As I tried to tell you above, he doesn't care about having YOUR respect because in his mind, you are not worthy of HIS respect. He knows perfectly well that you would take him back anytime and will wait forever for him like a helpless puppy. He doesn't need or want the respect of a woman like that. It's cruel, but it's true.

You must do two things, if you want to put a stop to your suffering and have the slightest of chances to earn back your WH's respect (and therefore leave the door open to having him love you once again):

GET A NEW JOB. Seeing him in the workplace in absolutely killing you. This has to stop. You are only feeling worse and worse and worse, and therefore WH only disdains and pities you more and more and more. And your chances of earning his respect continue to go down and down and down.

Do a REAL Plan B. You should know NOTHING about what your WH is doing. Nobody should be telling you anything. WH should be 100% invisible to you.

You cannot control what WH does or thinks or feels, atena. It has to start with you.

Your "plan b" has only brought you terrible suffering and earned you the disdain and dismissal of your WH and his OW.

Try a *real* Plan B and see what happens. I mean, what have you got to lose? How is YOUR "plan b" helping anything?

But, atena, it is NOT a perfect plan B if you are SEEING your WH regularly. You don't seem to see the correlation between contact and your increased pain.

Perhaps you could keep a journal. You would be able to review what has happened in a weeks time and see if contact has triggered you. I would bet that it IS affecting you and keeping you in a very bad space. You are not in Plan B if your WH sees you regularly.

If Mulan's post hits a nerve, it's probably because some of it rings true. You see, your mindset is very important, and right now, you are obsessing, and in a negative, woe is me the waywards are winning space. Keep in mind that Mulan IS doing a very dark Plan B....midnight. I have seen her posts progress from obsessive, to depressed, to angry to a place that is reaching indifference. She has a lot to offer, if you would only listen.

Atena, how do you know these personal things about WH and OW?

I agree, you are not in a real plan B if you are seeing your husband at work.

atena just {{{{{{hugs}}}}}}

You can do this. that's it. take care

Hi all and thank you for your posts!
I appreciate Mulan�s insights don�t get me wrong. I guess it does strike a cord and that means I have to take that into consideration.

I am sorry this post is going to be long,but I feel I need to update you on a few things and also about some cultural aspects of Italy that are not at all like the US.
MB works well in Anglo-Saxon countries where job mobility and availability is easy.
Where relocating and finding a home is easy.
Not here in Italy.

OK here I go. I have been out of my marital home since Oct 1 2009. I had to move back in a week ago or so.I will explain why.
During this past year I lived with a friend for 3 weeks. With another friend (Eva) for 3 months except for Xmas when me and my son (who was visiting from the states) had to move and live with some other friends for 2 weeks. I then moved back in with Eva till her H came back from abroad.

I was then homeless and stayed in a hotel for 3 days till I rented a place for 7 months. The rent and half of the mortgage I still had to pay for the marital home depleted my financial resources without counting that I was into a very intense master program and working full time.

My energy and my money were hitting rock bottom. All the moving around drove me insane. The place I rented for 7 months had plumbing problems which culminated in water dripping on my bed. That is when I decided I had enough and moved back to the marital home.

I also just got a job promotion with a significant pay increase due to me having a master now. Yes, I work in the same spot as WH but here in Italy finding a job equivalent to what I have now is close to impossible.
So I have some questions:

I do not show WH how I feel. I look great, I am cheerful and people like me, I smile and I am in a good mood. I never talk about WH with anybody and if they do bring him up I say: we are separated now I am not interested in what he does, I am actually happier without him.
I just got a job promotion which increased my status in the work place.

So on what basis would WH disdain and pity me? I just do not get it. Most people at work disdain and pity him for what he has done. In fact the boss did not hire him for a position he was hoping to get. I bet lots of it had to do with his waywardness as the boss knows about it ( I told her) and she is also a victim of betrayal herself.

I have the respect of my colleagues and if he does not respect me it is because he is in love with OW and the addiction to her makes me look unworthy. After all he picked her over me. At the stage where he is now (deep in fog) I could do cartwheels and look like Cindy Crawford, but, as we all know, a WS has only eyes for OP�.and my WH is no exception.


I truly know nothing about him. I no longer investigate and I do not want to know what he is up to. The question I asked about when LB starts in the A was just hypothetical. I do not even know if OW and WH are still together. But I can bet my underwear they still are. I can feel it and WH has not contacted me for a year.

One thing is for sure. I still hope for my WH to want to R the M, but I see that no matter what (dark or light plan B) after a while the odds go down considerably.

blessing

ok, Atena, this post makes it sound like your Plan B has been dark as night, when it hasn't. You glimpse your H almost every day at work and now you have moved back into your apartment that is next door to the OW. So now you get to see your H and the OW together every time he visits her. This means your H is not only top of mind all week at work, but now he is top of mind on the weekends.

When you lived elsewhere, you went to that apartment often to "get things" and were continually triggered and devastated when you saw them together.

Atena, I am your friend and you know this. So I say this as your friend who cares about you. But you have set up your life in a way that ensures almost daily contact wtih your H. You don't even TRY to change that. You don't bother to look for a new job, you told me last week to tell your H to take your apartment off the market. So, you can't say you don't have choices when you don't TRY.

I don't believe you have taken Plan B seriously since you always have some excuse about why you can't completely go dark. You put alot of energy into finding excuses why you can't cut off contact completely; what if you put the same energy into actually ENDING contact?

Why not put all that energy into finding creative ways to avoid contact instead of finding excuses why you have to see him?

It is especially hard when you don't do anything to find another job and home. What have you ever done to find another job? Several months ago you said you couldn't do it because you were getting your masters. Now you have your masters and there is a new excuse.

As far as getting a new place, why did you tell me to tell your H to take the apartment off the market? That just makes it impossible to get a new place.

You have arranged your life in a way that ENSURES you will be triggered DAILY by your H and the OW. That is your doing, atena. Something over which you have control but have never assumed.

You are not an endentured servant who is held hostage by that school in Italy. Nor do you have to live right next door to the OW.

I can always rent this place out and I will especially if WH does not agree to the conditions under which I will then agree to sell the house. I do not want to put too much info here because who knows..my WH could be reading this.

I do not see OW. She must have moved in with him or decided not to live in her home any longer. She is not here. WH never comes here so I do not see him but at work. When I see him at work it is not daily. It could be once a week and for a second.
I just do not agree with Mulan when she says that pities me when he sees me. That is non sense. He is the one pitied, and he is the one who should move and end the shame he has brought upon himself. I have done nothing. I can keep my head high.
blessing

atena, you still see him at work and you may very well see him and the OW at the apartment as you have in the past. My point is that you have really done next to nothing to ensure all contact is ended. And now you have taken your apartment off the market and added new conditions to the sale.

That apartment keeps you connected to him.

What are you doing to separate your lives, atena? Everything you have done so far has temporary and tentative. You have a 1000 reasons why you can't end contact. Why not search for ways you can end contact?

I just do not understand how NC will get my WH back to me. At the point where we are right now I do not call him, contact him nor spend time with him. This is what he wanted. He wanted to be free to see OW and he is. I do not see what more separation than this will bring...
In terms of the house: I just want what is right for my son. I just do not what to allow him to destroy us even more, so if I can get him to agree to give it all to our son then I feel I have gotten something to compensate all the pain and lies and deceit he has put us thru.
I do not have to contact him but thru lawyers, real estate agents etc...just as all the other people on a dark plan B.
blessing

NC will help YOU atena...it will help you to stop ruminating about what he is doing and everytime you see him its a trigger.....

Just because you do not understand how something could work does not mean it doesn't work, atena.

Plan B is also about preserving the small amount of love you have for your husband, and the more you are exposed to his waywardness, the more you bear witness to his cruelty, the more indifferent you will become until you do not want to recover your marriage.

So, if you DON'T want to recover, then continue contact, by all means. I know for sure that the more dark you are, the more interested the wayward becomes in what his BS is up to. YOU become the mystery, YOU become the person that he wonders about.

If you want the home then let the lawyers do that fighting.

Our concern is for you, atena.

The number one priority in Plan B
is
your
peace of mind.

That it is the best chance to recover your marriage one day is a plus

but

it is so that

you, Atena

can be okay with it all either way.

You don't let that wayward guy take up space in your thoughts more than minimal consideration as you build your own future.

He may not be part of it. He possibly could. Don't know.

Dark from your side in your mind is for you.

I know you will get that soon. The alternative is more sorrow than you need bear.

Hugs

No contact is not and never has been to "get him back." It is to enable you to withdraw from him and get away from his abusive affair.


This is a brand new condition that you suddenly sprang on him - out of nowhere - that just keeps you tied to him and prevents you from selling the house. How does it help your son for his mother to be beaten down emotionally by her continued contact with his abusive father?


But you are not limiting your contact to lawyers, real estate agents. You live next door to the OW, with no plan in sight to change that and you see your H at work.

Atena, what are you doing, friend?

I don't believe this. You have done everything in your power to KEEP some sort of contact at every turn. Every time you see him it tears you down more and more. I know what happens when you see him.

I have tried, as described in my other posts, to not live in the marital home. I have done so for a WHOLE YEAR so it not that I did not give it the best shot. Saying that I did not try is disheartening.
I simply could no longer afford it and for what I could pay..the places where dumps.

Melody, It helped to remind me that my WH is abusive. Just because someone does not beat you up it does not mean he is not abusive. He is an abuser. I have to keep repeating that to myself because I often forget.
My dad used to beat me and my first boy friend used to beat me.
Then I met my WH and he never lay hand on me....but he had another way to abuse me. Gaslighting and multiple cheating.
But since that leaves no visible bruises we discount it. Plus my WH is a real charmer and a very polite, nice person (on the outside) so he can easily fool people...me included.
blessing

It is definitely abuse.....When I first went to my phsycologist she suggested I go to HAWC meetings, which is for abused woman and children...I said to her why he never laid a hand on me?...She said that the emotional abuse I had been put through was just as bad as physical abuse.

I was almost the same as you....Every boyfriend I ever had physically abused me, it was like I went for them....WH never laid a hand on me and he completely destroyed me emotionally.....Atena, its hard but we will get through this.

Yes, it is abuse. A psychologist told me WH knows he is hurting me but he does not know he magnitude of his hurting. Basically he thinks "yes atena suffers from this, but in a way she deserves it because she made me so unhappy".
In no way he is aware of the suffering he inflicts on me. That is according to this psychologist. I don't buy it.
blessing

I just think, at this point, they dont care how bad they are hurting us....They know but, they put it out of their mind. They just want what they want and dont care who it hurts...