This is definitely an A and most likely a PA. Given that quite possible eventuality, do you still wish to recover your M.

2. GET BACK IN YOUR HOME. Your WW's need for "space" basically can be translated as her telling you that she feels uncomfortable carrying on her A while you are around. If you want to recover your M, your goal should be to cause as much discomfort as possible in the A, not make it more comfortable for her to carry on with it. Not only that, you basically abandoning your children at this time will not bode well for custody rights if you end up D'd.

3. Read up on Plan A here and also exposure. Immediate family, possibly kids (depends on their ages), and most definitely HR at her office, considering that this is someone she works with and there may be ethics issues involved.

Yes, some of your actions may make your WW MORE angry, but your M will much more likely survive anger than it would an affair.

Before going into any legal or financial issues in regards to custody or child support: I'm not from the US or UK, so please don't bother advicing me in these matters!

Update:

She called me sunday morning and asked me to come by the house to discuss our planned holiday. We were to go to Croatia for more than 2 weeks and to go down by car. She now feels bad about depriving the kids of the holiday they have so much looked forward to. I come over and we start talking. I tell her Im willing to go on condition that she brakes off with the Rat, all comms with him seizes and she is to tell him just that. I tell her that this is HER sacrifice that she must do and deal with. Also that I am fully aware of that this very well may cause her to be depressed, that she might experience anger and frustration geared towards me and that I will go on a holyday with a person I love and care for and manifests all this to, but will most likely get very little, if any, in return. That is MY sacrifice and I will have to deal with that. But I'm willing to do so.



What I hope to acheieve by this is to manifest my male essence, my willingness to expand beyond my hurt ego, my victim-mode, my painbody, in order to show her that I have faith in my love for her and will take her and us through all this.



She doesn't want to give him up. She is clearly in love with this bloke. Ok, then the holiday is off as far as this family is concearned, I tell her. She then goes into victim-mode and says that she then will have to assume full responsibility for the kids, take charge of their holiday and sort all this mess out on her own. I'm in my full right to leave it to her, since she is the cause of all this mayhem. I come back with that I didnt say that. I'm quite willing to divide the vacation between us and that I may take the kids for one periode and she take them for another. I say that as far as I'm concearned, no elaborate planning is necessary. I will do something smaller, something not requiring so much effort and travel. Maybe a hike in the forrest, a rented cabin or a boat for a week.



She then goes into talking about me leaving the house. All those bags scared her. Have I vacated the premises? Moved out? I tell her No, that this was my reaction to her explaining that she felt bad, guilty, about recieving all my love and attention and not being able to respond. That she asked for space and all I could to was to provide just that, since nothing else I could offer, she was capable of recieving. I have not moved out. Just temporarely and just to be able to get som lee way myself and think things over without the distraction of farming about the house analyzing on everything she says and does, worrying about her communications with the Rat and so forth. Also these mates of mine coming from the States reqiuered some attention and dealings with and me going away and hanging out with them was a good way for me to relax and be amongst other men who knows and understands me. The prospect of getting absolutely plastered and burn som braincells as a reward for all this calm and collected actions in a confusing time seemed vital. I tell her I have already thought of an solution to us separating and finding a place for any one of us to live if the other party stays in the house with the kids. I even thought about us sharing a small pad and to take turns in living in the house with the kids so we dont mess up their lives more than necessary. I took in that she was a bit starteled by my scheeming and planning and that I still haven't performed with anger, frustration or pain. No Fight, Flight or Playing Dead so far. I'm a bit proud of myself there actually and honors the ability to move away from these easy ways to deal with threaths and aggression. Great progress there I hope to benifit from regardless of the outcome of this mess. A crises turned into a challenge turned into a GIFT! F-ing GREAT!



Then she starts on Ye Ole Grindstone again, about how bad we have been to eachother. How I haven't listened when she has had something important to convey. How neglectant and ruthless I have been. Great sadness there. No hope for the future. It seems like she wants to create a consencus about our relationship as being a crappy one. I recognize, as before, my flaws and express great sadness over wasted energy and time too, but I also refuse to paint our whole relationship in black. There has been much good things happening. Good times. Great communications and understandings. We have learned from eachother and developed a lot. It could have been better, but everything has its time. Now it's time for THIS. I understand that this is her pain that she wants to express and show me. Its also a way of rationalizing that she is in love with another man. I havent met her emotional needs. I havent even bothered to find out about them. True! I confess! But I remind her that she also has a responsibility here. If she wants to send an important message, she is responsible that its recieved and understood. If I clearly haven't taken her in, she must send again, re-formulate, change frequence or whatnot!



She then starts bringing up other past misdeeds and brings up an example of how badly we have communicated. Like I told before, I'm the spontaneous one. To the extent that this in some ways has been getting up her nose a bit. She needs planning and scheduleing. She says that I can suddenly come up with an elaborate plan for a beautiful day which means us going on a bit of an excursion somewhere. She then gets ticked off I havent thought of this before and that we should have planned this the previous day so that we could have gone out of beds earlier, packed a pic nic and what not. She puts the lid on my enthusiasm and says its too late. I then react by thinking she is boring, a party-pooper and sulks. She stays miffed and sulks too. She now says that I should have just picked her up and gone anyway. Energized her!



I am STOKED! A minute before she says I dont listen and just run her over, the next minute she says WHY do I listen and WHY don't I just railroad her on this hike I suddenly come up with?



What shall I make of that? Are all women IN-FxxxING-SANE?



Well, this sort of conveys a strange message to me. What is she saying here? Is she saying "Don't worry about the Rat and that I wont give him up. Just take me on our vacation and DO IT. Make me love you again!" or is her worrying for this vacation with the kids just her guilt hitting her. By going with her, I allow her to have BOTH cakes and nibble at them both the same time? An "at least I tried it for the kids"-operation? What will this make me into? A door-mat? What will happen in Croatia, 2500 clics from friends, retreat positions, escape routes, if she all of a sudden lays it on me that this is not going to happen anymore? If she sneaks out with her mobile and calls him saying how much she misses him? If I snoop about and find her sms:s has been erazed and her call lists are empty or looks suspicious? This is dangerous waters to navigate and the prospects of disasters are great. We will be locked in in a small place with the kids for more than 2 weeks and the mood could very well turn pretty f-ing messy!



Well, my latest plan is this: We cancel the trip and take turns taking the two bigger kids on a weeks vacation each. Meanwhile the other stays home with the 2yr-old. She don't give a flying fxxk! She'll be a happy vegemite anywhere. No fancy pants or funny hats needed. She needs food, some playtime, a nap and a nappy-change and thats it! I could do this! And we both can have a good time with the two older kids with more attention to them. I let her in on the PLAN and she is, again, a bit starteled. Not really able to think straight. I say again that the original vacation still stands under the previous expressed conditions, but this is a good back-up plan.

Ragulin:

Have you read through the MB principles on this site? How will they work in your situation? Are you able to make a plan for the recovery of your M? I hear your pain, but not quite so sure that a productive plan is in place. Do you want to save your M, even if that means you have to change some of your own ways?

Not sure what your cultural background is, but we would like to help you as best we can if you can maybe tell us more about how you would like to use the MB principles.

I think I have gone through the MB principles, yes, and I'm set for restoring my marriage. I think the concept makes a lot of sense and seems pretty straight forward. I can see where I have been lacking, my wife too, so I hope to be able to apply the doctrines and make us develop. There has been a lot of neglect, fumbles and mistakes. The deposits in the love bank has been to few and the account is well overdrawn as far as my wife is concearned. I have been writing bad checks for a long time, but she hasn't been able to let me know! I tried to get som units in there, but I guess it was too late for that and my units are not good for the moment. I would change just about everthing necessary about me to salvage this marriage. I actually see a gift here! An invitation to grow as an individual. And I'm prepared to take this leap!

I din't come back here until well into this new crises and guess I was too late to brush up on the concepts of Plan A, B and so forth. I think I did squeeze out a half baked Plan A, but then had to revert to a Plan B-variation I'm not really in control of from where I stand right now. How would you rate my doings so far? I'm from northern Europe. Scandinavia, to be more specific. Lutheran, as far as a religion/cultural context, but I'm more of an agnostic, I guess...

Oh, you are a quick learner! You are doing very well on one of the MB suggestions - and that is negotiating to make both people happy. Good job on talking about the trip.

Now, you can be assured that if you go on vacation, she will be sneaking away to contact the Rat. So if that will ruin the vacation, I suggest you don't go 2500 miles.

During one of these talks, you might ask your wife that IF she could be in love and happily married with the father of her kids, would she prefer that? That is a question the Harleys ask the wayward during counseling. They will usually respond that of course they would, but that is impossible. Then you can let her know that there is a plan for that to happen, and thousands of people do it all of the time.

Keep up what you are doing. You are doing an excellent job.