Yes, we live together.

ugt~

My H and I are sitting tonight putting a wall photo montage (sp???) of our family together..it's a collaborative effort of pics we have each taken of our kids...and of each other.

In between I am reading and posting to you.

We live together and other than the 6 weeks during PB that we did not, we always have. I am sorry if that wasn't clear.

Like I said, things are not perfect. We have had moments and even months of "glorious" and that's what I hold onto.

I hope your W can too.

Ugottatri,
I wasnt implying you are a joke, I was trying to lighten the mood a little for you. I do realise how hard it can be when several people are pointing things out to you about yourself you may not want to hear.

I was just saying that when ever I saw people starting their posts with "hey U", I automatically thought "Hey You!"

Lets just call it my strange antipodean humour

BTW I liked the NC Letter, its looks familiar

[/quote]

"Hey U" was always for the funny -- we thought It'd be clever when we wrote it ... glad to know someone found humor in it.

(The greeting -- not you -- was the joke

--We're glad to see you're sticking around a while yet. Remember posting here can help, sometimes especially when it stings.

Also, Nice NC letter ... don't go tweaking it and making changes to the language of that letter -- no apology, flowery language, or grandstanding -- just the straightforward, "I love my wife and will never see or talk to you again" sentiment of that sample is all you should have there.

[/quote]

SE,

I took out a couple of the words that I added, but I did leave the part about things that I said to my wife in front of the OW. The reason why is that it is one of the things that I do know hurt her the most because she has told me on several occasions. I just thought by putting it in the letter it is a clear acknowledement of something I did to hurt her and it tells the other women that I didn't mean the things I said at that time.

I want to mail this today, so if you or anyone else can let me know what you think I would appreciate it.


XXXXX,
I want you to know that out of respect and love for my wife and children, I have come to realize that I must never see or talk to you again. My relationship with you was a cruel indulgence that XXX did not deserve. While I cannot completely repay XXX for everything I forced her to endure, things that I said to her in front of you and pain that I caused her, I will do my best to become the husband that I should have been and the one she has been missing. I love my family more than anything else and I would not want to do anything more than I have already done to risk their happiness. I will not make any further contact with you and I do not want you to make any contact with me. Please respect my desire to end our relationship.

Sincerely, XXXXX

I also forgot to ask.
Can a NC letter be emailed, or is it best in letter/envelope?

Emailing it invites a response--so quick, so easy to do.

Put a stamp on it and slam the door.

Thanks......

Just wanted everyone to know that I'm going to mail no contact letter right now and dropping off a copy w/my wife. I also have a meeting with Jennifer tonight at 8:00

Good job on both counts, please let us know how the session with Jennifer goes tonight.

Perhaps even more strongly stated:

Our relationship is over; please respect my desire to become the man I should have been to my wife and to my children. The selfish cruelty of our affair is dead.

or something like that?

Please keep in mind that all of this is still for YOU -- whether your wife ever reads any of this is immaterial. This is one TINY step in becoming a better version of yourself. You are working on YOU! You need to become the man you want your children to be proud of.

Maybe your wife will see -- maybe it will matter -- maybe she won't see or care. It doesn't matter. Remember, you should NOT be doing any of this to win her back. You are trying be the kind of man she hoped you were when she married you ... to be the kind of man she hoped to have in her life. Then who knows??? If you can be that man, over enough time, perhaps she will be willing to risk her heart on you again.

For now focus on being a good parent for your children, and on reclaiming yourself from the evil-version of you that you'd become.

If she does offer you another chance -- you did NOT win her back ... and your work will only just begin.

If she cannot recover from the pain you forced her to endure you will, at least, be on the right track to being a better man and the best father you can be.

Force yourself to reflect on your motives and behavior! Be absolutely certain you are not attempting to manipulate your wife, her family, your family, your friends, us, the story, your situation, etc. Bare yourself to your humiliation, and endure whatever pain you find reflected back upon you. You have done this to her ... your family ... and yourself!

--Mrs. S.

Just finished up with Jennifer tonight and learned some amazing things.
I'm going to try and keep it short, long day and very tired.

I have two books coming (SAA and His needs/Her needs and she recommended a third (lovebusters). She said basically read-read-read--Put it on review sheets and do it.

Main points were as follows
1. Make a lifestyle change whether we are together or not.
2. Show her through my actions that I am committed to making a
Change.
3. Show her that I think about EVERYTHING I do and how it will
make her feel.
4. Recognize triggers (mine and hers) and adjust my responses.
5. I will not allow anyone of the opposite sex (other than my
wife) to fulfill ANY of my emotional needs and I won't meet
ANY emotional needs of the opposite sex either.
The ONLY people I will allow to meet my emotional needs are my
male friends and my wife.


I think one of the most important things that I realized is that I failed to protect my wife.......PERIOD!!!!!

Jennifer asked me to make 3 plans

1. I'm going to develop a plan of protection and list the
things that caused my failure to protect ***. Beside this
list, I'm going to put in place extraordinary precautions to
make sure that I never fail to protect her again.
2. My Lovebusters. Categorize the ones I do the most and list an
alternate behavior. The goal is to bring about
interdependent behavior rather than independent behavior. Ask
myself "How would *** feel about us doing this...Or if she is
available actually saying to her "I was thinking about taking
the kids to do this today, what do you think"?
3. Needs/What are Liz's immediate needs from me..Things like
family commitment(my relationship w/the kids), Domestic
support(rides for kids, helping hand when she asks for it),
Financial support. Have a plan for how am I going to
accomplish these things.

Jennifer said that *** has probably sensed the remorse and seen the light bulb go on, but she hasn't seen anything consistent in my actions in relation to what I'm saying.

I think out of everything she said, this made me think more than anything--"Your behavior directly affects her feelings for you"

I don't really know what more a person could say. I just thought of one that means the same and has been appropriate in my case up to this point...."Talk is Cheap"

Have a plan now....Will follow!!!!!!!

I want to thank everyone again for nudging, pushing, pulling and at times kicking me is the *ss, to either keep me going or yank me to a stop and at what always seemed to be the right time...and to think it's only been a week!!! Talk about a steep learning curve. If I would have studied this hard in college, who knows...But I truly do want to say thank you and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

Thats a good start, ugottatri!

Ugo,

Sorry I haven't been around more, but you have been getting some excellent advice from others. Glad to see you are hanging in there. Like I told you in the beginning, recovering your M is out of your control. The only thing you can control is the person you are going to be from this point forward. Lil posted this a few days ago and I think this would be a good direction for you to head. Keep working on it. As I've told my DW, "It's not our mistakes that define us, It's what we do when we realize that we made a mistake that defines who we are."


Want2Stay

I had the day to think and came up with a couple of questions. Well first I have to share a HUGE mistake I made yesterday and ask how I should handle it?

I have tried to be open with my wife since I started talking to her and everyone in here. I have given her all my email accts. w/passwords, access to all cell phone records, installed GPS on my phone and answered her questions as clearly as I could remember.

I have been trying to do everything right, but failed at the last and probably most important one. I had given her the copy of NC letter and she asked how I knew the address? I told her that I had been to her new house a few times prior to ending contact. She asked me how many times I had been there and when the last time was? I replied a few times and it was Sunday 2 weeks ago. We finished our conversation and I had to run take care of some work related issues. I had left my phone at her house unkowingly. I actually thought I had lost it and when I got to my house I used another phone to call it and she answered and said "yeah it's here but obviously you didn't mean to leave it" I had no idea what she was talking about because I had told her about the 2 phone calls from the OW and then another attempted phone call that I didn't answer and a text I didn't answer either.These all came after event I'm telling you about now. The problem is that I had forgotten that she had asked me to come pick up some things from her house and I stayed and talked to her.

I have become so accustomed to lieing about this stuff or giving vague answers so not to corner myself, that when my wife asked me the last time I had seen her I just answered "two weeks ago Sunday" because that was the day I told the OW initially that I couldn't see or have contact with her anymore....However the last contact I had was actually 4 days later on Thursday. This was the same day I came out and told my wife how I felt, yet that night I went and picked up my stuff and stayed at the OW house until approx. 8:00 the next morning. She gets off work late and I didn't get there until 2:45 or so. My wife asked me if we slept together and I told her no, she asked me if we were in the same bed together and I said no and she asked where we were then and I told her we sat at the foot of her bed on the floor.She asked what we talked about and I told her, but now that I think about it I should have taken more time and been more specific, especially after the way it had started with me not telling her the truth about the last contact I had with OW. I did forget to tell her the reason I left and I just thought of it now...The OW got mad because the planner on my phone went off and it said "Call ***". The OW got mad because she couldn't believe I knew I was coming over to talk to her for the last time and set an alarm to tell me to remember to call my wife...At that time I just said enough is enough and left.

When you are asked to recall something you're so ashamed of, you want to answer it as quickly as possible and get it gone...I realize this is not and can not be the way to go about this and need to be very aware and make sure I am covering EVERY detail I can and just simply telling her the truth. After everything I have put her through I can't imagine that anything will surprise her at this point and it is how she wants it. I know that my wife is a person that doesn't want the league minimum when it comes to details..It makes me so mad at myself because I KNOW THIS..She wants all the details and information she can get her hands on and once she has it can start the process of putting everything in its proper place, but she can't do that until she has all the information. I know this and just have to make sure I am better at it and just telling her everything. My wife and I went through all the texts leading up to me going over to the OW house and although only the in texts were available, I filled in every blank that I could trying to remember exactly what I said. It was fairly obvious that the OW was pressing the matter, but the bottom line is that I didn't say no and when my wife asked me I didn't do one of the crucial things I was told to do and that was be as specific as possible and completely honest.

I really was not trying to hide anything from my wife and when I realized where my phone was I actually thought to myself it was a good thing for her to know I wasn't hiding anything from her and could leave it there without worrying about whats in it or if it was going to ring. Instead I made her feel that once again she can't trust me to tell the whole truth. That was not my intention, but it was what happened because I did not think carefully enough about what I was doing and how I answered her questions was going to make her feel.I am trying to be completely honest with everyone and leave nothing out simply because I feel accountable to the people trying to help me. I also think it helps me to be aware in every instance and situation that I have to make sure I'm not leaving anything out and remember to be mindful of how what I say is going to make someone feel. It really disapoints me that I have let her down again.

I have really wanted to let everyone know about this and will keep working on it.

I just remembered I had a question.

Do I show my wife my plans with my lists and alternate behaviors etc.? I guess the two I wonder about the most are the plan of protection and lovebusters.

My wife had to give me a ride somewhere last night and she said that her mom and dad didn't want her to come out to the house alone with me. I was dumbfounded!!! There has never been any physical abuse at all in our relationship and it really hit hard that they thought I might actually hurt my wife. She then said to me, "well look at your erratic behavior for the last year. When you show that you are capable of doing what you did to someone that you're supposed to love who knows what you may be capable of." Once again another good point and I couldn't disagree with her. I did ask her to tell her mom and dad that never in a million years would I ever ever hurt their daughter. I just couldn't......Under any circumstances!!!!!

She also told me that I should have the settlement offer from her attorney within the next couple of days and asked me if I was going to fight it....I'm not. It is obvious that this is what she wants and I'm not going to hold it up or create any roadblocks. I'm going to let this happen and just continue to support her and make sure that I'm extremely careful to cover details of the past and there just won't be any thing to cover up about in the future.

It's sad, but what I did and the way I acted in our marriage is shameful and I can't blame her for wanting to put it in her past. I'm going to support her and her decisions and just try to be the best dad/person that I can be.

Seriously? What were you thinking when you again, failed to tell the truth to your wife? Even the slightest thread of trust that your wife may have formed now again is broken...I need to think before I post more......
Mrs.S

That was an incredibly stupid move, ugt, but it sounds like you sort of know that by now.

I'm glad that at least you were honest here and told us what happened.

WTF were you thinking when you went to OW's house to get your "stuff"? THINGS should matter nothing to you right now, you should have ignored her and let her throw them away.

Keep going with the changes you are making, and yes, show your W the changes/lists you are working on. She is very, very angry and disgusted by you right now, but maybe this will help.

I know it was incredibly STUPID!!!!! I don't want to make a single excuse or reason why I agreed to go over there. I have not seen her since and won't again. My stomach just curled when I read the responses to what I did.

I haven't talked to my wife today because she told me all of this wears her out and since I have started talking to her again, she has slipped backwards. I love her more than anything and don't want to make her life worse by being around her. I'm just going to give her some space to breath.

I feel so bad about it and don't really know what to say, because she has heard everything from me. I explained it to her and we went through everything, but the bottom line is I screwed up and am basically starting from below ground again.