Hi tully,

I got cut off for a few days again, for the reason you know about. I hope New Year has been good so far and that your sister continues to do well.

You said:

No word from WH through the IM or otherwise so I'm starting to lose hope in any chance of reconstruction for us (end quote).

Please don't lose hope yet. I think it's too soon to feel like this .

I think that the reason you haven't heard from him is that he asked you to read his blocked emails before he would consider talking to SH (or talking to you about recovery conditions, I think, by implication). He can probably tell when you have done this and he knows that you have not.

I think that Plan B has been interpreted by him as a battle of wills. He thinks that you are imposing your will on him and he won't have it. He doesn't seem to see what you are requiring as being for the good of your marriage, each other and the girls. He seems not to understand that NC is fundamentally and intrinsically good for the marriage. He might think that NC is a way for you to get him to submit, and he is not prepared to choose a marriage in which he is forever p-whipped because he did this one thing wrong.

(I'm only guessing at this based on what I have worked out about my H's attitudes. He was very combative with me every time I wanted explanations, details or anything resembling an apology. The improvements I wrote about the other day have only come about because I have stopped "punishing" him, overtly or by silence and sulking.)

SH could easily make him see why NC is the basis for a good marriage, but WH's condition for even thinking about talking to SH is that you comply with his condition of reading his emails.

I can't believe that Plan B is meant to work as this kind of stand off. I know I keep going back to my earlier point, but I don't think that making H communicate with you in EXACTLY the way you say, or you won't communicate at all, is the point.

This stalemate could go on for a long time, when perhaps a temporary break in Plan B so that you can listen to what he wants to say you to, evaluate his argument and make a decision, might be a good thing.

SH's recommendation of a temporary break, during which you sent your last email and considered meeting him, surely supports my thinking. Plan B need not be pushed relentlessly if reconciliation is the goal of the BS, and the WS is showing even a tiny degree of interest in that.

I understand that you do not want to read his words of vitriol and justification, if such words are in the messages. Might a solution be for you to ask someone else to read them for you and to convey the basic facts? E.g., does he say anything about the current state of the affair? If you cut out the excuses, babble and hurtful words that were contained in the first email you reproduced here, is there any desire to reconcile, even if, at this stage, only for the children? Is there anything specific that he is asking you to do to achieve this?

If your interpreter says that the emails are basically hurtful and that it would do you no good to read them, then you can act accordingly. If, however, there is something that you can work on, then perhaps you can write to him saying that you have "read" the emails (okay, brush over what that means), that you acknowledge that there are issues in the marriage that you should both work on in recovery, and that you should like both of you to work on them with SH's help. Perhaps you could even leave the NC demand out of your reply and concentrate on getting him to speak to Steve. Once he does this, Steve can make clear the NC requirement, explain why it is the first but crucial step, and judge whether he has any intention of meeting it.

WH seems capable of letting this marriage die as a result of his refusal to be pushed around and manipulated. I find that quite breathtaking, but I do think that it is this character trait, and not his wish to take the affair further, that is driving his behaviour.

Can you afford another session with Steve for advice? If not, or if that would take a long time due to the holiday season, would you consider letting someone else read the emails? My feeling is that it should be one of your sisters rather than your mediator, who has not always understood her protective role. A sister might know better how much detail you can bear to hear in your current state. What do you think?

Your brilliant advice team should chime in here too. Remember, I'm the queen of getting things wrong!

Tully, Plan B is supposed to be all about insulating yourself from the WS and allowing yourself a rest from the strain of Plan A. Discussing the WS and his behaviours is really not part of the plan. So I hope the following doesn't set you back!

See, there's one thing about your sitch that really puzzles me. It's your WH's absolute lack of remorse. As far as I'm aware, he's shown nothing that begins to hint at compassion, or guilt, or even awareness that he's done a truly bad thing to you.

I have to say that I've rarely seen this degree of non-remorse here on MB. Few WSs seem to feel the kind of remorse that their BSs think is appropriate, but equally few express no remorse at all. The few WSs who put the whole blame on the BS and feel no sense of fault are rare, and don't give the impression - this is a personal opinion - of being overdeveloped in the intellect department. Many switch between apparent remorse and cold-eyed indifference depending on contact with the OP, but it's rare for there to be such blanket self-justification.

Even the ones whose coldness makes us gasp, are usually the ones who skip off with the OP and are much too deep in hormonal confusion to think straight. That's not - I judge - the case with your WH.

Which leaves me wondering just what kind of person your WH is/was. Has he shown compassion for the pain of others in the past? Has he ever been able to deal functionally with a degree of personal fault and the concomitant guilt? Does he apologise, make amends for causing hurt? Is he different in his working life from his private one?

From what you've said, it sounds as if he has limited emotional skills, and that those skills don't include the capacity to be humble when he's in the wrong. But if he can't find that kind of humility NOW - when he's behaved unquestionably badly, when he's in the process of losing his family - it puzzles me when he'd ever find it.

TA

This is a very good idea, if possible.

My thoughts are that if any WH is not willing to talk to someone who might have all the answers to saving their marriage and family, then nothing - not even wading through a bunch of fogbabble - is going to be enough to clear their mind enough to recover.

Not that this dooms the long-term chances of recovery, which are quite good. It only indicates that, at this time, his head is not in the right place.

SC, that was a good post, and I understand what you're saying, and also that you don't want to leave any stone unturned. I don't think reading those letter will make any difference at all toward recovery.

I do agree that if Tully decides to "read" the letters, that a family member should do the actual reading. Such mountains of spewing garbage would take a huge toll on the all-important LB.

The PA part was about 8 months and the EA part started about 5 months before that. I don't know that I managed to knock FWH back into to shape as much as he KNEW his A was plain wrong in so many ways and he was ashamed and sorry for it. Of course his words meant very little to me at the time but I do believe he was genuinely remorseful when he saw just how much pain and hurt he caused.

Exposure made it all the more real and we went to MC for a short stint. FWH never had told me ILYBINILWY or blamed me for any of his messed up choices. H was somewhat defensive on D-day but that was about it. Looking back, H had be calling out for my attention for some time and I had ignored him in many ways. Like so many other BSs that stings because my brain rethinks everything about what I could have done differently and if it would have made a difference.

I would advocate all BSs, BW or BH, to be more direct and knock their WS upside the head a few times upon D-day or 1st confrontation. If the WS is that forgone into lalaland, a few blows isn't going to do much anyway and if the WS still has some living brain cells then a few DJs (and even AOs) may just dislodge his head from his [censored] sooner rather than later. I suppose it comes down to the individual personality of the WS.

AND the personality of the individual BS!

Despite having read HNHN and Love Busters BEFORE I confronted my FWH, I let him have it, but good. Pain and fury barely made a dent, and no doubt helped him justify the A, but it didn't keep him from breaking free and reconciling down the line.

I think it's helpful to realize that, even though complete elimination of LBs is ideal, it's almost impossible for most of us in the beginning. Gotta get a handle on 'em, though, in order to make any progress.

Tully, hang in there. You're doing an excellent job of holding on to yourself, through thick and thin. My prayers are with you.

Right Here Waiting

This is a case of WH trying to make the rules for his return...

I like the letter to OW and CC'ed everyone else.

What I might begin this barrage with, is some educating of WH...I think he doesn't have a CLUE how much he has hurt his reputation already. Perhaps the IM can have a heart to heart, an emotion training about what is happening...so it doesn't seem like it is coming from you.

WH seems like he is steeped in logic and will rationalize his way out of this...only, his logic is spotty and is used as a sword...is used as a weapon, and when his actions are shown to hurt, then he jumps back to logic...

I think some very clear statements are the ticket here...I agree, "NC with OW or no M." And..."This is a choice between me or the OW, either NC with OW, or NC with me." And the real stinger..."A relationship with OW will undermine your life's work and make you disreputable in your career. This A will be whispered about your entire life if you continue."

Since your IM has an intimate knowledge and experience with the career circle, perhaps these words can come from her? Perhaps you can give her guidance about how clear you have talked with him over the years and how to help him understand her...

And I agree with setting a time limit for yourself. It is time you visit a lawyer, start the ball rolling with selling the house, working on separation.

Just because you start this process does not admit defeat or mean you have given up. You can stop this at ANY time. Heck, you can even go through with a D and get remarried to him later...

Otherwise known as grasping at straws, Neak!

There must be something that can reach this man. I've offered to surprise him in a deserted spot and give him a good slapping, but tully has not taken me up on that. She must want to do things the MB way.

The offer's still open, tully!

Tempting, isn't it???

Tully,

I can not believe what truly excellent advice you are getting here. I read your thread every day and don't post because I just do not have such expert advice.

I am amazed at how well people seem to "get" your husband. I think most of their analysis of him seems to be spot on.

And once again, I think you are AMAZING!!!!! The things that you are doing are giving your marriage the best POSSIBLE chance for recovery. This, though, is why they say that recovery is not for the faint-hearted. I have often thought that it might have been EASIER if God had commanded divorce in cases of adultery instead of merely ALLOWING it.

I want to add that I agree about maybe walloping the WS with needed DJs and AOs. I have NOT ONE REGRET about ANYTHING I said or did in the first days post D-Day. Plan A would have been totally useless with my H. Without THAT reaction my H would have felt great relief but had NO REMORSE or understanding of what he had done. It's his personality. As it stands, he still has troubles with empathy.

Hopefully, your H will break through the fog soon.

Blessings to you,

Hello everyone, I've been away for a long weekend in my sister's house and just got back this afternoon. Then we got picked up our new dog and the excitement was at fever-pitch in this house! We are delighted with her and decided to call her Ruby after examining several baby name books, producing a long list of candidates and conducting a widespead opinion poll.

I'll try to respond to your questions and opinions but I might have to go back to refresh my memory.
Sugar, I am not particularly in favour of accepting to read WH's emails in order to get him to contact Steve. My feeling is that he is either ready to make an effort or he isn't and if his ego needs this amount of gentle handling then I think it may be far too fragile to cope with recovery. I have tried several times to be positive, to make it clear that NC is essential for me to reconstruct. I feel that either he cannot or will not believe me. I don't think that Steve would get through to him on this point either. He will dismiss anything Steve has to say because he will say 'what does he know, he's never met either of us, he's just an airy-fairy psychologist type out to make money etc etc' For so many people I've told, their instinctive reaction has been to say 'I'll talk to him and make him see sense' but it never works. WH is now totally without friends and is alone apart from his work. I value your opinion greatly as you know so I will consider this more but I'm not convinced that pandering to his pride is the right approach here.

My MIL rang tonight again and my little one passed me the phone. Yet again she is blaming me and basically trying to force me to talk to WH. Nothing I say makes her come around. I asked 'are you putting this kind of pressure on WH as well as me?' and she said I'm not putting pressure on anyone. I said 'well, I'm certainly feeling it'. So I rang my SIL and discussed matters with her. We agreed that MIL is basically a doormat and has lived her life coping with whatever scraps her H throws at her. She has absolutely nothing in her life of her own and thinks I should be the same. SIL said that she will get BIL to talk to her and tell her to stop talking to me (but that she can speak to the girls as much as she likes) but in any case I won't take the phone from her any more.

BR, I was surprised that your H's A went on for so long. I thought you might say only a few weeks and that this might partly explain why he seems to have pulled himself out of the fog so much more easily than many WS's. But maybe he just has a better moral sense than many others and, despite his enormous error, has the capacity to face himself and acknowledge his faults. I'm sure this will make recovery so much easier.

TA, you questioned the kind of person WH is. I have been wondering about this. All his life he has been a sort of a 'golden boy' for his parents and most people in his life. Very few people stand up to him as he has a lot of confidence and can be a bit intimidating if crossed. His parents are from quite a modest background and are immensely proud of his achievements. Not only was he academically excellent but he is also great at sport and played Olympic handball to national level. MIL has always been spoken down to and taken for granted by her H and two sons and she puts up this. She dashs around doing everything for them and no effort on her part is too great to avoid them having to lift their little fingers. It's almost embarrassing to watch. Things have improved between her and her H in recent years possibly because of her ill-health recently and his realisation that she might not always be around to wait on him hand and foot. WH's brother is four years younger than WH and has always suffered from the comparison. He left school at 16 and was always in trouble, he got rheumatic fever as a young teenager which prevented him from playing much sport. Despite all this he adores WH and looks up to him.

We fell in love 20 years ago and had a wonderful relationship (but now I have to admit I am asking myself if that was because it was easy for him, I adored him and all was good. But when the going got a little tougher with the arrival of children and other problems he dropped out. My best friend got breast cancer during the summer of 2007 and needed me a lot over the past year. This took a lot out of me too.). We never broke up and the only crisis during that time was when my mother died 6 years ago and he was not supportive of me even though he knew how much I adored her. He has very little capacity for empathy even at the best of times and will flee any negative emotions, no matter how justified or how much he could help a loved one. He also has a tendancy to blame others for problems rather than reflect on what he has done to contribute to it.

I'll go back and read other posts more closely to respond to them.

Neak,
My fear is of what will crawl out from under it and to discover that I'm married to it...

I feel this is another pretence, another way to delay the inevitable. If he didn't have this 'excuse': that you have to read my emails first then he'd find another one.

RHW, I think I was too understanding and tolerant on and just after D-day. I amazed myself in that I didn't shout or rant or demand. I discussed the situation with him as if I was his best friend (which I always was) helping him to make the right decision. As time went on and the situation became more frustrating for me I did have a few AO's and DJ's but I wonder if they might have been more effective at the very start. Anyway no point in asking these things now.

SHMI, this is pretty much my way of seeing things too. I have set boundaries, ie NC with OW and I am not going to pussyfoot around that, I'm not going to disguise it as something else or hold his hand through the decision just so that he can avoid losing face. Tough, he got himself into this situation alone and he can get take the first step out it it alone. If he said to me, 'I want to be with you, I'm sorry and I promise NC with OW, please help me to figure out how to do that', then I would join forces with him but the first step has to be his.

As for starting the proceedings for legal separation or D, I don't know if I'm ready to go there yet but your suggestion is making me wonder if that might be another good shock tactic to be used just before I've reached the end of my tether.

Thank you WH2LE, I think I should read more threads. It's useful to see what other people are doing and how they are coping. So often it's easier to see the wood from the trees in other people's stories. I have my doubts about Plan A too. I suppose it does give the WS some hope that the BS is capable of forgiveness but it does seem sometimes to enable the A.
Are you in R now? I hope all is going well even if your H still has progress to make.

During that time FWH only met up with OW five times. The bulk of their A was via phone calls and email since they lived 1000s of miles apart. Perhaps not seeing OW daily, weekly, monthly etc. made it easier for him to snap out of it. I don't know if it was just one thing. Probably a combination. I've seen a couple FWHs here that had much longer As and they went to instant NC with OW and dove into recovery.

Have you given any more thought to sending the email to OW? Glad to hear that your new pup has brought smiles to all. Shaking head at MIL. :twobyfour:

Thanks for the clarification, BR. WH's PA went on for over 6 months and involved several long weekends away and sex at her apartment several times a week at lunch time as well as working together for big sections of every day so I know that he was in very deep by the time I copped it. I am still kicking myself for not taking the initial signs more seriously and reacting then. I think if I had then we would not be here.

As for the email, I have decided to send it at 10am tomorrow morning so that it is delivered to everyone before she has a change to come up with an alternative story. It also gives them a good conversation topic over lunch . I'm going to fine-tune it now to have it ready to send. I had thought about getting receipt acknowledgement as people open it but this isn't an option on my yahoo account. You mentioned earlier that you could help me with internet searches. Do you happen to know if there's a way to get this receipt acknowledgement even if it means opening a new account? I have warned everyone that I do not want to hear anything from WH about his reaction to this.

Tully,

I'm still here following along and hoping for the best. You have received some incredible posts and it sure sounds like others have WH pegged.

Try not to beat yourself up with the should have's and could have's. My reaction on DD was much the same as yours. I am still shocked to this day that I didn't throw all of WW's stuff on the front lawn and go straight to Plan D. Not sure why I didn't feel that rage immediately that ended up coming on later. I have second guessed myself also wondering if I had blown up like some other BH's that it might have made a difference. The bottom line is that I was in shock. I had no idea that my WW was capable of an A. I still cannot believe it even now. So, when I think back about it I guess I was just so stunned (and afraid of my family breaking apart) that I didn't have it in me to go on the attack. Unfortunately, I didn't know anything about MB at the time. I have learned so much reading threads here since last June. I have seen so many different situations. Please don't second guess things you did early on. It definitely won't help the present situation and it only leads to anxiety for you. You do not deserve that. I've told you before and I'll say it again...I am amazed by your strength and courage and the way that you have held to the 'narrow path'.

Keep on keeping on!!!

Oh yeah, have a great time with the new addition to the family! What kind of pup is Ruby?

Mindshare

Good to hear from you, Mindshare. Happy New Year and I hope 2009 brings hope and happiness for you.

Like you, I still can't believe that WH did what he did. And this was not a one-night stand, or an error of judgement that he realised almost as soon as it happened, this was a continued, intense A where he inflicted immense pain on me willingly in order to facilitate it continuing. I still don't recognise the man I have been with for 20 years. I have always prized kindness and thoughtfulness and now I am left with the idea that I may have misjudged him for a long time.

Ruby isn't really a pup. She's almost 1 year old and she's a cross-breed - she has a lot of c*cker spaniel in her (that word got censored before!?) but taller with shorter ears. She looks a bit like a small golden retriever in black. She has a lovely face and is very affectionate. She is well trained already which is a relief to me as I have enough to deal with at the moment.

I'm not the world's greates tech, so maybe there's an easier way, but the only way I know of to get that is to use a greeting card format.

123greetings.com has free cards, and you can check a box to notify you when the card is picked up.

Hey, that could be kinda fun. I wonder how many cards they have in the "To My WH's OW and All Her Work Associates" category???

Thanks, Neak. I really like the idea of knowing when the emails are picked up but I'm afraid that a card, especially one from someone you don't know, might get too easily deleted without being read.
If anyone has any suggestion for notification of opening of an email I'd love to hear it.