Since I last posted, a lot has happened. WH had told me he was moving out to live with OW. He told me he needed a check. I left the check out for him and went to dinner at a friend's house (while kids were being watched by babysitter). WH never came over to pick up check. Instead, I start getting calls and then messages from him while I am at friend's house. In the messages he is saying he loves me and the kids and is coming home for good. I ask whether he is 1000% serious this time before I call him. He says he is.

When I call him, he can hardly breathe. I thought at first he was crying, then realize it must be drugs (WH has a drug and alcohol problem). He confirms it is drugs and I rush over to pick him up and take him to the ER. At the ER he is telling the nurses about how he wants a second chance and is going home. The doctors/nurses help him to feel better and he signs himself out of the hospital during the middle of the night against medical advice.

WH is fired at work the next day because his drug/alcohol problem and affair (which is with a coworker) were exposed. OW is also fired.

We then start a false recovery, which ended this past Tuesday with me telling WH to get out. We have been through a couple of other false recoveries (him saying he is breaking up with her, sending break up email and then talking to her again within days). I asked him to leave because he was still talking to OW and he was not seriously addressing the drug and alcohol problem. He is out living with her and is saying that he put down a deposit and two months rent on a furnished apartment.

During this last false recovery, OW sent WH hateful emails, pictures of her kissing other people and other crazy things. It seems like the more they are pushed apart the harder they run back to each other. Whenever WH moves out to stay with her or talks about moving out to get his own place, he starts talking about getting clean and being a better father (he ignores the kids when he is living at home).

I am a huge mess now. I am mad and I am sad. I thought WH was going to die that night in the ER. He does not want a divorce. He talks about wanting time to get himself straight, which to me means he wants to continue his affair and keep me around in case it doesn't work out. If he wanted to get straight, he could do it at home by restoring his family and leaving her alone.

So here I am in Plan B. I am not sure how to handle because of the children. Because of his alcohol and drug problem, I cannot allow him to take them away for visits. He has to visit with them at our house. He left on Tuesday. He is already pushing to come over every day. He is a cake eater. He is just thinking he will change home base now.

I want the fog to go away. I want my children to have a full time father again. I want my marriage back. I want the OW to GO AWAY. But none of that is happening. I want to cry all day and all night. I am so frustrated. All of this has happened and WH still cannot break off the affair.

I guess it helped just to type all of this, but any input or insight is appreciated.

forj, I am sorry you are here. First off, you are not in Plan B. Plan B means a complete separation where there is absolutely no contact. Your H is a cakeeater who wants to come in your home so he can continue getting his fix. The biggest impediment to your marriage is not the OW but his booze/narcotics. That problem has to be resolved FIRST.

A better plan would be to send him a letter telling him not to contact you AT ALL unless and until he is sober and has entered a program of recovery. Don�t let him in the house EVER. Change the locks. Set up weekly visits at someone elses house and drop the kids off and allow him to have SUPERVISED visits.

Designate an intermediary that will relay only PERTINENT information about the children�s visitations and your finances. Nothing else gets through.
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That will be the best thing for you and the best thing for HIM. An alcoholic will only abuse Plan A; they do not have normal emotions like other people, so the solution is to go straight to Plan B with the absolute condition that he quit drinking and doping FOR LIFE, with a plan in place.

Jail would be very therapeutic for your husband. If you find out about him ever drinking and driving, it would be a kindness to have him arrested. Many lives of drunks have been changed by waking up in a jail cell in their own vomit. It is like penicillin is to disease.

If you are in plan B, get family member to supervise the visit at schedule times and durations, you need to get out from the house during that time.

Get help, IC and/or alanon.

-rh-

Forj:

Sorry you find yourself here. Just so you get more than one opinion, maybe with a slightly (not much) slant, here I be.

1. There is no reset button or magic wand.
2. Wishing won't make it happen.
3. If you enable what he does, he will keep doing it.
4. A drunk or druggie is not a normal human being.
5. A drunk or druggie will use you like a dirty rag if you let them.
6. You cannot, ever, fix a drunk or druggie. They must fix themselves.
7. What you say indicates a drunk or druggie.

Thus, follow Mel's advice. And you must be strong for your kids, and yourself. You cannot deal with a weak, strung out person if you are weak. Look at the little people you made and think, think.

Those little people, called children, do not have the option of choosing. You must do the choosing for them. Choose your kids or choose you worthless husband. Up to you. And by definition, a combination drunk and druggie is a worthless human who does not deserve to have their needs placed ahead of innocent kids.

Again, do follow Mel's guidelines. And as time goes on, frequent communication here will give you more help and paths to follow.

This site can be trusted to care. Almost all of us do.

Larry

Thanks everyone. I realize the alcohol and drug problems are the most serious problems, but of course the affair stabs me in the gut. She is no prize, so it makes me feel like dog poo to have him repeatedly keep going back to her. Every time he goes back to her I become a horrible villian again. He says I didn't give him as much attention after the kids were born and he didn't feel welcome at home. He doesn't know if he can ever forgive me (yes, you read that right). I am sure he is right that he didn't get as much attention but he doesn't think about the other side of the coin (that I was juggling home, work, children) and the affect of his drinking on our relationship.

I am in IC and he has been a couple of times too in the past week. We see the same counselor so I am hoping the counselor will be able to help me figure out whether there is any hope left with him. With so many issues, it is hard to find hope.

A dark Plan B is going to be very hard. We don't have any family where we live or mutual friends. We used to have mutual friend couples but they disappeared as the drug and alcohol problems and affair ramped up. Now his friends are the OW (who also has a drug and alcohol problem) and a couple of male friends who also have drug and/or alcohol problems.

He definitely wants to maintain a relationship with me. He wants to talk to me about his work problems and have my friendship in general. Since he left on Tuesday, I have been discussing only issues related to the children and ignoring all other requests to draw me into personal conversations. I am trying to prevent him from getting his comfort at home and his excitement with OW.

Ouch!




Please don't waste your mental energy giving rent in your mind to his drama. Make him unwelcome in your home, if necessary, use a court order to do it. Please.

Think about moving to where you have family support as an option.

Larry

I will be changing the locks as soon as his new apartment is available and he moves his stuff out. Of course, he has been pleading with me not to do that. Even more reason to do it as far as I am concerned.

forj,

I will repeat what others have said and Harleys says. You canont even consider rebuilding a marriage with someone who is in an addiction. He has two: drugs and alcohol. No chance of your marriage working unless you want to be his enabler and exposure your children to his lifestyle.

He wants access so that he can get what he wants and if the addiction is strong enough, that includes stealing stuff from your house to sell for drugs and alcohol.

As for his assessment of you and your abilities as a W, a mother, and a human being, don't even listen. He has no idea what he is talking about. Until the addiction is over, he will seek the people he can use the easiest and right now that is OW. don't worry about it, his true love is is addiction.

God Bless,

JL

forj, I would suggest changing the locks now and then packing up his stuff later. The sooner you do this, the better. In the meantime, i would send him a letter similar to this, WITHOUT taking any blame yourself and making it a condition that he sober up for life and get into a program of recovery.

Plan B letter from SAA:

My Dear Sue,
I apologize to you for my part in creating an environment that helped make your affair with Greg possible. I foolishly pursued my career without understanding my responsibility to meet your most important emotional needs. I was not there for you when you needed me most, and we are now both suffering for my mistake.

I am willing to avoid the mistakes I've made in the past and create a new life for both of us that meet your needs. But I cannot do that until you end your relationship with Greg once and for all.

Until then, I will avoid seeing you or talking to you. I will also not be able to help you financially. Our friends Jane and Paul have agreed to help make arrangements for you to visit the children whenever you would like. But I will not be here when you visit. If you want to communicate about the children or any other matter, it will have to be through Jane and Paul.

I ask you to respect my decision to separate from you this way. You must know about the suffering I have endured because of your relationship with Greg, and I simply cannot be with you any longer, knowing that you are with him. I still love you but I cannot see you under these conditions.

As soon as you are willing to permanently separate from Greg and are willing to follow the measures that were suggested to ensure total separation, I will be willing to discuss our future together.

I want us to be able to rebuild our marriage someday. I want us to be able to meet each other's emotional needs and to avoid doing anything to hurt each other. We need to build a new lifestyle in which everything we do makes us both happy. Then there will never again be a reason for us to separate. I want to be your best friend, someone who is always there for you when you need me. And I want you as my best friend.

I loved you when we married and I continue to love you right up to this day. I just cannot be with you or help you as long as you are seeing Greg.

With my love,
Jon

Can any vets remember someone who went through an A situation where the WS also had addiction/alcohol issues? I would love to read through the thread. My WH says he is going to start a treatment program. I am praying the program will address the addiction issues and help shed some light on why he is hooked on OW. Is it because she drinks and does drugs with him?

I am just so discouraged and sad. While my two children and I sit at home alone in the rain, WH is off on a trip with OW. WH says she is like cocaine for him. He says he could do without the sex and that it is better with me anyway. What he loves is the way she makes him feel. He says she lights up when he arrives and that she adores him.

It is just so disgusting to me. Of course she acts that way. She wants to take my WH away from his family. She was married when she and WH started the affair. WH told me that she said the first few years of her marriage were intoxicating. And then what happened? Apparently, they both got bored because things settled down and ran off to find new partners and have affairs. OW's husband was also having an A.

I am certain (or at least hoping) that is what will happen between her and WH. When reality sets in, one or both of them will become disenchated with the other. But how long will this take and will he lose his family in the process?

"Is it because she drinks and does drugs with him?"

BINGO.

Hope you will go to alanon.

I have been to a couple of al-anon meetings. I haven't talked yet, just listened. I have done a lot of reading on addiction, alcoholism and affairs.

I pray WH realizes what OW really is and what she isn't before it is too late. I am scared to death that she will get pregnant. Supposedly she had a miscarriage a month ago. With all the drugs and alcohol she puts in her body it may be hard for her to sustain a pregnancy. I am so scared because I think she would intentionally try to get pregnant.

forj, I thought you had made a decision to go into Plan B? What has changed?

Nothing has changed. He hasn't slept at home in six days and will be officially moving out when his apartment is ready.

Plan B is not going well because I cannot let him take the kids away because of his addiction issues and I don't have anyone to be here with him while he visits the kids. I am not doing a good, dark plan B, but I feel good about not allowing him to live at home anymore and still see OW. He came over yesterday to see our kids and I tried to stay away from where they were. He came over today for just a few minutes to get more of his things. I could not leave while he was here because our daughter was taking a nap.

His reactions are so predictable. Now that he is with her he sends messages to me about how he knows he needs to be here. Yet when he is here he says is miserable because he misses her.

forj, he shouldnt be in the house at all. That gives him a fix. Can you not set up supervised visitations at a friend or family's home? What about your church?

Him coming in your house will keep you sick and enmeshed in his abusive behavior and will defeat the purpose of Plan B. It also gives him a fix. You really need to find a solution for this and should approach it as if you were divorced. He needs to see and feel what that will be like.

Continued contact is going to tear you down emotionally and physically.

We have no family where we live and we no longer share mutual friends. The drugs/alcohol and affair have pulled him away from all of the couple friends we used to share. Only the kids and I go to church.

I am planning to discuss the situation during IC this week. I want to treat this more like a divorce situation so he will see what life will really be like if we divorce - no coming and going from the house as he pleases, no friend relationship with me.

Here are paraphrases of some fog babble messages from him last night.

He can overcome the drug and alcohol problems but probably can't stop the affair.

Starting the affair was the beginning of the end. Just turning onto the wrong road is the issue. It ruins everything.

This sounds like the babble I've heard from him before about how he owes her something because he started something with her. Thank God I found this site and know about the babble. He really doesn't want to believe forgiveness and restoration are possible. I know that is OW in his ear because he told me that she says I will punish him for the A for the rest of his life if he comes back to our M.

I think he is going to have to ride this out and see the A fail. He has tried several times to break up with her and he goes running back harder every time. They frolic, play and get drunk while I take care of our children. Of course, the A failing is secondary to the alcohol and drug problems so maybe we are doomed anyway.

When betrayed spouses enter plan B, is it common for them to become discouraged and just want to progress to plan D?

My WH is off on a trip right now with OW. Since I asked him to leave our house, he has been eating out with her every night and putting the charges on our credit card (which I know about because I check the card online). I am so mad at him I cannot see straight. It makes me want to have nothing to do with him ever again.

Meanwhile when he calls our house to talk to the children he wants to tell me he loves me and to ask me if I still love him and if I love him a lot and tell me how he is thinking about me and misses me. I hung up on him. Give me a break!

I am hoping for some help here.

My WH still talks of wanting to get himself out of the affair, but also says that he feels trapped with OW. I don't understand that at all. If he felt trapped anywhere, wouldn't it be in his marriage, with his children?

I think OW gets very angry and acts as if she will fall apart if WH breaks up with her (man I hate saying that - "break up"). She gets very defensive and says things to him about settling and not pursuing "true love". WH says he also fears what her friends and family will think. He says they think she is so fragile and will blame him for hurting her again (he has tried breaking up with her several times before but can't make it more than a couple of days in withdrawal). Uh, does he think about hurting me or his children? How about what our friends and family will think of him leaving us? Again, I just don't get it.

WH also knows that OW will continue to pursue him even if he tries to break up with her. He acts as if he is afraid of her. Every time he has tried to break it off, she has continued contact. She goes back and forth between mean and nice and eventually something gets to him and he ends up back with her.

I have mentioned phone counseling to him without telling him about the Harleys or this website. I have told him that his feelings and the situation are common and that he may benefit from talking to an expert.

Question is - should I push this? Does the fact that he has an alcohol and drug problem matter as far as the Harleys helping him?

Any input regarding this issue is appreciated. Thank you!

Forj, read through my thread. It's under "Other Topics" and called "Not the MB Way" I think... I'll see if I can find a link.

I can relate to a lot of what you're saying (the alcoholism, the crazy OW, etc) and it sounds as if your headed down the same path I was choosing... yes choosing. Had I known about MB at the time, what a difference it would have made.

You can choose NOW, TODAY to get off this ride-- cause it's not gonna get better on its own.

(((FORJ))))