Here's the actual letter that I wrote to my mom. I would like any and all advice on it please. <P>Thanks again Dazed for all your help here. I really means a lot to me.<P>Mom,<P>I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately and have come to the point in my life where I have to write this letter. I’ve come to the realization that if I don’t do this, I could be doing a lot more damage to myself, my H, and our daughter, and to our future together. My H found a website in the Internet called Marriage Builders. This website has a bulletin board that people can type on and get responses from people from all around the world who are in the same boat or similar ones. My H started posting on this bulletin board around the beginning of July. I started posting on the board around the beginning of August after My H sent me an e-mail and wanted me to read a post he had started there. The post was about what my doctor had told me. I had missed two periods and thought I was pregnant but come to find out I wasn’t. I want very much to have another child. I think our daughter deserves to have a sibling. I know that you think I shouldn’t have another child, but I really want another one. I don’t understand why having another child is such a problem with you but that doesn’t matter. If my H and I decide to have more children then it’s our decision, it’s something we want. MY H and I are grown adults and can make this decision for ourselves.<P>My H is a very loving husband and a great father to our daughter. I know you have a problem with him being almost nine years older than I am. I also know that you think that he is controlling and alienating me from “my family”. My H is NOT controlling and he doesn’t try to alienate me from anyone. If I wanted to go to a friend’s house, out with friends etc. then he would have no problems with it. I choose not to do those things very often. I’m not my sisters, Sara and Debbie who are calling you at least once a week and at your house at least once a week. I don’t have to call mom when I have problems or I don’t feel good. I’m not like Sara who has to tell you about all the problems I’m having with my husband or in her case boyfriend. I also don’t have to call every time I have a headache. I realize that you can give advice on things that happen in life, but I don’t think of you as “Ms. Fix It” in my life. If you would really like to help “fix things”, then here are a few problems that you can fix for me.<P>When I was a sophomore in college, I was raped by a guy I had met not long before the incident. I was stupid enough to think he cared for me so I learned from that mistake. I was a lot more cautious after that. I didn’t have to go running to mommy to help fix that. This is just one problem that needs to be fixed. Everything that happened a year and a half ago also needs to be fixed.<P>Because I was more into “pleasing my mommy” I left in the middle of the night with our daughter. I filed a restraining order only because you took me down to fill out the forms. I also called the cops once after My H called my apartment because I thought it would make you happy and proud of me for doing it. I thought that I had to do everything to make you happy. I have very low self-esteem because I keep trying to please you and always feel like I’m failing. I keep trying to please you and feel that nothing I do is good enough.<P>While my H and I were separated, I ended up sleeping with someone else -- one of the guys I worked with at Ameri-net. We ended up having sex in a stairwell at work. Now I’ve about killed my H by doing that. I can’t believe I did that but I never would have done something like that if I hadn’t tried to please you by leaving my husband. Now my marriage is rocky but we are working on it. We just want to have that chance without distraction.<P>One of the things I have learned from the marriage builders bulletin board is that I need to be more open; tell people what I’m thinking and feeling. The most important I need to be able to be open with is my H. He is receptive to this kind of openness. I would like to be able to be as open with you. This is the only way you and I can have any kind of healthy relationship.<P>This is the reason for this letter. I just need to let you know what I’m thinking and feeling. It is not my H who is trying to control me. He’s just trying to love me. It’s you that is in control. You need to have your children and husband at your fingertips, living the way you see fit. If we don’t then we’re being disrespectful and it’s always someone else’s fault, never yours. I believe that you just don’t want your children to grow up and have their own life. If we were having you fix all of our problems and taking all of your advice about how to fix our problems then what would we do if you weren’t around. I’m a grown up and need to fix things for myself. If what you taught me growing up doesn’t help me in the future, then maybe you didn’t do a good job but you have to realize that you raised me for 18 years and you have to believe yourself that you did a good job. I have a wonderful husband and a beautiful child. That should be proof enough that you’ve done a good job. Raising children is about teaching them to become competent, independent adults; and you have done that.<P>Sara told me a year ago, when my H and I moved back to Greeley that I was the one who needed to grow up. Do I need to grow up because I’m not doing everything mom wants me to and I’m living my own life the best way I can? It seems to me that living my own life is a sign of being grown up. Clearly, Sara and I see adulthood differently.<P>I’m not happy having such low self-esteem. It’s something I need to work on; I know that. I need to stand on my own two feet and live my own life. If I want or need advice on anything I will ask for it but don’t give it to me if I don’t ask. you don’t want any of us girls to make the same mistakes you did but part of growing up is making mistakes and learning from them. We make some of the same mistakes. And some we don’t, and we sometimes make up completely new ones. I can’t learn from all your mistakes but I can use the outcome in my life. I won’t completely change my life because you think I should and because you think my H is just like dad. MY H isn’t just like dad.<P>If you wish to see our daughter and I then my H must be included in the activities. You must be civil to him and not ignore him while he is around. If you can’t accept my H as my husband then you can’t accept me. You don’t have to like him but you should be civil. If you come to visit us, it is not acceptable for you to ignore him when he’s around. That is rude and insensitive, and we do not do that in my house. If you can’t accept him as my husband and that we are a family that means you do not accept me as your daughter. This is the way it has to be, accept us as a family or leave us be. Not negotiable. <P><BR>

Ps Just a little note on the letter to my mom. On the original letter to my mom I used my H and daughter's names. Here I changed their names to my H and our daughter just so you guys know.<P>

Hopeful, this is good. The only thing is that you're not really telling her explicitly what she can fix, which is her need to control everything. You might want to add something to that effect.<P>This is nowhere near as nasty as the letter I wrote my mom 15 years ago , but I think you probably want to add some sort of concluding paragraph...something summing it up...saying that you love her and know she loves you and the way she can show it is by giving you credit for knowing what you're doing.<P>Then see where she takes it.<P>This is good stuff, kiddo.

Thanks for the advice Dazed. I just want to make sure that I get everything out in the open with her and writing this is the best way I can think of right now to get her to listen. I just don't think she would be willing to listen if I called her or saw her in person. She would just do her contol thing again and I'm not as strong a person as I'd like to be right now. Someday soon I hope though.

hopeful<BR>This is a wonderful letter!<BR>The only thing that I would change is the sentence "It's you that is in control." I think I might say something like - It's you that is searching for control or needs to control.<BR>It is very important to let our parents know that we appreciate them but we are not here to be exactly what they want us to be. I think you have made that pretty clear in the letter. Your relationship with your mother will grow if she allows you this space.<BR>I always felt that I was a disappointment to my mother. When I realized how ddeply this was affecting me I started to work on it as you are doing. Now my mother learns a great deal from me and I am closer to her than ever before. I love to shock her now because I am not ashamed that I am who I want to be not who she wants me to be. I think I've made her younger by showing her that there are different ways to parent, have relationships, etc and there is no single right way. Now that she knows I don't need her approval I get more of it from her. Make sense? Not really but that is what developed.

Just bringing this to the top.

maybe I'm out of the loop where this is concerned but isn't it said in one of Dr. Harley's books that you should not use an accusatory tone, that it just puts people on the defense? I would change the tone from anger to explaination. Thats just me, I know that letter would just make me feel bad I don't know that it would accomplish anything else.

pw --- The letter i am sending to my mom is to explain to her how I feel and what is going on in my life. I am upset that she feels that she has to be in control of my life and the lives of my sisters. I guess to an extent I am angry at here for that but I'm not as angry at her as my H is. I feel it is better that I write this letter explaing things then to have my H do it. I believe that if he were to do it the letter would be written in a tone that would be a lot more angry than mine is. This is the only way I feel that I can get things on the table and be open with her about it. She would try to bash me and tell me that the way I was feeling and thinking is wrong and that she isn't doing what I feel she is doing. I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm angry but if I change the tone then I feel I would just be giving into her and her need to contol the situations in my life

My 2 cents:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I can’t believe I did that but I never would have done something like that if I hadn’t tried to please you by leaving my husband.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Maybe I'm reading into this too much, but it sounds like you're blaming your mother for you deciding to have sex with another guy. Are you sure you want to say that? Perhaps there is another way to word it. Just my thoughts.<P>Other than that, I like the way it sounds.<P>SHA

hopeful, I think your letter show the pain and heartache you are in right now. The only bit of advice I can add is that my sister sent a letter to my mother about 10 yrs ago, somewhat like yours. My mother had no idea that was how my sister felt and was very hurt by the things she accused my mother of. I think you have some very valid points, but I don't believe you slept with another man due to your mother. She may have encouraged you to leave etc. but would she have encouraged you to sleep with another man? Maybe you should take more of the "I" approach. "I feel that you feel the need to solve my problem" etc. I would tell her that you've done alot of things to find out more about yourself and why you made certain choices, and part of that is your want to please her. Let her know that you want her unconditional love no matter what you do. I can't tell you enough that I agree about accepting your husband. My in-laws have never accepted me, how I wish my H would have the guts you did. I like that your family comes as a "package" it's all or nothing.....the way it should be. I didn't totally understand my sisters letter to my mother and I certainly didn't agree with alot of it, but her issues were different than mine. Just let her know how you feel without blaming it all on her, find a way to say you made choices due to other factors. Explaining that you and your sisters are different is a great idea, let her know that you have found a rock to stand on and your sisters are still on sand, so maybe they need her support more. Unfortunately she will always be your mother, and chances of changing her ways aren't great, but if you come across very sure of yourself, you may be surprised ...... she may be proud of you.

I agree with everyone who has said that I probably need to not blame my mom for the affair that I had. I will go in a re-word that portion of it. I just need to think about how to word it. I guess my H's idea of posting the letter was a very good idea. Thank-you to everyone who has responded. I just wish my H would respond and tell me what he thinks of this letter. I know if he wrote the letter to my mom, it would sound a lot more angry than I am sounding right now. Thanks for all the help and I hope more people respond.

I am replying to this for two reasons.<P>First, I want my W to understand why I have "stayed out of her writing this letter.<P>Second, I want everyone else to know how I feel about my IL's, my MIL in specific.<P>Some of what I am about to say I have already said a few times here in different threads. I don't know if I have been as "complete" as I will try to be now though.<P>OK, with this preliminary over . . . While hopeful1771, our daughter and I were camping, we talked a little about our situation (with a rambuncious 6 year old who wanted to experience everything at once, we didn't have a lot of time to ourselves.) During one of our conversaations I made a comment something to the effect of: I had concidered writing a letter to my MIL telling her EXACTLY what her interference had cost us as a family. financially, emotionally, spiritually, etc.<P>I think this is when my W decided that she would write the letter instead. A few months ago, when my MIL and SIL were trying there best to make my W leave me again, they were calling us litterally dozens of times an hour leaving nasty messages because my W was not calling them back. (Coincidentally this was the same time that the OM was trying to get my W to "see him again".) We had talked about changing our phone number, and finally my W said that she did in fact want me to have the number changed. She wrote a letter to both of her parents at that time, telling them basically that we were trying to work on us, and that their interference was not going to be tollerated. We changed the phone number, gave them our E-Mail address, and told them that if they wanted to contact us that they could use E-Mail. A couple of days later, we were all at the store. When we walked out we ran into my FIL. He had driven about 70 miles to talk to us about what was going on. He has, at least superficially, made an attempt to work things out. He now has our phone number and calls on a fairly regular basis. While he and I are no where close to being buddies, he is at least trying to be civil to me. My MIL on the other hand has not said 5 words to me since the day my W and I had a confrontation with her family when we were moving back to the town we had lived in since we were married. In her contacts with my W, my MIL has tried very much to avoid anything having to do with me. Her contact with my W has been very hap-hazard. Infact, she was over a month late getting her grand-daughter a birthday present. Oh yea, she had excuses, but the fact is she didn't even care enough to be sure that her only grand-daughter was treated well on her birthday.<P>When my W first walked out on me, I wrote a letter to both of my IL's. In that letter I explained to them what I had come to realize had happened between my W and I. What I had already done to try correcting those problems, how much I loved my W and D, and how much I missed them. To this day I have not received even an acknowledgement from either of them.<P>I have gone out of my way to try to get along with my IL's. I have been pleasant, I have been helpful, I have not been demanding. (All of these things have occured almost from the day they first met me.)<P>I am very proud of my W for writing this letter. If she wants to send this letter, than I want the letter to be from HER, not me. I do not want my words and thoughts to be confused with hers when my MIL reads this. I hope that makes sense.<P>I agree with ALL of the comments made to my W regarding this letter, but other than that, I will not give suggestions on what she should say.<P>Hopeful1771 is right. If I were writing this letter, I would not be as considerate of my MIL's feelings as my W has been. Both of my IL's have made me very angry through all of this, but I do not hate them, as I think my W believes. I am much more disappointed with them. In many ways I feel sorry them. I would however be more detailed in my comments if I were writing this letter. I would give specific situations that there would be no way for them to ignore the comments.<P>I told my W before we were even married that I didn't care what her parents thought of me. That I was marrying her, not her parents. With that in mind, I really don't care about their feelings in all this. I realize that this sounds cruel, but it is simply a matter of fact, it is not an attempt to be mean.<P>If I were writing this letter, I would be extremely detailed. My W is not able to give that level of detail to me about what happened, so I know that she can not give that much detail to them. This is not meant to belittle my W in any way. As I said a few lines ago, I am truly proud of her for wanting to write this letter.<P>I love hopeful1771 more than I could ever explain, I hope that she knows this, and I wanted to let you all know this as well.<P>God Bless

ES and Hopeful:<P>Your situation is very similar to mine in the mother department (maybe they are the same person? ). I "broke up" with my mother when I met my H, knowing full what would transpire. We only reconciled, and then only tentatively, much later.<P>ES, perhaps you are a little bit like your MIL, only let's call it being a "take charge kinda guy", rather than "controlling". If Hopeful's mom is as much like mine as I suspect, she doesn't want you taking THAT place in her daughter's life; the one that she feels belongs to her alone.<P>In many ways I married my mother. My H is immature, needy, needs constant nurturing, needs me always to "fix things." When he's anxious or depressed, I have to make it better. Their final estrangement occurred during my H's suicidal depression 10 years ago. My mother has been a clinical depressive all her life, with a suicide attempt in 1964. When my H was depressed, he expected/hoped for her to be supportive and understanding. Instead, she was judgmental and disapproving, deciding that since he was causing me pain, he wasn't worth bothering with. I think she hates in him the traits that she shares, and I suspect the situation is the same with you.<P>It pains me to see what Hopeful has gone through in trying to please her mother. It's only because of 2-1/2 years of therapy I was in prior to meeting my H that I avoided the same kinds of mistakes. You deserve a lot of credit for seeing her through this. She has made remarkable progress already; and this letter is GREAT. This problem is not between YOU and her mother, it's between HER and her mother, and I think you understand that. <P>Be aware that her mother may not take kindly to the contents of this letter. To this day, my mother will tell me that the letter I sent HER 15 years ago was brutal and vicious -- and perhaps it was. Hopeful needs to know that you will be there for her; that if she has to make a choice, that choosing you is the right one. I think she knows that already. <P>Good luck to you guys; I think you're going to be just fine.

You two are very strong individuals, and you both should be commended. It is very obvious I believe to anyone who reads this post that the two of you are very much in love. Wouldn't it be such a nice world if others could be happy for anyone who is able to acheive this? My in-laws, although slightly different from yours, will be nice to my face and turn around and stab me in the back. In our healing process this was one of the biggest topics in counceling. I had always supported my H in any and all decisions (working to put him through college, supporting all job moves...4 in 10 yrs, raising the children basically alone since his hours at work were so demanding, etc.) I always bought my IL all of their presents, cards, etc. I tried many times being the "daughter" anyone could want. I found out the hard way that non of this mattered at all. My H called his father before he was going to meet his on-line "friend", mind you that my H was using the excuse that he was going to visit his parents alone. This was fine with my FI. He continued to encourage my H to leave me, never once mentioned about working things out. During this time neither of my IL ever once called to check on me nor their grandchildren. My FI would even email the OW, talk about being slapped in the face. Our counselor asked me why did I care. I told her that I cared because I had never done anything to them, couldn't they see that I loved their son, that even in this whole betrayal that I loved him enough to stay? They recently came to visit, it was the first time since I found out about my H affair, it was very hard for me to civil towards them. My FI even had the gaul after 9 months to tell my H that the OW had emailed him right before he came. A lie? or the truth? My guess is a lie, I think he would still do anything to have my H leave. I will never understand any of this. My mother is the one who caught my H, I needed proof and he had gone on a business trip to my home town and the ow met him there. So imagine that my mother should despise him, but she doesn't. She said that she is very proud of him for working so hard to rebuild a broken marriage. She said everyone can make a mistake once, but twice would not be forgiven. She loves him very much and they talk on a regular basis. Shortly after my H and I put our marriage first and were working very hard, my FI told my H that he couldn't believe he stayed with me. I DIDN'T HAVE THE AFFAIR!!!!! I don't know if I will ever get over this, I was betrayed also by my IL. My H wrote a letter to his parents about how bad he treated me, and all the lies he told them about me, he told them that he needed to do that so he had an excuse to be doing what he was doing. His mother called when his father was gone and said she appreciated the letter and was happy to see us working it out, we never to this day have heard from his father. So my new attitude is that no more will I go and buy the cards or gifts, no more will I call them and tell them all the wonderful things their grandchildren are doing, no more will I ever trust them. My H has to take care of them now, and needless to say, ever card,gift, etc. is always late and sometimes he just doesn't bother with it at all. I'm not after revenge, but just know that there will not be change in them. I love my H more than life itself, he didn't choose his parents and I'm lucky he doesn't have their attitude. You guys hang in their, love each other as you already do, and know that life will work for you.

Well, I think this thread got overlooked yesterday as a result of my bad morning and over-reacting.<P>I wanted to bring this back to the top to see if anyone else can offer my W ideas and or support.<P>God Bless