Yes, I am determined...and I am very thick. But once I get something in my head I will not budge.
I have decided now that, after a year, I deserve better than the misery of looking into my WH filthy A and pine after him.
He turned into another person and he is with another person.
I need to care for myself and that means moving one without him.
I truly do not want to know what he is doing and who he is doing it with.
I want to know nothing about him and his life. Not a thing.
And I go out of my way to avoid him at work and to avoid seeing him around.
I do feel much better since I came to this resolution.
Thank you for your support guys and gals. I could not be where I am today without MB!
blessing

My FIL just skyped me. It surprized me cuz he never did nor was he in contact with me for a while.
he asked me why I cut all contact with WH. He said that all I am doing is driving him more in OW arms as he is now alone and she represents the only anchor to him and he spends all of his time with her.
I said, politely, that i would rather not talk about it as the wound is still raw. He said he understands and that he just needed to say it to me so I start thinking about it.
I thanked him but did not give in...
I am proud of myself
However...could he be right, that with NC with WH I am actually driving him more and more into OW's arms as he spends all his time with her. Wouldn't that create a strong bond?
blessing

Yes, it does drive him into her arms, but that is so he has to get all his needs met by her...no more cake eating...reality sets in and her true colors are more likely to come out the more they are together. They cant blame you when things are not going well for them...which we know that they LOVE to blame the BS for all their misery.

NC is also to protect you...if you stay in contact you will NEVER get over him or his LBing will drive YOU away and you will lose all the love you have left for him if he wants to come back. The wayward always sneak in their little snide remarks and hurt and blame you for the A.

It is torture to be smack in the middle of his A. Its really the best choice. Its less pain for us all around...Still Pain I know, but less.

Atena, I had that conversation in my brain so many times that I became a ping-pong table.

XH has isolated himself from everyone but PP and her family and friends. Of course they tell him anything that he wants to believe. I can't change those lies.

Unless your WH has left the OW and starts to come out of the fog, it will be talking to a wall or a rock.

In the beginning I tried to reason with XH and it was as if Elvis had left the building. I talked to him thinking of him as my H but he was already PP's A partner.

You can only protect yourself because if you did try and break NC you will only be disappointed.

Schoolbus wrote something on a thread about when you know a wayward comes out of fog. It said something about them screaming louder to complain about the OP. I wish I could find it. If I get a chance later I will look for it.

Blessings.

Atena, you are not driving your WH anywhere. You have removed yourself as a choice for him and so he is going to go down the path of least resistance...with OW. She will now have to meet all of his EN's. You will not be OW's foil anymore. OW will have all the pressure on her. You won't be causing them anymore problems, so you can't be to blame for THEIR problems, and there will be problems...

Even if they stay together, you will have removed yourself, protected yourself and given yourself time to move forward. Try try try to treat the situation as if your WH no longer exists.

Also, do you see what happens when contact occurs, even indirectly. Your FIL talks to you ABOUT WH and it triggers you back to fear. Tell your relatives that you want NO information or conversations about WH. For the longest time, whenever I even discussed WH, it triggered me.

Thank you for your posts!
I guess my WH and I were emotionally distant already a year prior to our separation so my WH had already most of his needs met by OW namely: sex, companionship, conversation, admiration.
I was providing family needs and partially some financial security as well as social status (he lost face at work and socially after the A came out) but he has an all new set of friends now. HOwever, at work he lost face.
Nevetheless....who knows how this will turn out. My deal is to keep dark. I could not prevent FIL from skyping me but I did stop him when he wanted to talk about WH and our situation.
I can see that FIL does not want 20 years of M to go down the drain and he cares a lot about our son.
He might also be fearful about OW. WH and I live in a foreign country overseas and he knows OW is 15 years younger, has a pacemaker, is divorced with 2 problematic kids...who knows what scenarios go on in my FIL's mind.... but I do not care to find out...
FIL liked me a lot and I am sure he is sad about losing me.
blessing

I am sorry I always come here to vent...and it is the usual story, nothing new.
I just get triggered even if someone mentions my WH name. I just go into a funk and start thinking and thinking about why why why he would invest so much into OW.
Love messages to her (he never sent me any) time spent with her, romantic stuff he never did with me...
WHat does she have that I do not have???
I will never get over this...never....I need to lighten my heart..it has been more than 2 years (and this without counting the pain of his first A).
I should hate this man, I should be soooo over him...but I am not....
I know you told me all there is to tell me...
I appreciate you listening to my rant...
blessing

I hope you can correlate how this contact with FIL about WH is hurting you.

You are back to obsessing thinking of WH and OW. The what if's the why not with me's.

You will get over this. Get darker. Right now, I don't even think you can talk about WH without triggering. It's actually quite normal, the reaction you are having. You went pretty dark about a week or so ago. You may be experiencing your own withdrawal.

You will get over this, past this and into something new. You will.

We may have told you all the logistical stuff, Atena, but support is what you need now. Support to stay dark, to not contact WH and to draw firm boundaries with those around you about WH, including information about him and urging you to change your plan.

Hang in there, Atena

I guess people (FIL) find ways to make me feel guilty for plan B. I know is the only way to go. If I were to be in contact with WH I would be dead by now.
Why, in my head, I cannot admit to myself that WH is not longer the man I married? Why do I think OW might be actually a nice person otherwise why would my WH love her so much...
I think I am as messed up as they are...
but I think you are right...I am going thru withdrawal finally and that might be the pain of gettin past it.
blessing

Give yourself time, atena. May not be what you want to hear, but time to experience withdrawal and time for your heart to catch up with your head.

Take good care of yourself. Get up and get out when you can. Make sure you pamper yourself in your free time, exercise, read/watch something funny, find ways to LAUGH as often as possible.

Hi Atena, best place is to vent here because it is safe.

Triggers will be less as time goes on. I talk to my SIL weekly. She lives in another country. Our informal rule is that we do not bring up XH. We talk about our lives, her nieces, everything. I know she is worried about him with his weight gain and lifestyle but we chose not to discuss it.

I want her in my life and we always say we will always be SIL. The terms are just different.

I know how difficult it is for you but you can and you are doing this.

I am in good terms with my SIL too. She is my family and she said she will not let her brother destroy our relationship.
I have been praying now for over a year, every day, for the higher power to R my M. I will not stop praying.
If I ask I will receive and if I keep knocking at the door the door will open.
blessing

When does LB start for the A? If OW and WH do not live together will they ever get into the LB scene?
How can everything be so perfect for them to want to be with one another...? Is it the sex that is so good for a long time? Or is it that WH really does not see what OW is all about?
crazy...
blessing

atena: I know you desperately want your marriage back. Yet you are doing the one thing that practically guarantees that you will never get it back:

You are still dangling at the end of WH's string, begging and whining for crumbs like a pathetic puppy. WH knows this. To him, that's all you are: a sad and pathetic little creature begging and begging for a tiny bit of his time.

Nobody respects a person like that. And WH can't love you when he doesn't respect you. THAT is what is killing even the 1% chance you have of restoring your marriage.

He will never respect you as long as he knows you will wait for him forever like a pitiful little puppy at the door. Why should he? Your behaviour is weak and helpless and sad. Nobody respects that.

Respect comes first. Love follows respect.

So: How could you earn back even a shred of WH's respect?

By REALLY doing a Plan B. If you were in a genuine Plan B, you would not be asking questions like you did in your above post because YOU WOULD NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT WH AND OW.

You want even a shred of respect from WH? Then go pitch black and live your life in a way that makes it clear that you ARE strong and you ARE capable and you CAN live without him if you must. THAT is how you start to earn respect from somebody. THAT is how you become attractive.

Honey, I know how you feel. I sure wish my XWH would come back, too - the real H, not the monster addict he turned into. But I have not seen his face or heard his voice or contacted him in anyway for well over two years. I know he's still in our city, but I don't know his address. I know virtually nothing about what he does and everybody is under strict orders to tell me nothing.

If he ever pulled his head out and became my H again, sure, I'd talk to him. But not before. Until then, I remain pitch-black to him and I have lawyers and bankers taking care of the legal and financial fallout from the divorce. They contact him. I don't.

I don't have anything else from XWH, but I'll bet there's a least a half a shred of respect for me in there somewhere. And that's where it has to start.

I wish you could understand that. It would end much of your suffering *and* it is the only thing that would ever in a million years give you a chance of reconciling.

Sounds like you have been in contact with your WH, atena. Not good. You are just continuing to hurt yourself.

I completely agree with what Mulan has so eloquently said to you. You are being a doormat, and your WH is happily rubbing his dirty boots all over you.

What's really crazy? You continuing to obsess over WH and OW. FIND SOMETHING TO OCCUPY YOUR TIME! Get on with living YOUR life. You give away your power so easily, atena.

I would have quoted Mulan's post too because it was AMAZING.

You need to stop obsessing about what WH and OW are doing. That is NOT MB. You need to redirect your thoughts. Did you see your WH at all this week? Did someone tell you something? Because seriously, you shouldn't know that your WH and OW aren't fighting. You can't obsess about these things. They are in a "relationship" and that is all that matters right now. Your H is GONE. WH is in his place and he is NOT the man you love. He looks like him and he talks with his voice but the words he says and the actions are not HIM. Please, for YOU, go into the darkest Plan B EVER. You are harming only yourself. Even if you haven't had some direct contact, something happened for you to get to the point where you made that post.

Did you ever read the part on my thread about the loonie jar? I was obsessively thinking about my WH and I needed to get out of it real quick. Pep suggested that every time that I thought about my WH, I put a loonie(dollar coin) in a pickle jar. Then at the end of the week, I would use that money to do something fun with the kiddos. I was AMAZED by how much I put in that jar in the first few days. I still think about WH at times, but it is no where near obsessive. I haven't really done the loonie jar in a few months, maybe it's time to start again. Good Luck.

I think there was a stretch of about two weeks where it seemed atena was taking the power back, over her thoughts and actions. In her last couple of posts, I see backsliding, which screams contact. Like you said, Scotland, it's either direct OR indirect. Since her FIL called. Sounds like she got a taste of the drama drug.

When I was in Plan B I was advised by Mimi, who did a super excellent dark Plan B AND recovered her M, to treat the situation AS IF my husband was dead. I have run with that concept ever since. Even when we exchange emails about DS, I act as if XH is just the other parent to my DS, not connected to me in any other way. It's all business. I get snippets of info about his life with his newest gal de year thru DS. It no longer affects me much.

I also act as though my WH is dead. There are times that it sneaks in though. Even knowing that he is outside of my house to pick up or drop off the kids hurts me sometimes. I have to MAKE myself NOT look at him. There are even weak moments that I want to break Plan B. I think it would be easier. I wonder if it would get him to come back. Then I remember that for the past 11 months, I have believed in MB. I have FAITH that this is the best for me, personally if not maritally. It is the best place I could be and all I want for others is to get to that same place.

Thank you for your posts. However this one by Mulan I found quite disrespectful of the BS....


I have not spoken to WH for a year now. I do not follow him nor spy on him. So how would he know I am begging and whining....
If I run into him at work I do not even look at him. I turn the other way or treat him as if he were invisible....

WH is in no condition to love anybody being the wayward he is. I do not need his respect because I do not respect him. As far as my chances to R the M...I do not know about %s.
AND!!!!!

Maybe the question should be, how could WH earn MY respect back!!!!!!!!!

My behaviour towards him is indifferent and I do not show him any weakness. I come to this forum, like many others who are not in perfect plan Bs, for support and help.
Blessing

((((((Atena)))))) I know your pain....all to well....Hang in there, K?