TB81:

This line:


You withheld something from your husband for the majority of your marriage. Something that was personally very embrassing to you, and does not cast you in the greatest light. And your WH KNEW there was more to the story, and he kept asking.... and asking, and asking...

Until, you finally told him. Because the guilt was too much. The honesty, however was terriffic, wasn't it? This huge weight had been lifted from your shoulders, right?

Your WH expolitation of that event later is the justification of the wayward. If you had told him that you had taken money from the bank in Monopoly when you were 12 years old, he would have used that excuse.... He is looking to take the blame from himself and put it anywhere else.

Thank you for adding clarity to your actions from the past with these other guys. I still want you to look closly at the boundaries you so willing threw away to get to that back seat, so easily...

Have you told your WH EVERYTHING about that evening?

And about the OW? Your WH is toast in couple of months....

He has no money, a wife an three kids. And a guilt complex that grows by the day. Vampira isn't happy with that, she wants the "happiness" of the care free SoCal living. And your Iowa boy ain't it....At least not in the long run. Your disappearance from his life may just hasten completlyt the explosion of thier affair.

And if not, then there was really nothing to save.

Remember, your NOT the OW. Your HIS WIFE. That still means something. Even when you are in Iowa, he can not claim differently... And if he has ANY Christian morals, that grates on him....

Sounds like Vampira is running the script from "Bull Durham"

LG

LARRY!!! I get it now! I misunderstood. LOL. I definitely understand what you mean, I get it now!! And you are FUNNY. Despite how down I feel right now you and others are making me laugh even during this horrible event. I love how you use vampira that is what is so funny to me. And I know what you are saying is true. I am just glad there is a little humor to it to help get me through the day. So thanks! And I am eating up all the advice I can get! please, don't stop posting!!!!

I like that approach. Thank you. I think that will work for me when the time comes, that way I won't be overemotional or demanding. Thank you!

bull durham! lol. that makes me laugh. to answer your question, yes I told my husband everything about taht night. i at first lied to cover up but within the 3-5 days i told him everything. some detail i didn't remember so well, but the main things i remembered clearly. and he knows it didn't last long and that i stopped it almost as soon as it started. i understand why i did stupid things like that in the past. i was unstable and had emotional issues. i did not know how to deal with real life and i used drinking as an escape. my husband wanted a divorce (or so he said that night) and i took him at his word. i felt unworthy and rejected like i always had before. (i had done this a lot in highschool, get drunk, do stuff with guys, sometimes sex...husband knew about all of that and has NEVER brought it up) i did something incredibly stupid because i felt unworthy and like i would never be good enough.

Tinkerbell,

I don't know what you have read about exposure. Read up on it, and if you haven't done a formal exposure effort, go ahead and do it anyway - and right away.

The more people understand that your husband is having an affair, and the impact it has had on you and your marriage, as well as the fact that you DO want to recover your marriage and that you DO love him

the better things will be.

Write your exposure letter out - make it short and sweet - and emphasize the fact that you want to recover the marriage.

I would kind of have it go like this:

My husband and "OW" are having an affair. At this point, I am sure that my husband is emotionally involved with OW, and can only see their relationship progressing to a physical affair if it has not already done so.

Our marriage means everything to me. I believe in marriage, and that our marriage can and should be the focus of our lives. Our two children, and the third one yet to be born, deserve a stable family with both parents in the house. I love my husband, and want us to be successful - together - in creating a loving future for them.

What our marriage can withstand is getting over this rough spot. What it cannot withstand is this third party interference, or for this affair to continue. I'm asking for your support for our marriage, to discourage this affair, and your support and understanding that we CAN work things out and recover the union. We will need your help, and God's help. Please pray for the recovery of our marriage and family.



Send that out by e-mail, call his parents, your friends, his friends, by snail-mail, whatever you have to do. But get some kind of message out there about what YOU want. Don't let his idiotic fog babble be the message they all hear.


ALSO:

I see that you want to leave and go back to Iowa. I fully understand why. Let him cry while you walk away. BUT, leave him a very strong image in his head, along with a Plan B letter that tells him exactly HOW to fix things when he figures out what he has done wrong.

Because he ultimately will be figuring out that "home" means something to him, and OW is not fitting the bill.

Make your Plan B letter the last thing you hand him. And DO NOT LOOK BACK. No cracks, nothing.

When the baby is born, as hard as this might be, just let your intermediary email him the weight and length. NOTHING ELSE. Let him SUFFER.

Because his own undoing will be done inside his own head.


SB

okay, a woman on another site is talking to me. she has been the betrayed wife a few times and now she is the current OW. She has been having an affair with a married man for 3 years. And puke, puke, she says they just "celebrated" the beginning of their physical affair, which started 2 years ago. The first year was just emotional. She is telling me that most affairs do not end quickly and that I cannot focus on the other woman. (um, I'm not focusing on her any more than I focus on the affair as a whole....she is just mad because I called the OW "wicked".) So she is telling me that I can't be so "forgiving" of my husband and that it is 100% his fault. I KNOW THAT. She really is making it sound like my husband will be in this affair for quite some time. I do NOT know what to do. What am I going to do being so far away in Iowa and him in California? He will be free to have a jolly good time with this woman. And this OW who is talking to me said that most likely my husband is sharing his penis with this other woman. I suppose she is right. How can I KNOW that for sure? He denies it of course. LORD I JUST WANT TRUTH. Why can't my WH give me truth?

. . .and now it is time to let go of the child in you and become a grownup.

You are who you are because of what you have done and what you have learned. Be strong in who you are. Be proud of what you are if not all of the mistakes you made to become you. Learn from the past and resolve to do better in the future. By changes you make to yourself and adopting responsibility for managing that change, you are in control of your life instead of giving up control to someone else.

Have pride in who you are. You paid the price. You are no longer who you used to be.

Larry

TB


He is addicted. Why are you even on SI or whatever. They will just confuse you. That woman is insane. Please get off that site before you get trapped in a sewer.

Larry

Thank you for your input. Question: What should the Plan B letter be about? I have written him a letter before when I left for my uncle's. I basically told him that this other woman is causing pain and emotional turmoil and that I know it is an affair and that it needs to stop in order for us to work on rebuilding our marriage. I told him I loved him and wanted us to have our family.

He responded by being very mean through texts. He was mad that I left without telling him and went to my uncle's house. Then he wrote me an email saying all the same stuff he has said about me doing all the stuff I did in the past and throughout our relationship he said I disrespected him, tried to control him, tried to manipulate him, was emotionally unstable and never there for him. blah blah blah. Then he said all that stuff about this OW just being his friend and that he will not give her up and will not listen to my ultimatums. From the sounds of that letter it looks like maybe I've lost the battle. This woman came along and has won my husband in less than 4 months and I've been with him for 9 years. Tell me, what can I do now?

I didn't mean get advice from a sewer full of self absorbed nitwits who are proud of their stupid sign.

Larry

I agree with Larry, why are you listening to what an OW is saying? She is just as screwed up and addicted as waywards are and of COURSE she wants to believe that her affair will last indefinately. Listening to, and believing, what she has to say is just as senseless (and hurtful) as listening to a wayward with their fog babble.

As you have seen, the voices of reason and knowledge are here on MB....they want to see your marriage survive, waywards don't.

yeah you're right. i wasn't in a discussion where i thought OW would come on and put in there two cents. But she did. and she was screwing with my head. anyway, i'm listening to you all. so thank you. please give me whatever advice you can! i appreciate it!!!!

I know! I had been on that forum for a month now and had never encountered another woman. A few women there actually directed me to this forum because of my christian faith. they were helpful but the advice i have gotten here has been much better. thank you.

There are many ways to go about MB.

I, personally, would recommend staying in plan A a wee bit longer.

You have 8 weeks til the baby is due.

If you can go back home for support but stay in contact with your WH and not love bust. Even lay off the talk about the OW other than mentioning the pain of the relationship to you for just a while.

Use the carrot of plan A a bit longer, albeit long distance via phone or internet videoconferencing. Show your most radiant self and the wonderful you and then go plan B. Send a beatiful plan B love letter in the mail to him.

That will give you time to prepare for B. To set up financial stuff and to get an intermediary to communicate about finances and the children and to create a safe place for you to withdraw from the relationship with your WH. When you first go to plan B, it is tough. You will not sleep very well and feel more sadness about missing your spouse. It will disapate with going no contact but it is tough. I am not sure that it is a great idea to go into it during this stage of your pregnancy without setting up your new environment first. That way you will be more comfortable during the last part of your pregnancy and your child birth and post partum stages of this child birth time.

Once you do go plan B and you will probably need to, you can change your phone number and send the letter and be unaccessible except through your intermediary.

I would also suggest you stop visiting other websites which will confuse the plan.

Be strong and brave and keep posting.

Let me see if I understand. You are now back in Iowa? And your husband is in California? And your husband and vampira work at the same place? They are co-workers, right? He does not report to her, or does he?

Larry

yes I go back to iowa tommorrow. yes my husband is in california and works at the same place as vampira. they are both personal trainers. he does not report to her. what should i do while i am in iowa? someone just posted that i should stick to plan A for awhile.

Be nice until you get back to Iowa. Take with you all the evidence you have, including names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. You are going to have some down time to think. Take advantage of that to get it in your head that there are two paths: recovery or divorce. You must plan for both.

Recovery is a narrow path and will mean that you will have to do some things that are counter intuitive. You will do things that are calculated to attract your husband and things that will upset him. You are not in control of the end game, only your part.

Larry

Okay. Will do. I am still really back and forth with a lot of things right now. Such as whether or not he's telling me the truth when he says that she is only a friend and that she has nothing to do with him questioning the marriage. Is there any chance that that is the truth? Even if a small chance....I probably sound desperate right now. I suppose that I am.

He is the only man I have ever loved and I have always wanted to be with him for the rest of our lives. It makes me unbearably sad that he might end this marriage when all is said and done. I love him and I want to work it out. I know that this woman needs to be out of the picture in order for that to happen. What can I do while in Iowa, if anything, to help get her out of the picture?

And please be blunt with me when I ask questions like I did at the beginning of this reply about wondering if he could be telling the truth...you see, he has always been the most honest man I know. He has been a faithful christian in the past and has always been strong. He has done so much for me and I do feel bad about the things I did that were damaging to our relationship. But I understand how those things would be irrelevant if he's in an affair. I am more than willing to work things out if he would do the same. I am kind of a wreck right now.

I am interested in your observations about Vampira....a lot of people have told me not to focus on the OW but it is hard not to. She is part of the problem so why shouldn't I have information about her?

Also, what do I do since he is still denying that his "friendship" is an affair? I will be so far away in Iowa and I know I can do Plan A from afar for a bit, but will that bring about any type of confession? I am completely aware that he will have to realize what he is doing and be truly remorseful in order to reconcile. At this point you said he will lie to himself as well as everyone else to feed his addiction. Do you think he still doesn't realize that this is an affair or he knows full well that it is and is just lying? That is what I am confused about. Also, he told me not to worry about divorce and not to worry about him and this woman because he hasn't been physical with her and that he won't be b/c she is "just a friend". He told me this today before he left for work. He was sad because he knows we're leaving today and that was the last time we'll see him until he decides to come for us. He says he's coming when I am in labor. We'll see.