I am so sorry, hope. {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{hope}}}}}}}}}}}}

You will start feeling better in about 2-3 weeks after you go dark. I promise you, this will get better.

Ok, here's my letter....please let me know your thoughts. I feel weird including the stuff about staying away from Jillian because he still maintains that there is no relationship and he just wants to end it with me.

Dear Husband,

Now that we are at the next stage of this separation, I want to communicate to you that I am still in love with you and that I pray daily for reconciliation. Having said that, I can never reconcile without your willingness to do the same and meet the requirements of recovery. Please know that my greatest desire is for us to be a family again; I believe our marriage is worth saving.

Until then, I will avoid seeing you or talking to you. My brother John has agreed to help make arrangements for you to get the children whenever you would like, but I will not be available to communicate with you. If you want to communicate about the children or any other matter, it will have to be through my brother XXXX.

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 OW, and I simply cannot be with you any longer. I still love you but I cannot see you under these conditions.

I realize that you claim you are not communicating with her, but all evidence proves otherwise.

As soon as you are willing to permanently separate from OW 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 OW.

I love you,

BS

That letter looks very good to me. It is clear, to the point, and tells him that you love him and that you do want to reconcile.

Know that he will do everything he can to try to get you to break the no-contact stipulation. He will call you, make up "emergencies", text you, email you, etc.

Be prepared to reinforce your stand on this. When he contacts you, send him to your brother and politely hang up. Forward texts - unread - to your brother. Forward emails - unread - to your brother. If he calls you, politely ask, "Have you ended all contact with your affair partner, and is this call to reconcile the marriage?" If he answers "No", then politely tell him that in keeping with the attempt to preserve your love for him, he must refer all communications through your brother, and politely say "good-bye, I love you", and HANG UP.

Otherwise, any contacts will only be fruitless and serve to damage your heart. Remember - Plan B is for YOU - not for him. Protect yourself, and allow yourself the space and time to heal that Plan B gives you.

Don't let his attempts to crack you succeed.
SB

hope, I made a few minor changes above and think this is an excellent letter. I removed the communicate about "any matter" because your brother should not pass on anything unless it is really pertinent. Your H will try very hard to engage you in minutia and other bullcrap and you don't want that. It should only be pertinent matters.

And I don't care if he denies his affair. The denial of a liar is meaningless and should not even be acknowledged.

Ok, I'll make those changes. Thanks for the input. I'm glad for the weekend; I hope I make it through without my kids with me. My daughter is still staying and spending time with a friend.

I'm hoping for some much needed rest.

hope, do you have caller ID? If not, I would get that so you don't ever answer the phone when he calls. Additionally, the kids will need to be coached to not allow him the house and to not hand you the phone when he asks. Many a WS will try to get hte kids to hand you the phone to circumvent Plan B. When that happens, ask the kid "is this an emergency? If not, then tell your Dad to call Uncle J."

Ok, I'm wondering about the purpose of the pictures again? I gathered a few of just him and myself in our earlier years and then mostly of the kids at birth and other events. Should I include the ones of us? He will probably pitch them. I put them all in this littls black photo album.

My dad just took all the kids out for ice cream so it's pretty quiet around here.

I have my letter ready and the picture album...now I just need to pack their things for tomorrow....you know before I started exposing everything, he was agreeing to counseling. Do you think that was just to stall for time?

I just can't believe that he is going to throw our whole life away. How long will it take me to get over all this? I can't even imagine ever loving anyone else...the thought makes me sick. I can't help but think about being alone forever.

I would say that you shouldn't include any that you don't have copies of. If he does "pitch it", then you won't worry about that. You wouldn't know until he came home anyways though, that's the BEAUTY of Plan B.

As far as what pics should be included, they should just be ones of your lives together. I didn't have to worry too much about pics of WH and I, as again, there weren't too many pics.

Hope, you gave him every chance in the world to reconcile and he turned it down. You gave him that chance. He was not interested. He would not agree to the conditions you laid out. And if he won't agree to those things, there is no hope. You could not live in a situation where your H disappeared every night for 2 hours and left every weekend. It would have driven you insane. Not to mention that counseling is useless when there is an ongoing affair.


This is far from over. Like we have told you, we have seen far worse than this come back from the dead.


You are going to start feeling better in about 3 weeks. And you won't be alone forever, hope.

I am still having the same thoughts, although it is less constant than when I started Pln B. Some days are better than others and some weeks are better than others.
I am still so very afraid of being alone; yet I cannot imagine being with someone else. I do think that time will be what is the best to recover some of myself.

ITA, from experience. We wasted sooo much money in MC while the A was still going on, unbeknownst to me. We were trying to recover from his A yet it had never ended. HUGE WASTE and I had a lot of anger resentment over that wasted time and money.


Right, this is about how long it took me to start feeling some relief. I know it seems impossible right now but you really will begin to feel better, hope.

(((hugs)))

One thing we had was conversation. We always talked about school, politics, the kids and wanting to move away from where we live now. I'm going to miss just talking or sitting together and having dinner with the whole family.

This hurts my heart....all of my thoughts are consumed with it.

Well, today is the first visitation that the kids will have for almost a month. I'm nervous about what they will say to him or what he will say to them.

I feel better this morning...yesterday was so hard for me. It seems that my feelings come in waves.

H-E: Why are you worried about what they may say to him? I would be more worried about him NOT showing up, or spouting Fog-Talk to your children.

I would think that your children just may give him an earful he needs to hear....

LG

Well, I guess they see I'm always talking to people and on the computer. I don't want them to talk to him about how I communicate or anything else they may overhear. I'm careful, but with four children...someone is always around the corner.

I can't stop thinking about them being together....why do I do this? I hate how I'm consumed with thoughts of them; it's so cruel of him to do this to me.

Do you write a journal? I do. I find it a good release. Also, sometimes in bed, I punch the pillow and let myself say nasty things to WH. He doesn't hear me of course, but it does make me feel good to get these feelings out. I don't do it often, but there are times when it becomes too much. I can imagine how difficult it is to keep your kiddos out of the loop when you are talking about things. Do you talk to your friends/family over the phone? I find that my kiddos are always listening(even when I think they aren't). I try not to say too much about WH or OW when I am talking with them home. It's easier to talk about them when the kids are asleep.

See, even in Plan B, the thoughts of WH and POSOW together will drain LB$. You need to try to focus on other things. I know how hard it is. You can get there. In a few weeks, you will feel much better.

Yes, I love to write and journaling does help me alot. I'm glad that I have this thread as well; it keeps me focused. For the better half of this thread, I kept wondering if I was offending God with how I handled everything...ie exposure and making him leave. I believe God showed me that this was a form of tough love which is required in some situations.

I was also reminded of the Old Testament and all the disfunctional families that were there in that time and yet God still used them. For example, King David was a "man after God's own heart." yet he committed adultery and then had the woman's husband killed in battle...(put him on the front lines). Yet, God did not allow him to casually pass by with his sin. Ultimately, his child was taken from him as a consequence.

I'm not saying I'm God and that I should punish in order for him to repent, but I can't feel like God was exercising tough love in that situation. I do believe that I have often protected my husband from natural outcomes because I just want to "fix" everything....or overlook it. I'm happy to say that I don't know if I'll ever be that person again.

In looking back over the last 3 weeks, I've realized that exposure was probably the hardest part for me. It was difficult for me to commit and I see-sawed a bit with my feelings, but I'm glad I did it and I don't regret it. I pray over my children daily and I know he will protect them even from this.

Well, we're still waiting for H to pick up kids....they are all waiting. He told DD that he had to go to Walmart first. Anyway, he's been out of school for 1 1/2 hours, so he should be here.

Anyway, he's probably saying goodbye to the OW. I know....I shouldn't do that, but just the waiting is driving me crazy. Should I get him to nail down a time when he comes??? If I were to have plans, then I'd be standing around waiting.

He still continues to call through daughter...just called and said that he is 5 minutes away....is it ok to do that? He's just not going to be cooperative with this....not when he can just dial her number.