There's another email from me, tully.

To the crew:

I suggested these questions to tully just a few minutes ago in an email, then saw her post above:

You will remember to ask him about communication in Plan B, won't you? Is it good or bad for you not to respond to comments that are not sent through the mediator? If he sends you another email, should you a) ignore it, b) respond to any specific question (not mad ranting) through the mediator, or c) re-send the Plan B letter through the mediator? And is there any need to add to your original Plan B letter? Does it tell WH clearly enough about what he needs to do to re-open communication with you?

I know you will have your own list, but I'm just hoping that these subjects of minor contention on the thread can be cleared up directly from the horse's mouth's son.

Are these questions necessary, do you think, and can anyone think of any others?

tully, is there any chance that you can get broadband installed in the next hour, so that you can talk to Steve and post to us simultaneously?!

The anxiety is killing me!

I want so badly for you to restore and rebuild your marriage. The new marriage would combine all that was good about the old one - and there were so many things - with remorse, an apology and solid commitment from your H.

I think it's less a matter about what the folks on the board agree or disagree with and more about what tully feels is right.

There is quite a bit of arguing back and forth between posters about what is right or wrong...in my opinion, a waste of energy that can be used better.

We all have our opinions about a situation we are only hearing from tully's words. We can give our best opinion and it is up to tully to decide.

I think what is best is that she get as many opinions as possible. By arguing with each other about what is the best, we might chase off some posters. I think the more options laid out to tully the better.

So rather than moving backwards going over what others have posted, I suggest we give her our best and let her decide.

When I read a person's thread I rarely read what other's have posted...

Surely there's no harm in debating the best way to interpret the plans and apply them to a specific situation?

Don't you feel you might have something to learn from other posters' points of view?

If you do not read other posts, how do you know that they have been argumentative?

Dr Harley specifies the requirements for restoring the marriage in various articles on this web site.

In this one, Coping with infidelity: restoring the martial relationship he writes:

The solution to most marital problems requires spouses to override their Taker's instincts. Doing what you feel like doing works great when you are in love, because the Giver calls the shots. But when you are not in love, and your Taker is in charge, your instincts will make matters much worse. The Taker wants you to get angry, be disrespectful and make demands. All of those Love Busters withdraw love units and also create defenses that make depositing new ones almost impossible.

Both C.W. and S.C. find their spouse's Love Busters coming between them and the restoration of love. But I'm sure that both of them are dishing them out as well.

So the first step in the restoration of marriage after an affair is to lay down the weapons. Each spouse must make a concerted effort to avoid anger, disrespect or demands at all costs. Every time they are together, they must do whatever it takes to make the relationship safe for each other.

Once they can guarantee each other safety, by protecting each other from Love Busters, they are ready to learn to meet each other's emotional needs. But they will have to learn to negotiate all of these issues with the Policy of Joint Agreement in mind. They must begin by guaranteeing each other that the cost of a great marriage will not require personal sacrifice. It will only require a willingness not to do anything that would hurt each other. They must understand that everything they will be doing in the future must take each other's feelings into account, and safety will be the guiding rule from now on.

With personal safety as the condition for negotiation, and enthusiastic mutual agreement as the goal, a couple is ready to rebuild. But that environment of safety may take a while to create. It may be the very first skill that they will need to learn before they can negotiate satisfactory.

Getting beyond this first step -- setting a safe stage for negotiating -- may take some careful thought and planning, but one thing is for sure, negotiations that are not safe or pleasant will not give you a solution to your problem.

In this, Can't we just forgive and forget? Letter no 1.:

The first act of compensation to you from your husband should be to end his relationship with the other woman once and for all. He should never see or talk to her again, even if it means leaving his job or moving your family to another state. The reason should be obvious, but in case there's some confusion, he should be reminded that every contact he will ever have with this woman will be like a knife in your heart. He has already caused you to suffer unbearable pain, and any further contact with his ex-lover would keep you suffering. In your case, the affair is probably over, but has your husband taken precautions to never see or talk to his ex-lover again?

And then he should put extraordinary precautions in place to guarantee that another affair will not take it's place. Has he considered the circumstances that led to his affair? Intoxication, business trips that separate you overnight, close friendships with those of the opposite sex, recreational relationships that do not include you, and so forth, should be subject to scrutiny. What was it that made him vulnerable? Whatever it was, he should take extraordinary precautions to avoid it in the future. It's part of just compensation for the suffering he's caused you to bear.

While there's no excuse for an affair, and if your husband takes the extraordinary precautions I've suggested he will never have another affair again, there are "reasons" that people have affairs. And those reasons must also be addressed when considering just compensation.

Excellent post, Sugar.

Tully, you may want to print out the article above and tape it to your mirror, lol. The good dr.'s ideal scenario is what you will need to aim for.

Hi SMHI and Sugar, yes, I'm all for debating too. (Anyone who knows me in real life will absolutely confirm this. I think debating is the spice of life!) I agree that the point is that I need to feel at ease with decisions but I find that hearing various points debated very helpful because i'm not always sure of myself and I need sometimes a bit of a push in the back to go forward.

Anyway, here's the latest. I spoke to Steve today - a lovely man. He thinks I absolutely did the right thing by moving to Ireland and understood exactly the situation with WH. He said to me that I would be crazy to move back to France from the safe position that I am in now unless I feel totally at ease with WH's attitude towards recovery. In fact he said that going back to France before that point would be like heading off to go somewhere without knowing where it is and without a map. He confirmed that I should get full remorse and acknowledgement of fault from him along with a complete, detailed plan for recovery produced by WH.

However he also agreed that we are in an impasse and in order to break that impasse he recommended that I break out of Plan B temporarily in order to communicate with WH. He said that I should appeal to his logic by getting him to agree that the 'ideal solution for WH is to be in love with the mother of his children'. Once he agrees with this obvious statement then we need to explore how this can be achieved. And I should suggest that I have discovered a possible option i.e. Steve Harley and that I would like WH to assess this option and tell me if Steve's system of guidelines for restoring love have any validity for us. What we agreed is that I would send an email to WH suggesting this but not putting him under any pressure to do so, just asking him if he could apply his intelligent, logical brain to this issue.

Here is the email I sent:


WH replied with the following:


So my most immediate question is: should I allow him to take them for the time he requests? I had wanted to have Christmas morning with them but I could live with not seeing them until 10am. SMHI asked in a recent post if I had asked the girls what they wanted but I'm reluctant to do this as I think it puts them in a horrible postion which is not of their making. I think it's a bit cowardly to pass the decision on to them. I know what they want: a happy family Christmas all together but since that's not possible then the least we adults can do is tell them 'this is how it is, but don't worry we'll make the best of it.'

Apart from this I am concerned that he is saying that he has 'even less to offer' than before in terms of effort or love because it was indetectable to me. How should I respond to this? Should I be polite, to the point, refer to issues he raises or just say, fine, I'll talk to you after you speak to Steve. I have to say that yet again I am getting to the stage where I would be relatively relieved to be shut of him and this M and if he keeps this attitude then I can walk away knowing that I tried my best but I could do no more. All thoughts and opinions welcome!

"I have no wish to resume communications with you until the conditions of my letter have been met and you have a plan in place to prevent any and all future contact with OW, and to restore our family.

"This marriage counselor asked me to reach out to you on this one point and invite you to talk with him. This does not mean a resumption of communication between us.

"You have not addressed the invitation I made. I will wait for Steve Harley to notify me that you have made contact and that our marriage could be benefited by further contact with you. Your previous emails were blocked from being received. Any further emails from you until that time will also be blocked."

Tully,

So glad you got to talk to Steve. Sounds like you got some really good advice. I must also say that I am extremely disappointed in your WH's response to your contact. I cannot even imagine how it must have felt for you. Here you are drawing him a map once again for how you 'might' be able to work towards a recovery and rather then thanking you for the map and making his plans he has to take the opportunity to hurt you? Unbelievable!! The sense of entitlement is EXTREMELY strong in this one!!

As for the holidays, I completely agree that you should not put it in the kids hands to decide. That is extremely unfair. I think you have to decide what you want and negotiate it with WH. Don't ask them to make a choice between their parents.....

Oh yeah....one more thing...be careful about letting WH know about this discussion forum. Now that you you given him Steve's email address he may find this anyway. Be prepared just in case he does.

I really feel for you Tully!! We are all here for you!! Keep posting!!!


Mindshare

Thanks KaylaAndy. Your suggestions are good. I got the impression that Steve was a bit more softly, softly than you have been in these but he did say very clearly that I should not concede any ground and that this opening of communication should be a temporary one. I like your idea of saying that Steve's office will inform me if a meeting has taken place and until them no communication will happen but Steve was very insistent that WH should not be under pressure to have the session with him with an 'or else' over his head. He wanted WH to approach the session sceptically, like a researcher willing to learn about a new religion before accepting or dismissing it. (this was the analogy he used)

Mindshare, yes it is a dissapointing response from WH but I'm starting to get used to it now. It's 6 weeks since Plan B and he has made no positive efforts at all. All his efforts are aggressive, mildly threatening or negative towards me. The only consolation I can find here is that there will be no middle ground. He will either stick to his guns in which case there will be no future for us but at least I avoid false recovery.
I have to admit that I have little hope that Steve will get through to him but it's worth a try.

I really liked KaylaAndy's letter, but since it sounds like Steve wants to go softer than that, here is a suggested modification.


Handle the visitation through your IM, and don't bog down in trying to answer his previous letters.

As far as the nuts and bolts of the visitation, it just depends on what you want and what you're comfortable with. If it were me, I wouldn't care too much which part of the holiday he took them, but you may also have traditions and family events to consider.

So either accept what he offers, or make a counteroffer, but just go back to using your IM.

Don't worry about any of the rest. Fogbabble, every bit of it. His Love Bank can be restored far more easily than yours can, and believe me that yours can!

How wonderful that you got to talk to Steve.

Oh, tully, my heart goes out for you!! I too had such high hopes since my WH easily agreed to talk to SH and to the logic line suggested, but like your WH, he is full of pride and entitlement and his response is that the MB stuff may work for others but not for him. I was heartbroken all over again....

But a couple of thoughts about your post: He may agree to talk with Steve and still not seem to move, but it cannot hurt for him to hear the information from someone. It may percolate.

Also, I loved KaylaAndy's response, but I think it is important for you to decide what you will offer him for holiday visits (Maybe time on the 23rd and Christmas eve, but you need them back by ___ PM)? He does not deserve to have them on Christmas eve and day -- one or the other, but you decide.

Also, my WH thought he was clever to check out MB after his conversation with SH. I told him I was glad he was exploring the pain others feel from infidelity! Like I care that he knows about Plan B or whatever -- I can't control what he'll look into and its not like he hadn't done a hundred other hurtful things. I know we talk about having these plans that will help turn a WS around, but if we pretend its a secret out there I think we set ourselves up for failure in general.
I say to WS looking at MB -- good! Do you see all the pain? Do you see all the encouragement people get to care for themselves? Do you see how many people value their marriages and that people recover from adultery?

OK, that's my .02 -- I hope you figure out what you want to do over the holidays; that's about all you need to figure out for now. I also wouldn't put much stock in his statement about his love draining. Draining because you are limiting your contact to him because he's hurting you? Would he respect someone who sticks around to be hurt more? Crazzzyyyy!!! :RollieEyes:

Take care!
BF439

Tully, Steve is the professional here - I'd take his advice before mine or anyone else's! We're all experts in our own field of one experience - he's a veteran observer of many.

I actually see your WH's response as reasonably positive. Can I just suggest that you try to filter out the aggressive emotional content he's hitting you with...for the moment? This kind of nastiness is far from unusual in waywards; they're living in a distorted morality in which they're actually quite unhappy, and unhappy people often try to hurt the people whose actions are frustrating them. Honestly, if you read some of the stories here, the things that WSs say are breathtakingly nasty and cruel. Six months later, the waywards can't remember saying them, can't even imagine that they could have said them. I remember my own H asking me for my advice on whether he should leave me for OW, because 'you're always wise and I trust your judgement'. :RollieEyes: I know that many BSs here (with recovered marriages) can remember some truly horrific and spiteful thíngs being said to them.

Your H may just be basically a rather nasty person, of course, but only time and patience will tell, so I'd suggest you try to let those words roll past you for now.

The positive things are a) that he is really relieved to be in communication, and b) he has shown some willingness to consult with Steve. I think Steve is absolutely right to suggest that some communication is needed, and I also suspect that yours is a situation where a respect-worthy mediator will be needed. There's a power struggle going on here, and you need someone who can offer a path that gives both a 'win'.

Christmas Day? Well, I personally think that it would be good for the girls to see their father at Christmas. Let him have that horribly early start to the morning that goes with young children, and you can potter around and get yourself ready at leisure. Just don't let him have the passports (is there any way he could get the children from Eire to France without passports?).

TA

Thank you for the suggestions. I finally came up with this. Steve also suggested that I talk to WH over a coffee but I'm nervous about this and I'm afraid that it might have a seriously negative effect on my LB. I am fairly sure that Steve will not get through to WH. He is not someone to be influenced by somebody he doesn't know on the telephone, that's why I have focused on Steve's logical methods rather than on him as a person.


Thanks again, Neak, once again you are a rock! You keep giving me a glimmer of hope when I feel all is lost.

And BF, you are right about the forum. If he does read it he'll probably think it's all a load of rubbish and that everyone who posts here is an extremist but that's just another example of his closed-mindedness. If he doesn't open his mind he'll have a very lonely life.

Thank you again, friends.

I crossed with you, TA. I can see that you are a much more tolerant person than I am but I think it's all a question of deciding what dose of fogginess each of us can absorb before it becomes toxic. My tolerance level may not be very high. I feel like turning away and marching as quickly as I can in the opposite direction when I hear this kind of stuff from him. Either he cops on fast or it's life without me, I'm afraid.

You have some great advice Tully. It's hard to back down when being weak was the reason to Plan B in the first place. To be ready to reconcile you will have to put your weapons down. It's hard and it's not fair, but you started this because you wanted to save your marriage. Don't let anger drive everything. Your WH is waving the white flag and although he is not meeting all of your conditions, he sounds like he's willing to try. Leave him with Steve and don't be afraid of change. With MB, you can have an amazing M and better than ever. Take care!

It feels like this because you've already tolerated so much. You were in non-recovery for a long, long time, and it's not at all surprising that you've reached your saturation point.

If he decides not to talk to Steve right now, all it means is he's not ready to R yet.

If he talks to Steve he may still not be ready to R...yet...but it's a step.

It's all a process, and takes time no matter what happens.

May I also suggest that you put more focus on YOUR life.
Start making some new plans and goals for YOUR future.
WH may get on board, or may not -- but regardless of him -- you and the girls have things to do!

I LOVE that you bought that sporty little car! Good for you. What else do you need for your independence? Are you comfortable and happy with your living arrangements? Maybe a home for you and the girls could be in your future? Imagine where you might live, and what kind of place you would like -- that could be one of your longer range goals!

What about your career? With both the girls in school, do you have time for a job? What have you done in the past? Maybe you would like to go back to school for training in an area you love?

There could be some very exciting plans!

And as a side note, WH's get very nervous when life seems to be moving on without them. There are a couple of posters (Mimi and CarolK, come to mind) who had great success with Plan B because they were very focused on THEIR VERY OWN FUTURE. Their WH's realized they had to get on board or get left behind!

Personally, I think you are doing an AMAZING job! I think moving to Ireland was brilliant, and exactly what the situation called for -- logically. Keep on!

Don't be too alarmed about the threats and manipulations in his email...these are common ploys. He wants you back and he is willing to threaten you to get you back. He wants you back but not take any (more) blame for it. This is a tough time for the WS who is feeling shameful, but in order to live and survive they have to convince themselves they are on a path that is NOT destructive...they have to lie to themselves, and they convince themselves so well they try to convince others. That is a big part of the fog.

This fog eventually dissipates, and they have moments of clarity. It depends on what their situation is and who they are listening to...others that are rationalizing with them? The OW that is agreeing with their justifications?

I like the idea of not going back to him until he works on his love for you. Why go back to a man that does not love you and has no plan to strengthen that love?

And I like the way Steve wants this to be an option, not a demand, to come back to you...in that way, when he does talk to Steve it is a step in the right direction, and one he takes on his own, not because he is forced to.

The problem is that he's not meeting any of my conditions. He doesn't want to reconcile, he was to push this tough decision on to me. Well, I'm not taking it.

Thank you for your words of encouragement. The only way I can cope with him and his fog is by reminding myself that he is an addict and what he is saying make no logical sense but the problem is that only he can make the changes necessary.