During my Plan A, when fog babble spewed from my WH's mouth, I did remind him of my views of M.

WH "We just talked"
V "I don't believe in a third party in M"

WH "Everyone didn't have to know V"
V "I will do whatever I have to, to save this M"

And to avoid getting into a pee contest, you change the subject immediately.
In my case I could say something off topic after my response and leave the room if I
had to, if he wanted to continue spewing garbage.

I liked the part of your email earlier about a husband sending his wife flowers.
I like the fact that she is being reminded that you are her Husband and she is still your Wife.
I love what Kiwi's BH said to her.

I can't get a sense of where your WW is right now in her thinking, not enough experience with that. I hope at some point that you can include the words H and W in your emails.

It bothers me how casual she seems about getting a divorce. Like it's just the natural thing to do. At one point she said, "We agreed that if ever there was a point where the bad times outweighed the good, we'd get a divorce." What?! We never agreed to that! I remember sitting on the patio discussing getting married, saying how it was for real and forever, that we'd work through all the hard parts.

I don't know if I see it as casual. She seems pretty stressed out in her emails.
Like a teenage girl rebelling after being grounded by her parents. That I can relate to!
I was grounded a lot, lol. And I rebelled a lot.

WW is rewriting in HER head, her M to you.

She believes that these times are sooooo hard,
she was justified in allowing another man to meet her needs,
and how dare you disturb that,
and embarrass her for simply looking for happiness. blahblahblah ......

Don't let it get to you, it will throw you off your game,
and you are doing what you can, the best way you can,
considering your circumstances with being so far away from each other.

Hi Gerk,

It's the wayward mentality...or a "renter" mentality.

Renters are people who view a relationship as tentative and are only willing to provide care as long as terms are fair or until they find something better.

A buyer, is someone who regards a relationship as he or she does a homepermanent and exclusive.

Dr. Harley wrote a book about the differences between renters and buyers. It includes ideas on how to transform renters into fully committed buyers. Good book.

BTW: Which Dr. Harley books have you read?

WW emailed me this morning:
So I guess u cancelled the computer for (sister's wedding) without letting anyone know huh?

My reply:
No, Fry's cancelled it because it was out of stock, so I reordered a new one. Then they wanted me to call them back because I was having it shipped someplace other than the billing address. So I did, and they said everything was good to go, but then they cancelled that one too. So I ordered one from Best Buy, and it should be to your parents house sometime this week. I thought that would be ok since they'll be driving out to the wedding a few days beforehand. Here's the tracking number, it should be there on the 13th. Have a good night.



Did I do good?

Did I do good?

Mornin Gurka!

You're e-mail was PERFECT!!! Very direct and to the point.


I agree with the other posters, your wife definitely has a renter's mentality. Your wife appears to still be connected to you, otherwise, why would she even bother to write you about this?

I take this latest e-mail as a very good indicator that she is still very conflicted over her actions and that your consistent, loving actions ARE having an effect on her, even though you can't see it through her e-mails.

Semper Fi,

RIF

No response from her, but I agree RIF. She's still trying to justify me being some kind of bad guy, but at every turn I keep on proving her wrong and doing the right thing.

Gave her mother some flowers on facebook and wished her a happy mothers day.

That's Great! Keep up the pressure...

As long as your MIL is supportive, I'd use any help she could provide in putting pressure on your wife to end the affair and rebuild the M.

Semper Fi,

RIF

Her MIL never responded to my original exposure message. But she didn't unfriend me on facebook or anything. Her parents are pretty religious, so I tend to think she may be favoring us saving the marriage. I really like her mom, and I think she really likes me too.

Hey Gurka - As long as she's not overtly working against you, it's pretty safe to bet that she is helping you. Your MIL probably won't engage you in any discussions on your situation because she doesn't want to be dis-loyal to her daughter.

Hopefully, she is working "behind the scene" to pressure your W. I suspect this is the case...

Semper Fi,

RIF

Boy, she's really grasping at straws now to try and make you the bad guy.

The email was good, but I just wanted to give a couple of critiques for next time.

You first start out the email in a terse and defensive tone by just saying "No." It sounds like you are snapping back at her for asking you this. I would have started it off with something less confrontational like, "It's funny you ask about that because..." Then after you described the process, I would have said, "I'm sorry not to keep you up with what was going on." It just gives the email a slightly softer tone instead of one that could be construed by her as, "Wrong. How dare you ask me that." But I did like how you ended it. Again, I'm nitpicking the difference between an A and an A-. You did good. I just want to make sure you know how to do the best going forward.

Hey Gurka - I like the 'additions' that jwmc95 recommended... Your e-mail was good and I'm sure it served the intended purpose.

Hope you had a good day today and I hope they got some real paper plates for the DFAC!

Get some rest and I'll check in with you tomorrow morning...

Semper Fi,

RIF

Gurk

You're progressing well. Keep the faith, bud.

No response from her about the computer, or the mothers day stuff. I'll try to write her an email today or tomorrow.

I'm so thankful you never agreed to that.

It sounds like she is thinking a lot about weighing the good times and comparing them to the bad times. Which is good. Like others are saying, it sounds like these things she's saying mean she is still emotionally invested in you.

She repeatedly said that when she thought about our marriage, she felt the bad times far outweighed the good times. I felt the exact opposite.

Hey Gurka - I think that most WS re-write the history of the marriage and say pretty much the same thing. Mrs RIF started down that road when we started MC in 2001... Our MC pretty much told her that it wasn't necessary to try and blame the condition of the M, he told her that she just needed to look in the mirror...

At some point in time, you W will look back on this period and she will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your actions DID show her your love. Hopfully, she will refect on this fact and be happy that she's still married to you!

But if she chooses to not re-engage with you in rebuiding, she will definitley look back on this period with regret, but cause she will know that she is the one that blew it, not you.

Try not to take her words and comments to heart... remember, she's just reading from the WS handbook, and you pretty much already know what she's going to say.

Semper Fi,

RIF

Sent her an email during a lull just now:

How was your weekend? Did you end up getting that computer from Best Buy that we were talking about before?

They didn't have any crab legs or lobster or anything of the sort for dinner Friday night. Makes you wonder just what sort of war we're running here. I've been super busy at work, working till nearly 1900 every night. Sunday morning we went to the shooting range to shoot each other's weapons for "familiarization" in case ours are lost or damaged in an attack. It was pretty fun getting to shoot all the foreign weapons (attached a picture from the range.) The French rifle was, unsurprisingly, the worst of the bunch. Then I had to go to a party at the British Embassy last night, it's ridiculous how diplomats live and party in the midst of a war. They have a really nice swimming pool, a full bar, catered foods, the works. But we didn't get back until nearly midnight, and the Afghans didn't want to let us through the gate. One of our colonels decided to get out of the car to talk to them, and the situation escalated to a guns drawn, very tense situation before they finally decided that we did in fact live at Camp XXXXX. We were all breathing sighs of relief once we actually made it back into our camp after midnight. I've been pretty sleepy today since I didn't get to bed until 1 in the morning, but I made it to the gym at lunch. I got some new headphones at Camp Eggers to replace the ones that I lost last week. I'm about to leave work for the day and try to go for a run. Hope you have a good week!

Nice e-mail Gurka!

Sounds pretty upbeat and "chatty" with no hint of relationship talk...

Of course you'll probably get an e-mail asking you to stop sending her e-mails about your "day", and how she "never" wants to talk with you again... but that's to be expected.

I think this e-mail will continue to put her in conflict as even if she says that she doesn't care about you, deep down inside, she obviously still has some feelings for you or else she woulndn't keep replying to your e-mails and asking you to "stop".

The longer she's "away" from the OM and not getting her needs met by him, the more conflicted she will be. Eventually, she will reach a tipping point and she will have to decide what she wants to do. Hopefully, your excellent Plan-A will show her that the best alternative is to try and work on the M with you!

Semper Fi,

RIF