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I agree with most of the thoughts in your letter. But, it is too wordy and repetetive, IMO. In effect, it sounds like you are trying to sell her on an idea that must come from within her. She has to figure out how naive she is to believe that her feelings for this guy would be sustained after the excitement/thrill wears off.
And, I think making it clear to her that you do not want her to settle for you and that you have no intention of being the booby prize, need not be repeated over again in throughout the letter.
The tone is somewhat importuning, which I believe is a mistake, as it makes you sound weak. And, I would not ever plant the seed in her mind that her discomfort approaches your own in terms of severity. Clearly,it does not.
You could say all this in about two sentences. It would be clear and concise and you would not look as if you are asking for scraps.
JMHO, but BSs that go this route seem to lose even more respect from their WSs.
See, FP, I'm not trying to come down on you , despite the distaste I feel for seeing you act weakly, IMO. I understand that at this point, with this much trauma, many BSs goes this route, the understanding/sympathetic/here go take a vaction deal.
IMO, going this route forever disrupts the balance of power in a relationship. Your WS has witnessed that you will act like a doormat and you are forever lowered in her eyes.
I'm not one of these "women love strong men" advocates. Rather, i think that either gender can only love who he or she respects. And, your course of action is way too understanding/doormatish to generate respect.
You do not have to go ballistic. But, you do need to be willing to take a stand andstop viewing your WW as some poor, confused , little romantic soul. You need to see her for what she is , a woman who wanted sex and love from others and was willing to risk your entire family's health and well being to get what she wanted. Nothng would stand in her way of satisfying those desires. Not you or the kids.

Last edited by Zelmo; 11/16/09 05:06 PM.
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I thought I said NOT FROM YOU!

Stop trying to do things to make YOURSELF feel good, like educating her in all she did wrong.

This is one time in your life you need to learn to stuff it. Ok?

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Zelmo- thank you for the input. It is truly valued..Now that I get where you are coming from a simple reminder of "stop being a wussy" would most definately be welcome. I will get where your coming from and remember your post. I do get lost in it sometimes with the sh@t I'm in.

Catperson-yes I need to keep my mouth shut and stop educating. I am a learner by nature and sometimes the holier than though teacher part comes out. I have made a lot of changes but that is one I need to work on now. That and getting my set of balls back. This experience has been too humbling.

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Ok. I have revised the letter. Please let me know your thoughts. It's pretty much where I am at.

Hello.
I hope your trip goes well and you have the break you need. I�m going to get straight to the point of where I'm at. I�m not afraid to let it out.
I am not going to be someone�s second choice. I am not going to be in a situation where my wife of 15 years is settling to go back to a marriage she might think is �existence� as you say. With all I have learned, I have too much to offer to be with someone who feels that way. You can go to Italy and have your break but know that I am not one who comes in second place nor will I accept that. If you feel that way towards me then move on to some one that you don�t feel that way for. I want to be happy and I have learned too much to be with someone who chooses to �exist� with me. I love you and care for you in more ways than you know. You are my wife and the one I made vows to for life, but I am not going to give my love to someone that looks at me as an option.
I hope you find what you are looking for with your trip. I truly do.
Patrick

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Ok.. I sent the last letter with some minor tweaks.. She called me about 15 minutes later. I did not feel like talking so I let it ring. Then my daughters phone called about one minute after that. I feel like this is all a game and I know it shouldn't be but with this letter and her response I feel like she needs to be "gamed". Thoughts??

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I received a response from the W. I need some real help/support. She is NC for one month. Is this really an alien or someone who knows exactly where they are. This really sucks!


Ok.... I am not really sure where this is coming from, but I am going to try to explain to you where my mind and heart is. I am trying really hard to figure out how I feel about you and our marriage. I had been "existing" as you say for a long time time before this whole thing happened and I am not going to exist again. I WILL NEVER ask you to be my second choice. I WILL NOT even consider the possibility of us getting back together unless I truly believe that I can love you in my heart the way you deserve to be loved, and they way I want to love you. And I am not talking about the kind of love you think I am talking about, the "affair" kind of love with all that comes with it. I am talking about the kind of love that lasts forever.

My heart has been closed to you for a long time now, way before last year, and I need to understand why. I need to feel like it can be opened again. I am not "settling" as you say because I know it would only be a matter of time before it all falls apart again, and I WILL NOT DO THAT TO YOU OR THE CHILDREN.

So if I ever ask you for a second chance, I will be 100% sure that that's what I want and need in my heart and in my mind. I told you this before, I won't go there until I am sure we can be happy forever.

I am not asking you to wait for me to make up my mind. I never have. If you need to move on to be happy right now, then you need to move on. I need to time to search my heart and my soul to find who I am todayand WHY I did some of the things that I did. It may take a long time, I may never even get there. And if I do and you have moved on, then I will have to live with that, knowing that leaving you in the first place was the worst decision of my life.

I know you think me going to Italy is a very selfish thing to do. I know you think I am leaving you with the kids to do all the work. After all, it was my decision to be a single parent, not yours. I am pulling a Monique.....and maybe I am. Maybe it is selfish. But I need to get away to get some peace. Peace from school, peace from you. You have been a on rollercoaster of emotions ever since you told her, one emotion after another, and maybe me not being here will be good for you too. I need space, and I believe this is the only way for me to get it right now.

I am sorry if you are hurting. I don't understand why you wrote what you wrote now, maybe I said something the other night I don't really remember......I am sorry to leave you with everything on top of what you have been going through. I am sure my mom and dad can handle it if you don't want to or if you need to get your peace alone.

I am not going to Italy to find all my answers. I am going to Italy hoping to find the strenght to stand on my own two feet and start to look for the answers where they have always been: inside of me.

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What do you need help with?

Her letter is pretty self-evident. SHe is still in the fog, she is still rewriting your marriage history. She is having a hard time facing herself and what she has done. She may never be able to really face it in which case this will end up as YOUR FAULT. Yeah, I know it sucks.

She is not sorry you are hurting, she is sorry that it makes her look bad. She is sorry she was caught. She is sorry she doesn't have a better plan to make herself happy. You will notice that this letter is really all about her.

I say read the letter again, put it away, and let her go to Italy. It may help, but running from ones problems often doesn't do anything because the problems follow.

Be the best father you can be to your kids. Be the best man you can be and look inward to see things you can learn and improve on based on your own evaluation and goals.

Since she has made it all about her, there is little you can do to help.

That is my take on this.

God Bless,

JL

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You need to be able to read through the lines.

Your WW is going away for one reason. Put distance between you and her so she can bang the OM.

I think your letter was weak. It just handed WW an excuse to justify her affair again.

You should of sent a plan B letter just stating that you would not reconsider recovery until NC with the OM, MC, IC, and all contact with you must now go through a 3rd party.

Then block WW email, phone no, etc....

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The Road - She is going to Italy to be with her sister. There is no OM in Italy. Her sister would not allow it as she disagrees with the whole thing. I truly beleive she is putting distance from the WHOLE situation, me the OM, the wreck she has caused. Evrything. She is running. Now having said that she may still be with the OM in her heart after four weeks of NC. I have verified that through her e-mails which I have access to and through her diary which, yes, I have read. It's her images of the fantasy that she has not gone NC with. She is still greiving the loss of the fantasy and the OM. Thats it. Not the loss of family or me (she has already emotinally detached). She did say in her diary that she loves me but fears that she will never be happy and simply exist. Yes I know it's affair fog, but it is still real right now. I still feel I need to plan A her though for several more months. Avoid love busters, avoid confrontation (which we have had plenty of) and try to focus on the EN's. If I verify that NC has been broken (through her e-mail account, diary, phone records (all of which she does not know I have access to) then I will immediately proceed to Plan B.

Not sure if this is the right thing to do. I feel like I need to talk with her about where the relationship went wrong and what could have been done to make it better. Ask her what she thinks could be done to improve things. Unfortunately though, I think she couldn't remotely begin to answer that because she is still in a fog. She is a very intelligent woman (magnum cum Laude) but emotionaly she is retarded. She is a feeler by nature. I don't know what to do with all that.

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Stop the relationship talk. It will do you no good at all.

Stop pursing her. Leave her alone. She isn't ready to discuss what went wrong with the marriage. She just wants to run. Let her.

Don�t respond to her phone calls or emails right away. Always end conversations first. Tell her you got something to do and end the call almost immediately.

Search for the 180 list and do what it says.

If you keep this up she will see you as a "friend" upon whom she can dump her emotional garbage. She will not see you as a husband. She is blaming you for her affair and that has to stop.



What we think or what we know or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do. ~ John Ruskin
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FP:

I know this is an emotional time right now, but I think you really need to step out of the 'details' that you are trying to rationalize (ie going to Italy, it's ok bc staying w/sister), and assess the whole situation.

From the details you posted, your WW seems to run away from all of her problems...like having an A, taking a leave of absence from work, running off to Italy... And it looks from the outside as if you have become so accustomed to smoothing over your WW's problems throughout the M, that you are continuing that role now...even after she has destroyed your M and family.

I am very familiar with that marital dynamic, as that is how my M was, and after Dday, I could not 'see' the pattern either. Does your WW consistently run away from all of her problems as it seems to me? If so, you are CONTINUING TO ENABLE her behavior pattern by doing nothing while she runs away to Italy after all the destruction she has caused. When I was going through the worst of it, some MB posters sent links to some great articles explaing the "Fight or Flight" pshychology from a guy named Al Turtle (if anyone has links, please post). Do you really want to remain married at all costs to someone who chooses Run Away from their problems...especially the ones created by themselves? In Harley's terms, those types of spouses are not "Buyers." They are at best "Renters," or worse yet "Freeloders."

I understand that you cannot control her, or physically keep her from going to Italy, but you are certainly not without options. I had a similar chance as you do, to take a very advantageous legal position when my WW left the family for 'time to think." At the time, an atty friend of mine counseled me to file for divorce and abandonment right away, but I didn't want to upset the apple cart. Now, 2.5 years into costly and draining divorce/custody proceedings, I regret not having the courage to act swiftly and decisively by following through on his advice. By filing, you are not setting everything in stone because if your WW does do a complete turnaround, you can always dismiss the filing.

From reading your WW's email response to you last night, you already can see that she is not thinking about you or your children...she is thinking only of herself. In fact, she even states that she knows she is being completely selfish.

Quote
I know you think me going to Italy is a very selfish thing to do. I know you think I am leaving you with the kids to do all the work. After all, it was my decision to be a single parent, not yours. I am pulling a Monique.....and maybe I am. Maybe it is selfish. But I need to get away to get some peace. Peace from school, peace from you. You have been a on rollercoaster of emotions ever since you told her, one emotion after another, and maybe me not being here will be good for you too. I need space, and I believe this is the only way for me to get it right now.

I am sorry if you are hurting. I don't understand why you wrote what you wrote now, maybe I said something the other night I don't really remember......I am sorry to leave you with everything on top of what you have been going through.

You can go along to get along, and stand by why your WW runs off to get space and time to think, but my bet would be that even if she does come to the conclusion that SHE is better off staying in the M, that she will not change her future behavior from a RENTER/FREELOADER to a BUYER. Renters and Freeloaders will never change their behavior patterns without motivation...and sometimes that motivation needs to be in the form of consequences.

I think that you should respond to her email last night, and state that you and the children need her to be in the home...to get it on record that you do not agree with her trip to Italy. Then you can think about what I have said, so that you have options, and possibly consult with an atty.

If I am completely off-base with regards to your WW, then I apologize, but I wouldn't want you to make the same mistake that I made, and waste an opportunity change the dynamic and stop shielding your WW from the consequences of her actions.

LoBoy


"You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one." Thoreau
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Lostboy,

I hear what you are saying. She is generally not a runner by nature but she does have trouble understanding that happiness comes from with in and not because of a feeling she feels she needs to have that comes from somewhere, someone or something else. I do plan on giving her a few mnths of Plan A and then drop the D papers if I don't see progress. She was once the most selfless person I knew. She is happy when she can make others happy. But now she is someone I and many people do not know. If this is who she is now and forever (which I am not fully convinced) then I would definately part ways.

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OK...I just saw on my wifes phone records a call she made to a phsychology/counseling center. I looked at the site and they said they are solutions based not talk based. Whatever. This is an odd step for her as she hates counselors and went for a little while to someone but stopped. Everyone told her to get a new counselor because all she did was listen and not offer real suggestions and solutions. People, not me, told her to go to someone different and listen and act. I know this is absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things but it is unusual for her.

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Sounds promising. I would think such a place would be more practical and pragmatic; hopefully they will set her straight on what dreams are and what real life is.

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You are getting some good advice and insight from Lost and JL, IMO.
In essence, I think what they are saying is tht your wife is making it clear she still is thinking almost exclusively of herself, and there is not much you can do about it, other than to protect yourself and rain as many legitimate consequences down on her as possible. Freeze the joint accounts, if you have them. No access to $$ as she is continuing her affair by contacting this guy. I would not even consider allowing her access to any family funds to bankroll her vacation.
You mentioned she is bright. My first wife was, as well.Had the big time academic pedigree etc.
Like your wife, she was very adept at attaching to nice little nebulous concepts, new agish stuff, without real substance. Things like "needing space", "sorting things out" etc. These are concepts that, to a more street smart person, like me, spell bullcrap. This "fog" or whatever it is , seems to cause otherwise intelligent people to say things and do things that would, ordinarily , mortify them(hopefully), things liie "soulmate" or "finding myself". Just the usual gibberish we see in places like Taos or these aging hippy enclaves.
In any case, I think you really, really need to see a lawyer and use her running to your advantage, as another poster suggesed.
Whatever you can do to impose consequences, work, family, kids exposure, do it. Cutt off the financing.
I just watched a movie last night, " A Serious Man". It's a Coen brothers deal, and this guy does everything wrong. He winds up in a motel, no kids, and he is going about facilitating his wife's cheating by arranging a "GEt" , a jewish annulment, I guess. It is pathetic. Watch it and do the exact opposite of this guy.

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