((( Mulan )))

I always say that the PURPOSE of Plan B is to protect the BS from continued emotional abuse but sometimes one of the SIDE EFFECTS is that the WS wakes up and comes home. That is how it worked for me anyways.

Plan B is the absolute best way for the BS to have time to him/herself to work on getting STRONG on their boundaries and figuring out what they want from life, so that they are prepared for either a new life without the WS, or recovery.

Mulan, I don't think I've ever commented directly to you, or on your story, but my heart reaches out to you. This is a tough time of year, and for many like us (not just those who have been brutalized by someone's affair) it can be full of stress, anxiety, sadness and even desperation.

I'm sitting at the computer, watching the snow blanket the area, and am fighting the constant reminder that my WW and I faced a similar "snow-in" together just a few short years ago. It was a "launch event" to our relationship. Today, I'm snowed in alone, with only my computer, television and telephone for companionship (even WW's cat isn't company).

So I'm trying to be upbeat. I'm putting up a Christmas tree, and taking my d@mn good time about it. I have hot chocolate and holiday treats in stock, and by G*d, I'm going to have them!

It's said that mood follows action. So I'm going to do things that *I* want to do -- even if it's just sit and stare out the window. I don't HAVE TO HAVE someone else to elevate my mood.

I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR MY OWN HAPPINESS.

One day at a time. One hour at a time. One minute at a time.

We can get through this. Keep on "keeping on."

Best wishes.

It worked for mywifeilove as well.

Mulan, these are the exact words I said to myself a few times today.

Those in Plan B that had to file for financial support and/or child support from WS - do they have marital recoveries, too? It just seems so unlikely to me that my marriage will recover.

Out of sight, out of mind. I know my WH is angry as hell that he cannot get to me any more, but the chances of recovery just seem so slim. Those that recovered - did they feel so completely hopeless, too?

I could not handle the emotional toll that Plan A was taking on me anymore, so I know that Plan B is better, but I feel hope leaking from me. I don't want the hope to leak...

(((((Anne))))),

I know that Mimi and Queenie filed for legal separation and Mimi recovered and Queenie and H are on their way....

I bumped up Mimi's Plan B thread today. You should read it. She filed for legal seperation, sold their dream home they had built together and STILL recovered...... There is always hope but HOPE is not a plan....

Stay strong my dear.....

Not2fun

I think recovery gets easier, or at least possible, once one accepts that our spouses were not what they pretended to be.
Mulan, I do not mean to offend and I can relate to much of what you are going through. But, I really do not think a decent man would have succumbed to the corporate pressures like your H did. We all have these opportunities. Good people bypass them.

{{{Mulan}}}
Thank you for your post. It helps me see myself since I too have a hard time getting over H. It is truly pathetic the way we are acting, really! Enough is enough, and no matter how much we idealize our Hs we know very well they are the same liars and cheaters and have not changed a bit.
If you keep at it you will win him by exhaustion at some point, but do you want to really wait 10 or 15 years till he is 60? Yes, then might consider you as a companion for his old age.
I am not trying to make you feel bad. Just look at the actions and see that he is still in the fog. If he wants you he will show you. For now he does not want to.
I am still not over my H yet and have all good reasons to be over for good. Till we cling on them they will never look for us. The more we look needy, desperate to get them back�the less they want to be around us. It is just a law of the universe as they sense our needy energy.
I recommend Eckhart Tolle�s book, they are good. Start with A New Earth, then Stillness Speaks then the Power of Now (my favorite).
Basically Tolle says that our thoughts about a situation make us suffer. The situation per se is neutral. I am sorry your H is a cheater but that does not cause me pain, however my H cheating on me causes me immense pain.
We have the same situation: H is a cheater. We each have our own pain based on our thoughts about H, our life together, what our life together could have been had he not cheated etc�
In reality we do not live in the present�
we live in the past: he should have not done this to me�.I should have done that�.shouldn�t have said that�etc..
we live in the future: if he comes back to me then we will�if I say this then he will�.if I write that letter then he should�
What we get is more of the past projected in the future. The future is scary because it does not exist but in our mind, and as humans we cannot deal with a phantom, we can only deal with reality. The future is not reality and will never be especially as we imagine it. The past is gone and it is only a memory we keep playing in our heads like a broken record.
All we truly have is the present moment and the present moment does not include our H. This is a fact, it is not good nor bad. It is. Therefore there is a void created by the absence of our H. The universe hates voids and tries to fill them. If we truly let go of the fact that no matter how hard we try H is still not here with us, then that acceptance opens us up to new things to come in. Better things that better resonate with us. But for that to happen we have to stop fighting to get our H back. Even if the fight is only mental dwelling on what was and what he is doing with OW. We have to accept they decided otherwise. We have to accept that we do not know the reason why that happened and that other new things are in store for us�if we let them come into our lives. We have to be humble and understand that the universe's plan (you can call it g-d if you want) are beyond our ability to comprehend.
Who are we to tell g-d that we should not be in this situation? What if g-d wants our H out of our lives and has other and better plans for us...plans that we can't possible see with our limited human perception.
Years ago before I married my H I had a boyfriend for 7 years. I loved him. He left me and my heart was broken for months. I could not understand why g-d took him away from me.
Now I do. The plan was to meet my H and have a wonderful son with him. Now I see the plan. I did not way back then.
So:
Do not even mention your H anymore than necessary to yourself or others. Do not gossip about him, do not go on and on about what he has done, will do etc�.
Do not dwell on thoughts about him. OK, you do not have to suppress your thoughts about him when they come to you, but do not dwell on that thought, do not construct a mental movie about what he has done to you, what I should do to him, how bad OW was, if I could I would strangle her etc�.These constructed thoughts we indulge on take up our present moment and make it miserable. Instead be fully into what you are doing now. Even the most trivial thing like washing your hands. Be conscious of what you are doing, smell the scent of the soap�.be present.
So no dwelling on thoughts about him.
No physical, phone, email, smoke signals, skype, facebook etc�contact with him
Get rid of all the stuff that reminds you of him.
Delete his cell #.
Take a vacation far away if you can.
Move to a different part of the country for a while if you can.
You must get over him, you must. You can�t go on some more years waiting for him. He will not return to you because he can sense your desperation.
Plus�.why would you want him back the way he is? Don�t you think he has a lot of work to do on himself in order for you to trust him again in a M? Otherwise he will cheat on you again... next year!
This forum is good, but sometimes you need to take a break from it and start training yourself to not discuss your H any longer. To see yourself not just as a BS, but as a person who happens to have been left by her H. BS does not have to define you any longer. It ties you too much to your H's decision to leave you. It makes you the by-product of his decision. You are a woman with a new and very possibly exiting life. Good job in appreciating what you have. If you do, you will have more of it.
If we focus of what we do not have all the time...we will have more of it. That is more of... less.
Please move on. I am telling you this so I can hear it myself too.!
Blessing

AM, it makes no difference in the outcome. In fact, I can think of more than did recover after they filed for divorce in Plan B than didn't. Dr. Harley does recommend doing this, though, so that the BS has legal protection.

snifff.. I just love this lady! What an awesome post, Atena! I marvel at how you have grown from a frightened, despairing BS, to a confident, self assured, fearless woman who is adjusting to her new life. What a dramatic change. {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ATENA}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

OMG, atena...that post was amazing...it applies to me also...thank you for that.

YES they do. In fact my WH LOST big time in court and it just put more stress and strain on him.

Like Mimi taught me, you are in a WAR and to win the war you need to protect all assests, all things that you can.

I HATED going to court. I was actually in Plan B and it was just another miracle from G-d on how it went.

Remember, you can't see what is happening on the other side of the mountain. What you see today isn't what is tomorrow's reality.

Atena,

That was an amazing post. It has made me feel a little better. I am going to print it out and read it often.

I read Mulan's post first and I was so depressed (not because of her post, it's just been a bad day anyway) because I can so identify with her. My divorce was final this month after 27 months in Plan B. WH walked off with a huge chunk of my 401K which will ultimately go to OP now since she is pressing for a M. It was everything I had worked for over the last 36 years with him.

So I felt Mulan's pain because I feel the same way. I can't seem to let it go either because it feels like my entire life has just been wiped away. OP basically stepped in and took my place. She has my H, my retirement savings, etc. If there are any winners in my situation, it is her. And nothing sacrificed on her part. Nothing.

Anywho, JT actually D'd then remarried her WH, so there is always hope. I think that there are some others on the board who have remarried as well.

You do not know, appearances might be deceiving. It is too early in the game for OP and she has not M WH yet. Sometime the M to OP might be the kiss of death to the relationship.
We shall see...in the meantime life has much more in store for you. Think abundance not scarcity. And you will have abundance!
blessings

Don't be so sure.

My father divorced my mother after 36 years of marriage to marry his secretary, who was 18 years younger.

Talk about "affairing down!" My mother was college-educated, refined and elegant. OW was an uneducated country bumpkin (no offense meant to country bumpkins), unrefined, coarse, shrewish and nasty. She alienated everyone in my family.

On one visit I paid them (I was the only one who continued to do so. My sisters and other relatives all fell away), my father admitted to me -- after another one of their drunken arguments -- that if he had it all to do over again, he never would have married her.

She tried to pass herself off as "The Missus," but everyone who knew her knew what a sham she was. Did she sacrifice anything? I'd say she sacrificed her chance at dignity and self-respect. She attempted to climb the social ladder and only succeeded in bring my father into the gutter with her.

But your father stayed with her. That is the thing....WS will not admit their wrongs out of PRIDE.
But people, we should care less about WS. They will have to pay but we can't live our life waiting for that day!
We will keep our chin high when they fall.
blessings

I don't know if Plan B is going to work as far as my marriage being saved but it did save me personally. I wish I'd been as strong as some of you in the very beginning (like Atena for example) but I wasn't. I've been in a dark PB for almost 5 mths and I am no longer the same person I was. I've learned so much about myself and am working hard to continue to grow and recover and become the best mom I can be. I must make sure that my DD does not some day marry someone who will lie to her and cheat on her. She's been saddled with her father's legacy now and that cannot be changed unless he chooses to change it. I can however, make sure she learns from my example that trusting in God, protecting and cherishing your character and integrity, and having solid boundaries is the way to live your life. This experience has taught me so many valuable lessons and it's been a blessing. Yes, my WH's A (the last one at least) was a blessing because I would still be living a lie, the fradulent life my WH had going for us had I not been shocked out of my pit of dispair. But an even bigger blessing was finding MB and all the support I received here. The support I got here gave me the strength to stop whinning and feeling sorry for myself, get up off my a$$ and DO something.

So, to answer your question, yes PB works .

And I want to say thank you to all the wonderful people who helped me through. I wouldn't be where I am now without you and where I am, is a good place.

MB forum helps because it makes us see that we are not alone in this. That it is not our fault if our H cheat on us. For years I thought it was all my fault. That there was something seriously wrong with me. And H used that to his advantage.

Great post atena. It goes along with some Buddhist teachings I've been reading. The only thing that truly matters is that infinitely small moments that is right now. Being aware and living in that moment makes all the stress of the unchangeable past and the unknowable future melt away. Living in that present is of course easier said than done, but when you can you are really alive again.

Also, yes I think they can smell the desperation and like having that sense of power over you. Even though they won't commit to you they can have that comfort of the thought that you still pine for them. When I broke my Plan B in a moment of weakness my WW texted me that talking to me made her hurt emotionally, but when I had cut her off she hurt even worse. It seems to me that Plan B is about taking back power over your own life.