This letter is a very difficult to write. But since you will not and have chosen not to talk about these things with me, I have to write you about them.

I miss a lot about our marriage. I feel sad you have forgotten our happier early days.

I also feel sad that you will not communicate with me and are shutting me out. I know that I too have made mistakes. I have often ignored you physically and emotionally, I've often been angry and demanding, I've often been judgemental without listening to you. I am sorry for my flaws. Over time, my actions have caused our relationship to change. But your actions have caused severe destruction of our marriage.

This sadness and losses of happiness in our marriage are why I started my own journey of self improvement. Part of that process comes in respecting myself and learning how to set and enforce boundaries for myself so I don’t get sucked into a pool of your ugly feelings. I have reached a point where I can't remain your wife in our current manner of relating. It is too painful for me. And I can no longer tolerate it. The behaviors I am asking for are very important to the health of our family.

--Our current financial condition terrifies me. I would feel safe if I shared financial responsibility with you. My salary does not cover our current monthly expenses. The stress of a second job and all the extra pet sitting jobs, plus the kids and the house are overwhelming me. I can't save money for retirement and meet the monthly expenses. Again, you have chosen NOT to discuss these important things with me and to instead SHUT ME OUT and ignore the problems.

You drink too much and you are not working at a job. The family feels imposed upon by drunken behavior. I suspect that drinking is contributing to some of your sleep problems and other ongoing health issues.

-- I need open and honest conversation without sinking into angry outbursts and hurtful words. I am still really hurt about the affair and I'm still really hurting today. My healing requires openness and honesty with each other about what happened. I need the whole truth, however painful it may be for me to hear it, and for you to say it.

I need you to agree to get a job within 30 days of returning and take on 50% of the financial burden of our family.
I need you to be honest with me about your affair
I need you to discuss things with me with kindness
I need you to treat the children with gentleness and caring.
I need you to cut the drinking down to one drink a night or less.


If you can't agree to pursue these actions, then I will have to go my separate way. Other than financial and emotional support of the children, I want no other obligations towards me.



Try something like this....

I think the guy is terrible to you and the kids. I would get a divorce but that is just me. He is not contributing anything positive (but a lot of things negative) to your family.

Well any letter I write will be strictly to reinforce that I'm serious about last night and sticking his head in the sand isn't going to make the problem go away. I like most of your approach. Perhaps I'll borrow the language.

I'm not even going to post a recap of what happened because it's same ol' same ol' and it's taken me this long to realize that I am done living with an emotional bully.

OurHouse, IMHO, no need to rework the letter. The Plan B letter is for you, to help you remember what your decision was, why this decision made sense for you and your family, and what would need to change for a different decision to make sense for your family. Also to help you get your thoughts together so that when you explain it to your kids, that they can understand that this is a decision for your family's protection, not a punishment for their misbehavior.

I think he can understand the shift from present to past tense. It sounds like you're not willing to take him back today. But if he changes his behavior, it will show in his actions, coinsistently over a period of time. He'd show an interest in the kids, come and take them to visit consistently, and not badmouth you to them or badmouth them at those times. He would respect that you need some distance, and not call until you indicate you want that. He would become self-supporting, and get help for his alcohol problem. He would postpone dating. These things wouldn't come from your letter, it would be him choosing to see in the present what has been obvious for some time.

((((OurHouse))))

How do you mean "done"?

You're divorcing? Separating?

A plan D letter could come from your lawyer.

FWIW, I don't think you've done enough about your LBs to be able to say "I did my best."

He's an emotional bully? I see verbal aggression going both ways.

ITA with ears:
I also love 5/6's version. If you had posted the PBL on GQII they would've greatly shortened it like 5/6 did.

And... if it's just since last night that you are "done"... ok but why not hold off torching the bridge behind you? You might have a change of heart... IMHO best to give the PBL as is (or 5/6's version).

What was said last night that made this big change? Usually folks about to give a PBL are not supposed to engage in relationship talk beforehand. Was this in your plan?

What 5/6 sees is me allowing myself to be pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed until I have an AO and say stuff I'm sorry that I said. What 5/6 doesn't see him telling me I make too much f--king noise as I'm recovering from bronchitis and coughing in the middle of the night. Or looking like he wants to throw something at me because he left a pile of laundry on top of the washer in preparation for his trip, with no comment about them and then throwing a glass in the sink and breaking it because I put the wash in on regular instead of "delicate" (I have never, in 20 years of marriage, run a "delicate" wash---it's never been an issue until today). What 5/6 doesn't see is him shoving our daughter away when she comes to get a goodnight kiss because he is watching TV. What 5/6 doesn't see is the 10+ years out of the 20 we've been married that he has not worked because he refuses to take a job that's beneath him.

It's not a Plan B letter. I'm not hiring a lawyer. I'm just done trying to emotionally wrestle with him. I'll never win anyway. I give up. He wins.

{{{{{ OH }}}}}

Plan D is expensive. Why not try one call to the Harleys? I understand if you can't... but it's worth a second thought.

refusing to take a job that's beneath him works, until he is homeless. He is totally narcissistic. . .classic. . . iron clad boundaries are needed, , ,

wiftty

OH, I think taht what 5/6 may be saying is that he wants you to continue the work that you've started. We are all human, and we all have what we handle calmly. This is where boundaries come in, to protect you and your family, to keep things from escalating. I'm not second-guessing anything that you did. I just want to add, that I am glad that you have been taking steps to change your half, and I hope even through separation that you will continue to do this. I think you will, and will continue to have more and more peace and serenity and joy in your family.

If you remember in the How to Overcome Abuse articles, Dr. H talks about how it can help in some specific cases for the spouses to work to overcome these patterns in separate homes before reconciling.

The key to that success is that there is supervision by counseling/counselor going on while separated. And that's not going to happen in my case, so there's little to no chance that we will be able to work through the issues to resolution.

I have friends who separated under the advice of a counselor; their situation was different but they were having issues in their relationship and 9 months later they reconciled and things are great today. So it can be done. But it can't be done with ongoing AOs, DJs, emotional and verbal battering, and addiction/abuse issues.

ITA, OH. There's no subtitution for accountability.

The thing is (as you all have been telling me over and over) that the MB concepts work best when there is some semblance of reasonably healthy relationship dynamics at work. If one party is subjected to the overwhelming lion's share of outburts, DJs, vengeful statements, etc., there's only so much you can do. I've learned over the years that I suck at apologizing. It used to be "I'm sorry but...." which isn't an apology. So I've had to learn how to honestly and sincerely say "I'm sorry" without it sounding flip--even if there's still a part of me that thinks my behavior is justified. I'm not right even close to 100% of the time so if the other party is offended, then the sincere apology is in order.

When the other side doesn't accept said apology, or runs roughshod over it, it's ineffective. Worse, if said apologies "work" the first few times, but like so much else in this relationship, eventually fail because the other party tries some new emotional arm-twisting tactic, then there's not much hope in the apology having its desired result. For instance:

I say something I think is a harmless comment but he takes offense.

He tells me (not nicely BTW) that he thinks I was out of line.

I listen and say "I didn't realize you felt that way. I was wrong to say what I did. I"m sorry"

He says "you don't get to know what I'm thinking anymore because you will slice it and dice it to your advantage like you always do" (at one time, when I first learned how to apologize, he was surprised by the sincerely, so he accepted it. But now he's figured out a way around it).

I say nothing.

Later that night while having a post-bronchitis coughing fit he (after going to bed in a huff, slamming the door, etc.) wakes up and tells me I"m a $#^&& noise machine" and not in a nice way either. He's obviously still sulking.

If it happened every once in a while, I'd write it off to stress, etc. But these are almost every day. That was Saturday. Sunday it was an AO about the laundry. There was an apology issued later (a rare event!) but I couldn't even bring myself to acknowledge it, which probably also didn't do much good.

Cutting the marital ties at this point is the only way to save my sanity. If he really wants to salvage something the ball is in his court. When I see him going to anger management classes, AA, taking any kind of a job, etc.--MAYBE I'll reconsider.

OH, I agree with you for the most part, and learning to apologize is very difficult and can be very unrewarding. I'm struggling with the same thing (amoung other things).

It's important remember that you're making these changes for you as well. Learning to apologize helps you to be a better person overall, regardless of how it may effect your marriage. As well, this is going to take time. How long will it take before the habit becomes 2nd nature? How long before your H recognizes this as a new habit and who you are now, not just a temporary thing? How long before your H starts trying to immitate you? How long before you can believe that your H's apologies are now sincere?

I guess I'm trying to suggest keeping your mind on the big picture. It will help to look past how unsuccessful attempts at change and improving your marriage may seem right now. It's just my opinion, but I sometimes think that recognizing what LBs and ENs are not only help to handle them, but to deal with or even ignore when your spouse isn't handling them well.

It's not like I've only started doing these things since finding the MB site in November. Yes, the Plan A, fully understanding where his ENs and LBs come from, etc. ---I give most of the credit to MB for that. But my continued self improvement on listening skills, apologies, not DJing, or AOing--those I've been working on for years. I continue to do so. And it's only gotten worse from his side as he gets unhappier and unhappier with his life.

Quite honestly, I fear the response to my letter (which is not going to be "I need you to do these things before I agree to live with you again") is going to be "ok, I'll see anger management help, alcohol help, etc, etc, to all my wishes, UNTIL he gets a job and sees a way out to standing on his own two feet, and then he'll blow out of here and drop me like yesterday's news.

No I have no proof of that. It's a fear.

Wouldn't that be such a huge blessing, OH, if he did that, got some temporary help? You would get some level of peace in your home, and then if he moved on, it would be with a little more skills to be a different father and a different coparent than he is today?

He's been in counseling on/off for well over 5-6 years (not in the past few though). He's been on ADs. He's been on anti-anxieties.

He's still got the same issue--perhaps even worse.

I don't have a whole lot of faith that the leopard will change its spots.

Fear or relief? Probably a mixture.

Listen, if he goes, he goes. You can't stop him, but you would have the satisfaction of knowing you had a positive effect on someone you cared deeply for at one point. Ears has a good point. If he does go, he will still likely be a better father either way. Sometimes that is what happens with dads like this, OH...they become better fathers after they're forced to self examine and get some help.

Also...the last thing you need is a burden - another dependent who is perfectly capable of helping you and refuses.

You're a strong woman for putting up with this as long as you have, but the impression you leave on your children is very important, and you do not want them to think you're a push over either.

Thanks. I need the constant reminder about the kids because that's what's driving a lot of my decisions.

I'm going to take another look at the verbiage in Stella's version of the letter. I do need to send him off with something that tells him how I am feeling and I think she did a good job of capturing it.

I get nervous because his past reactions when asked to "face the music" has been to say "fine, then I'll cut bait because I can't stand to lose/lose face".

His college girlfriend couldn't commit to marrying him so he broke up with her.

EA girlfriend decided to leave him to find her perfect man to marry(who knows, maybe H at the time was just too much for her--or she saw the signs that he was never going to get his you-know-what together) and his reaction was "I made a mature decision. If you love someone, you let them go". (HUH????)

His first wife packed up and left (granted he wasn't happy either) and he changed the locks.

So his track record speaks for itself. It's easier to just declare yourself the injured party than to do the hard work of introspection and figure out what's wrong/do your part to fix the relationship. If you look up "martyr" in the dictionary, you will find a picture of his mother. Sometimes I think the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

I wasn't trying to suggest that it was 100% new to you, or that your efforts will definitively get your husband to change. Just saying that looking at the big picture in that despite recent 'failures' it is still a win overall. Maybe not to save the marriage, but a win for you regardless.

I re-worked the letter. It's still not an "I'm done" letter. I guess I either am wimping out on that front or maybe I'm not really as "done" as I thought I was 24 hours ago. I did tighten it up and beef up the parts about not wanting the marriage anymore the way it is. I think it's about as good as it's going to get so I'm going to print it out, seal it in an envelope and put it in his luggage. I think if I give it to him in the airport, he could lose it. He could read it and have a knee-jerk reaction after 4 vodka tonics on the plane, etc.