Your bro is telling you way, way, way too much stuff. If you are in Plan B, you shouldn't be hearing anything that OEO says or does.

he is angry, because his life is not rosy right now, like he thought it should be.

I do not think that your average WH thinks about this stuff in advance. They do not sit down and say, Ok, If I leave my W, then A will happen, followed by B, and then C.

I think they just go forward like a bull in a china shop.
"I want to be with OW because she makes me feel like a giggly teenager. I have not felt this way in a long time, so that must mean that I have not been happy in a long time. Therefore, it must be my W's fault. So.... I will move out, and it will be a little tough at first, but eventually everyone will see that this is for the best. They will be happy for me!"

My WxH actaully said - "Things around here will be exactly the same. The only difference will be, I am not going to live here any longer. But I will still take care of stuff around here, and we will still be a family, just a different kind of family"
any sane, mature adult could see that was not going to happen - but he truy believed it. Your Wh truly believed something similar.

It turns out that things are not "just a little tough in the beginning". He is actually tearing apart a family. Things do not get easier for him - they get more difficult. He is distracted - thus the 3 tickets. His mind will not let him sleep. He KNOWS that his child is suffering, and that just can not be his fault. It must be your fault.

All you can do is breathe deep, love your child, take care of yourself, bake cookies, call your family memebers. Do good things. Every day. after awhile, he will not be able to say mean things any longer, because no one will listen.

Wow, I think that's exactly how my WH thought things would go! In fact, not only did he state that he felt HE deserved to be happy, but that he wanted to be the best co-parent and best friend to me. Like I would want an un-repentent,selfish liar for a friend and let him hang out at my house! FOG!!!!

I think this is pretty common from what I read -- when someone wants their selfish choices to be seen as congruent with the man they used to be. But what they don't know yet is that to become a better man through this they will have to really repent before anyone can see them as healthy again...

That's all for now!
BF439

Ok, I need some advice here. I messed up, big time. About a month ago I found out that OEO was prowling a singles section on facebook called "Are you interested?" Me, being the jolted wife and feeling angry that I had to face cancer alone, created a fake facebook account and made contact with him. He took the bait and started an email corrispondence. My plan was to get him to start talking inappropriately to me and I was then going to forward all of the emails to his OW. Let HER see what it felt like to be cheated on. I know, I know, not my finest moment at all. I wanted his A to end and I wanted them both to feel some of the pain that I was going through.

I saw that this was not very healthy behavior on my part, even though it was allowing me to see that he prob was not going to M his OW. So, I stopped. Here is where things got me in trouble. There were only a few exchanges between us, the last one from a fake email account that I set up. He has recently looked at the originating IP address and saw that the email came from my home. <Sigh> As a result, I had to eat crow today and break NC to send him an apology letter. This is what I sent:

OEO,

I want to apologise for my recent behavior. It was a morbid curiosity that got the better of me. I saw many logs on my computer that showed you were on a dating facebook sight and wanted to confirm if indeed you truly were looking. I found messages from you to ______(a different woman's name that I dont know). I guess I was shocked to see that while you are living with one woman, married to another you would still be looking at others. I just wanted to confirm to myself that this is the person you have become. It was not healthy for me to do this and it was not kind to do to you. It will never happen again. You do not have to worry about having any kind of contact from me from this point on. I will be maintaining all forms of no contact with you. I will not try an find out anything about your life. I am done. Please know that it will never happen again.

Please do not respond to this email, because you are still blocked. Any and all contact still needs to be maintained through my brother.


So, I know I screwed up. I know that it was wrong and I will never do anything like that again. Did I ruin everything???? At this point, if have then that is ok. He is not the person I was in love with. Guess I keep hoping that the person I loved will emerge, but I just dont think it will happen. Any encouraging words would be helpful.

Oh, idey58, you certainly broke the NC part of Plan B, but please don't expect any kind of verbal spanking from me! I can't imagine that any BS could do a Plan B "perfectly," considering the level of pain we feel.
I thought your apology letter was above reproach and very classy.
However, another option for you to consider, is to stay really dark and send him nothing. So you created a fake account and looked into his activities! So what!! If you are really, really dark you would not even acknowlege that you know that he knows. You'd just cancel the email/site. What do you think about that?
I'm not sure you owe him an explanation here at all...
What do others think?
BF439

Hey BF, thank you for your reply and your kindness. I truly did not want to send that email but my brother kept saying that it was the right thing to do. I needed to take the high road.

I still feel like I just caused any crack that might have been in the door to slam shut. Think I ruined any chance of a R. O'well, I did what I did and can not change that now. My matra at this point is ..... It is what it is and I cant control it, just how I react to it.

I am feeling a bit lost at the moment. Are there guide lines for the IM to follow as far as NC goes? Did I really mess things up with my low moment? Guess I am just hoping for some advice on what to do now.

No you didn't harm anything beyond what he had already done.

You were already over by the time you found out you had cancer and he left anyway.

You just had to find out how sleazy he had become.

You told the truth in your break from NC - you're done.

Only extreme measures from him could recover his bankrupt love bank with you.

Plan B now protects you to heal without hope for recovery, but hope for your own peace and eventual happiness again.

Thanks Kay for your honest and candid response. I guess it is still hard for me to let go, yet I see it is the best thing for me. No, he is not someone I respect or even like at this point. He has fallen so far down. All I can do is focus on my own path and try to live to the best of my ability.


Venting here.......OEO sent my bro an email that said he was going to take money from the joint account to

1. Pay for the taxes and lincencing of his used car that he was forced to buy because he totaled his car 3 weeks ago.

and

2. To pay for the mediation appointment that he scheduled for next week. He agreed to be the one to pay for it on his own but now is saying it will come from the joint account.

Sooooo....I think part of the negotiation will be that he is going to have to re-imburse me for these expenditures. What is everyones opinion on this. I will not respond to any of the financial stuff until we are at the mediators (in seperate rooms because I am not willing to break NC). Do I have any grounds to stand on when it comes to this? I paid for the L that will eventually file the D paperwork, that is why OEO said he would pay for mediation.......so much anger, still just hoping that indifference will come one day!

So, I'm sitting here with so much anger and resentment. I have become so use to the constant drama that he brought to the relationship that now I feel a sense of withdraw. Does that make sinse? When I lay down to go to sleep, I think of him and the A. When I start to wake up I think of him and the A. I hate it. I keep trying to change my focus but it feels like I am trying to ignore the elephant in the room. I know it takes time, but dang it, it is so painful in the meantime.

My neighbor has said that she is willing to be a secondary filter to OEO spew. My bro seems to be passing on a bit too much info, so she said she would filter it even further. Bless her. She doesnt want OEO to know she is in the process because he does see her on occasion. Still, I think asking anyone to be an IM is alot to shoulder. So, If my bro can act as the front end and she actually is the one filtering everything then it will be good for me.

I have noticed that when anything concerning him comes up my anxiety level increases, yet it is still hard for me to not talk about him to my friends. When does he leave my mind? When can I get passed the awful things he has done? Normally I am a very positive person, yet he seems to be bringing out the worst in me. I hate that and am trying to walk the higher road. I know I fall at times, but I doing the best I can.

How long does it take for the LBS to truly get beyond the anger that we carry when our WAS have NO remorse or regret for what they are doing? How long will I have to endure this anger? That is why I went NC, so that I can leave my anger behind......so far it has only deminished a small bit. Maybe it is because my bro is passing on OEO's comments about finances.......still makes me boil. Trying to take deep breathes and find a more peaceful place.

idey58, I have a theory about the constant thoughts in Plan B. There is now enough space from the day to day drama, that our hearts and brains can now begin dealing with the trauma of the affair. It is such a violation and when we are in the process of trying to save our R or understand the change that has taken place in our spouses, I think we block some of that pain to be able to function.
Now that he is out of your day to day presence, you are likely beginning that long journey to work through the pain.
It sounds like not only might you have some depression (naturally) but also some anxiety, which there are medications that could help with both. Of course, both of those symptoms come with PTSD, and I think for many of us that is how we experience the affair: A life-threatening trauma that we live over and over again.
BTW, my WH also shared with me his plan for how we would afford a mediator and how much cheaper that would be than a straight divorce. Like I care at this point at all...

BF439

Thanks BF for your remarks. I really appreciate your continued support and kindness.

I keep reading over and over about doing a great Plan A so that they have wonderful memories of us when we go into Plan B. Here is the thing, I tried very hard to compliment him and appreciate him and build him up. We would joke around and he would even intiate emails to me. He would download music he thought I would like and compliment me......yet he kept saying over and over again he was not coming back and not in love with me. He just wanted me to let go because he didnt feel it was healthy for me to continue to have hope. For a long while he even had me believing that he was not w OW, yet when I found out he was he acted like "Well, duh, I never said I wasnt."

It was when I found out that he was actually living with her that I needed to go NC. I probably didnt do it right because I had not read MB yet. I did it slowly, stopped replying to emails, not answering calls, not really having interaction with him, yet always had a smile on my face when he was around. Finally, I gave him my NC letter that explained why I was going NC.

Since then he has been very hateful. He is so angry, using the fact that I dont want him to be in my house as messing up his visitation. This is the only grievance he has towards me, says he doesnt care about anything else. From the few comments that my bro has let slip (in the begining of him learning to be being IM) it is apparent that he thinks I am a controlling B! tch. He told my bro he would not care if I went NC if he had his place already, but since he is staying w maggot because he cant afford an aprtment until our house sells, he thinks I am being unfair. So, because he says he doesnt care and add to it the facebook disaster he found out about, I now feel that there just no chance at all.

Do WAH who have this much hate and distain every wake up? DO they ever want to come back? He keeps spiralling so far down. His credit is ruined, all of our money is gone, he has been demoted at his job, he parties all of the time and when he has our son the only interaction he has with him is playing video games. I know him leaving is because he is broken and not doing the work needed to fix HIMSELF....he is too busy pointing his finger at me as the problem.

DO I just need to let go? The reason I am asking again is because I truly believe that OEO is done with me and is going to ride off into his happy sunset.

I don't think you have described a "happy sunset" senario.

What you are struggling with is your lost hope ... be gentle with yourself. You are in the grief process.

WOW! I guess I am a lost cause. Twice now I have gotten coments that make me think so. Ok, I can take the hint. Sucks to be me....I need to just suck it up. After all I can only control how I react to things and nothing more.


Still, I have to say that I didnt expect the doom and gloom after only 6 months from D-day, but I also understand that sometimes others have a better perspective when they are on the outside. This is me letting go completely...............


Well, tomorrow I go to mediation......as OEO has said, "If we dont get this thing done in this session, then I am going to schedule an appointment every F'ing week until it is done!" Guess he is of the motivated verity. Honestly, I am not that torn up about it this time. My NC has let me step back and truly SEE the person he is now. He is NOT someone I want. He is broken. He is selfish. He is spiraling. The best thing for me has been the distance that I have put between us.

I requested that we have seperate rooms at mediation and that NC remains during negotiations. If I had to sit in the same room with him I think I would be torn up, but since I know I still do not have to look at him, I am ok. This is what I need right now. I am ready to let the man he has become go, even though I still mourn over the person he once was. Here is the thing though, I KNOW, and I do mean KNOW that I got the best of him. He has been spiralling down furhter and further for the last few years. Even maggot is not getting the man I once had. Afetr all, he is still prowling for others while living with maggot....how pathetic. He is going to live a very sad life if he continues on this path. I, on the other hand, have been forced to wake up and find myself. As scary as it has been, I now KNOW who I am. I do get lonely sometimes, but know that it is only a sign that I still having growing to do. I am not looking for anyone and would not desire to have a R when I still have growth in my life. When this pain/anger has passed then, and only then, will I even consider dating again.

Thank you all for being understand and supportive, even when I fell. Wish me luck and I will post an update after it is all over.

First off - YOU are not a lost cause. The jury is still out on OEO. Right now, he is certainly lost. He may find his way back to rejoin the human race - but he has his alien hat stuck firmly to his head at this time.

It does not suck to be you. You have much to feel grateful for. You are beating a terrible disease. You have family that loves you. You have a wonderful son. And, you are wonderfully intact and soul-wise.

You certainly are not able to control an unwilling adult alien, so you extradited yourself from his ugliness - which is a very smart move on your part.

You're scared, I think. That is natural.

Hi, Idey:

I went back and read your thread. You've been through a lot. I just wanted to drop by and repeat what you've already heard - you know that you are going to have really hard times but that DOESN'T mean you have failed, are a loser, have messed up, have no hope, etc.

What it does mean is that you loved your H (who is, as you point out, NOT the person you are dealing with now) and that your lives were joined for a long time in a way that was very meaningful to you. The quickness with which it can all turn on you is amazing, shocking, and disorienting. I'm within your timeline - actually, he asked for a D within 2 months of DDay and became increasingly emotionally abusive at 3 months - straight downhill from then until I went into Plan B at 4 months - and now don't deal with it anymore. I've only been in Plan B for a month + a couple of days, and it is very hard, and painful alot of the time - but already, occasionally, just for a moment, feel real peace. And fun, even, as I reach out to friends and try to live in the moment. I'm holding out for more.

I see many people on these boards who seem to expect that a couple of weeks or months in Plan B and they will go on with their lives just fine. IMHO, it takes between 3 and 5 years to work through all of this - having done it once before - and sometimes the loss itself is the scariest thing. How do you rebuild?

The incredibly trite, incredibly true answer is - one day at a time. Sometimes one hour at a time. You already know this; you have had to do it to beat your illness, so you're a leg up on some folks who have never had such challenges. You have an identity without your marriage - you just have to (re)discover it. Plan B gives you the room and even the "sacred space", if you will, to grieve and to begin the process of doing just that.

I still have fantasies that everything is going to go back to the way it was...but really, deep down, I don't want it to. It wasn't working. I want the relationship I thought I had - but that is fantasy, especially now. Even more, I want the ability to define the relationship I want, and to be able to see the reality of what is going on in my relationships, to achieve balance (hard for an extremist like me) and to address that reality directly. That's going to take ME making some important changes in ME.

Like Pepperband says, it does not suck to be you. You are healing. You are already doing other things that are very good for you, and even creative (I haven't heard of someone requesting separate rooms for mediation. I thought that was brilliant.) Everything you are going through is NORMAL - painful, but normal, and you will continue to make progress as long as you resist the temptation to beat yourself up. Furthermore, there is something about people who have been through the fire and emerged on the other side. They are "tempered" by it - and others can feel it. I can already see the makings of it in you. Hang in there.

- M

Pepper....thank you for your continued support and the reality checks you give me. I think that I took your other post as being a bit harsher about my situation than what you meant it to be. You are right, his head is firmly planted and I dont want to be involved with a person like that anyway. Maybe one day he will chose to remove it, but until then I want nothing to do with him.

Miraim, it is funny who I have given similar advice at DB to other posters. I KNOW these things, yet when it comes to my own situation I forget them. I dont feel like I have failed, I feel like he failed me and my son. I made mistakes, but was more than willing to do whatever it took to heal the M. He made even bigger mistakes and chose the easy way out.....a maggot. You and I are going through many of the same cycle of emotions. Especially the fantasy of things working out but then realizing that you really dont even like them anymore. No, I believe I am now ready for the D.

So, I wanted to share my mediation expirience with you. Black clouds of smoke are pouring out of my ears from anger! Here is the thing.....we just spent 3 hours and got NOTHING resolved. She (the mediator) wanted to get the entire picture of our situation before truly discussing any terms....ok, fine, but when it came time to start to talk about terms, OEO only wanted to discuss how I was no longer going to let him into the house after the new year. So back and forth she went, each time saying hard hard it was on her to have us in seperate rooms. Too F 'ing bad. I dont know HOW many times I tried to explain that is was for my emotional health and physical health to have it this way. WHen she started talking with me at the begining of mediation she began by saying, "Last time you where here, you were living in Columbia, MO with your brother. It appeared that you had stolen your son away from OEO." I was taken aback for a moment and then said, "Um, Susan, I had cancer and moved in with my family so they could help take care of me since OEO was not will to do so. I went to great lenghts to make sure that OEO got to see our son for regular visitation and more." Can you see where this is going????



This is how my day went: First, he demanded that things stay the same with me leaving the home on his nights and weekend visitations......um, NO. Then she kept trying to say that it was his house too and that she has negotiated D's where one spouce live upstairs and the other in the basement until the D is final.....um, not goiing to happen. She kept trying to tell me that because the money was so tight that he could not afford to have his own place, I should let him have his visitations at the house.....I said he made his bed he can live in it. Besides, he DOES have a home, he chose to live with maggot. I told her I know I sound bitter, but that is because I am. You dont face possibly dying alone and just bounce back from that. SHe didnt get it. OEO then wanted me to agree to staying the way things are until APril 1st and then he would take his ENTIRE bonus (around 20,000) and the entire tax return (around 6,000) and set up an appartment. I looked at her and said NO F 'ING WAY! Half of that bonus is MINE to help start a new life with Owen since his POS father abandonded us. I WILL NOT GIVE THAT UP. Besides, he can take HIS half and go set up house with it. She tried to tell me that because OEO was paying for the mortgage technically he was giving me my maintenance which included the bonus amount and that I would be double dipping by taking part of his bonus. Through gritted teeth I said that we will have to agree to disagree on that one because that is not at all how I saw it.



We ended with her complaining once again on how hard seperate rooms are and that things take 2x's as long that way.....o'well.......and then we set up 2 more appointments in Jan. He has her so snowballed. She truly thinks he is a nice guy who is just having a hard time of it. I heard him joking with her and doing his usual shallow charming BS crap. Here I am trying to just be fair but feeling like she is already on his side. I told her there were things that I was more than willing to negotiate on, but this just was not one of them. Me and my son had to live with my friends and family for awhile, now it is OEO's turn. OEO can take him to his bro's house for his visitation, he can go and do fun things with Owen on his week night visitiations, he can stay at a hotel and pay for it out of the joint account, he can stay at his friend Chris and Tara's even. THey all have offered, these are all valid options. But nope, that is not what he wants to do. She then had the nerve to sit there and tell me he is trying to be a really good dad and shelter my son not only from the D, but from maggot as well. I could have jumped across the table and strangled her at that point.



At least I did not have to look at OEO at all. That really helped to keep me strong. I got to be angry, I got to cry and I got to just FEEL any emotion that I had without worrying about looking weak, or controlling or like a b!tch. The next time she complains I am going to say, "Susan, you can see that mediation is the way we both want to go on this. I am sorry you are not comfortable with how it is set up. If you like, we can find someone else who is more open to negotiating our terms in this manner." That will either shut her up or we will get a new mediator. I did find out that OEO wants me to put the house on the market in Jan.....again, not going to happen. I will not do it until late Feb or the begining on March. There is no point. I know I should probably insist on a new mediator, but I am not going to. I am a strong woman who has already talked to my L about what is fair and right. I know how to stand my ground. OEO is truly the weaker one and I can see him folding on many issues if I push them. Who cares what the mediator thinks of me. It only matters about the end game and there is nothing that says I have to sign one god d_mn piece of paper.



So, that is how my day has been so far. One of the things that I did while she was in with OEO was to take out my notebook and write down every reason why I hate him right now and why he is not good for me. I wrote 4 entire pages and was still going when the mediator walked back in. It really helped and it made the entire discussions of the D not scarry or painful. I think I am ready to get it over with. I even slept like a log last night, no fear, no anxiety. It was nice. I am doing pretty good, just gets me hot under the collar when you start to mess with my money. I'm just trying to find as much financial security fo rmy son as possible.

sorry ---- that was rude of me

Ok - deep breath

I'd personally enjoy torturing OEO myself. Is that a bad thing?

No Pepper, it's definately not a bad thing. I am glad others can see his shinanagans. He is a smooth talker so can pull the wool over peoples eyes. Guess that is what he did with the mediator. According to her I am being so unreasonable.

I really need some advice on how to keep my NC and not let him cake eat. The mediator kept telling me that this was his house also and if he wanted to stay here there was nothing I could do. She also tried to say that he just wanted stability for my S and OEO knew that introducing S to maggot was not a health thing to do right now (only knows that because son's IC drove that point home over and over with him). If he truly wanted stability then he would have never left. He is just want easy right now.

So, because there is no way in heck for him to get an apartment while we still own the house and he is not going to take our son to maggots (thankfully), should I back down and let him still use the house for visitation? I dont want to. This is an invasion into my space. Any suggetions? My fear is that if I keep him out he will stop making the house payments and let the home go into foreclosure, just so he could get an apparment that he would only be staying at when he has our S. ARRGGGG!!! I just dont know what to do!!!!