IGRIP I understand your dilemma and I am so sorry you are here.

I have a 5 year old and a baby that just turned 4 weeks old today. I was in a plan C for a few weeks because I tried to do a plan B without enough planning. I was pregnant with our daughter when I moved out of my home due to my WH's A.

My plan B had to be revamped here is what I did for some help and it still has holes due to the age of our daughter.

Scheduling - drop off's and pick ups- dates or days and times of pick up's and drop offs. Additionally holidays. Where they will be dropped off and picked up. For how long visits will last and who is responsible for clothing and what not.

Sense your child is so young perhaps a 3rd party could be a go between for your pick ups and drop offs.

My baby is breastfeed and so young that she is not spending any time away from me and WH has to come to my location to visit her or I have to go to my home. Its a mess and I am still trying to work it out. At this time we have older children and I am asking them to bring the baby into the house and back out when I do drop off and pick ups.

I would also suggest talking about cost of child care and expenses for your child and any joint accounts you have.


I know this is hard but best of luck and prays for your family.

PLAN B DRAFT #1 - open for critique all.

Dear WIFE,

It is with much thought and internal debate that I write you this letter. The past 6 months have been a nightmare as I never imagined our marriage and relationship would come to this. I loved you from the moment I told you I did in the Tony Roma's parking lot and have never stopped from that day forward.

Recently, I have learned much about marriage, communication and the mistakes that I made and I have become a much better person in all aspects - father, boss and partner. I am changing and have held myself accountable for my mistakes. I never intended for you to feel that you were second to anyone in my life, unloved, not a great mom or that I wasn't proud to be your husband and for that, I do apologize. I never meant for my words to come out in anger and hurt you. At the time, I did not realize the error of my ways or my stubborn reactions that clouded my vision. Now, I do and want nothing else than to move forward and work on an amazing life together as I feel we can still have that. I have continued to love you unconditionally throughout the past six months, maybe even more than ever before.

However, you must also know that your relationship with OM has and continues to hurt tremendously. The pain and suffering I am enduring with the thought and the constant reminders that he is still involved in your life is indescribable. My only saving grace these days is my memories - of all the great experiences we shared, your wonderful qualities that attracted me to you and the pride I had of calling you my wife. However, with every passing day, those feelings are beginning to erode and I want to preserve my love for you. I am willing to work on whatever we need to do to make our marriage happy for both of us again - but until you end your relationship with OM, I can no longer see or speak to you. Please do not think this is a punishment as it is only to preserve the feelings I have for you.

You know I do not want this divorce, but realize I cannot do anything about that. I cannot continue to share my life with you knowing that you are 'in love' with another man. Please respect my decision - I will, of course, be available for any discussion regarding daughter and her well-being. Otherwise, unless you commit to ending your affair with OM and recommit to working on our family, I will no longer be available to you. Any messages can go through your Mother as I care and respect her and her relationship with us.

I have continued to have hope for our marriage while not standing in your way for your vision of a life without me. I do hope that you will one day give our marriage a chance again. I still want to grow old with you and create new memories. I remember all the good times we had and continue to hold on to the dreams we shared. I have loved you always wife and am still loving you while writing this letter. I just cannot continue to endure the pain while another man is involved in your life.

I love you.

Here is my letter perhaps it will help. The vets will be back soon to tell you what they think of yours I am sure. My letter also held some info that you wont need to include.

I would like to acknowledge and apologize for my part in the demise of our marriage.I was selfishly caught up in myself, and with my selfishness and foolishness I neglected your needs, and I failed over and over to give you what you needed. I want you to know that no matter how bad the past has been, no matter how ugly things may have gotten, I know that we can get past it.

Over the past 7 months I have endured the hurt and pain caused by your affair, but I will not do so any more. Every day that passes with your continued contact and involvement with OW and our marriage in limbo only continues to weaken the love and respect that I have for you. The path that I must take now is one of both choice and self preservation. With all my heart, I would like to build a new marriage with you. A marriage in which we both feel loved, safe, respected, cherished and honored. I simply will not continue my efforts to rebuild our marriage while you are still involved on any level with OW.

I know that we can only fully rebuild our marriage when there are only 2 people in the relationship, you and I. There is no room in my marriage to you for additional parties, OW included. Until you are willing to forever end contact with OW, or any other parties that you have any emotional, physical or sexual contact with, I will no longer communicate with you. This is not a punishment, I am taking these steps to protect the love and respect that I have for you and any chance we have at recovery as well as my emotional stability.

I ask that you please respect my decision to separate from you. To this end, I feel it is best that you find another place to stay while I remain in our home and continue to provide primary care to our children.

If there is a need to contact me please do so through IM. I have spoken to her and she has agreed to act as our intermediary. She will pass on message between us regarding our children and finances; I am unwilling to discuss any thing else. Please contact IM through her email address or phone numbers listed below.

Primary email-
Cell
Hm-

I do not wish for your bond with our children to suffer any further, but I must ask that you have no contact with me during pick up�s and drop offs. Feel free to contact the kids at any time via the house phone or Children's cell.

Regarding the impending birth of our daughter I will continue to keep you informed of the pregnancy through IM. At the time of labor I will make sure you are informed but I do not wish for your support during the labor or delivery, I will make other arrangements. I will make sure that you are notified before she is born and I am sure that her birth is emanate so that you can be present but I do not wish to have contact with you.


My desire is to still grow old with you as your wife and you as my husband. I love you more then life itself and I continue to feel this way despite all that we have endured. When you find yourself ready and willing to truly and fully commit to our family and our marriage, willing to work on a plan of recovery, and to go to counseling I will be ready and willing to discuss our future. My hope is to see our family reunited and stronger then ever very soon. The process of getting us to that point is now in your hands.

Good luck iGrip, I am sure the vets will comment on your Plan B letter.

My thoughts and prayers are with you during this difficult time, I admire your strength and determination.

The only comment I have to make about the letter is that it would have been nice to see some comments in their about why you loved about her...things that made her unique to you.

iGrip, sorry I haven't been around much for you. I'm sorry for what you're going through.


"but until you end your relationship with OM, I can no longer see or speak to you. " ...add: It simply hurts me too much.

"Please do not think this is a punishment [or manipulation - I am only protecting myself from further harm] ."

opt

Here is another revision. Everyone, I am really scared to doing this Plan B. Really scared. Please give me some encouragement, words of advice along with tips on the letter...thank you to all.

REVISED PLAN B LETTER - DRAFT #2

Dear WIFE,

It is with weeks of thought and internal debate that I write you this letter. The past 6 months have been a nightmare as I never imagined our marriage and relationship would come to this. I loved you from the moment I told you in the Tony Roma's parking lot, to the time I proposed on the beach in California, to when I saw your beautiful smile and teared up when I saw you walk down the aisle at our wedding, to when I found we were pregnant with DAUGHTER and I have never stopped loving you.

Recently, I have learned much about marriage, communication and the mistakes that I made and I have become a much better person in all aspects - father, boss and partner. I am changing and have held myself accountable for my mistakes in our marriage. I never intended for you to feel that you were second to anyone in my life, unloved, not a great mom or that I wasn't proud to be your husband and for that, I do apologize. I never meant for my words to come out in anger and hurt you. At the time, I did not realize my ways or my stubborn reactions that clouded my vision. I never meant to make you feel anything but special to me. I never meant to take your love and our marriage for granted. Nor did I mean to neglect some of your needs that made it possible for you to look outside our marriage for those to be met.

Now, I understand and am learning much more than ever before and want nothing else than to move forward and work on an amazing life together as I feel we can still have that. I have continued to love you unconditionally throughout the past six months, maybe even more than ever before.

However, you must also know that your relationship with OM has and continues to hurt tremendously. The pain and suffering I am enduring with the thought and the constant reminders that he is still involved in your life is indescribable. My only saving grace these days are my memories. How you were so considerate, easy going, fun to be with, beautiful inside and out and how we just meshed in everyday life from our first date and forward. How I was so proud to have you standing by my side. However, with every passing day, those feelings are beginning to erode and I want to preserve my love for you. I am willing to work on whatever we need to do to make our marriage happy for both of us again - but until you end your relationship with OM, I can no longer keep in contact with you as it just hurts me too much. Please do not think this is a punishment or manipulation as it is only to preserve the feelings I still have for you.

You know I do not want this divorce, but realize I cannot do anything about that. I cannot continue to share my life with you knowing that you are 'in love' with another man. Please respect my decision - I will, of course, be available for any discussion regarding DAUGHTER and her well-being. Otherwise, unless you commit to ending your affair with OM and recommit to working on our family, I will no longer be available to you. Any messages can go through your Mother as I care and respect her and her relationship with us. I will leave a weekly calendar with her so we can write any necessary changes to our weekly schedule with daughter.

I have continued to have hope for our marriage while not standing in your way for your vision of a life without me. I am still dreaming that you decide to give our marriage a chance. I want to grow old with you and create new memories. I remember all the good times we had and continue to hold on to the dreams we shared. I have loved you always WIFE and am still loving you while writing this letter. I just cannot continue to endure this pain that I am going through.

I love you.
IGRIP

She has accepted the terms of divorce and my counteroffer..so Plan B letter will be given tomorrow morning. Hardest thing I have ever done...but now, she seems to Plan B me most of the time anyway so it will not be that big of a step. Yuck. Any words of wisdom before I plunge into this step?

I am truly sorry you've come to this point but glad you have protected yourself legally.

I think your letter is a little long and accepts way too much responsibility. I fear that...years from now when your daughter is grown and you are still not really interacting with her mother...your Xww will use these words to rewrite history and make your divorce a MUTUAL problem that couples just have and paint your distancing yourself as childish and vindictive.

Your daughter...then a young adult MAY buy it if she reads that letter.

I like to be wordy too and I've never had to write one of these (thankfully) so perhaps another more experienced poster will chime in about your Plan B letter and make it less blame accepting AND succinct.

Good luck,
Mr. Wondering

The less-wordy revision:

Dear WIFE,

It is with weeks of thought and internal debate that I write you this letter. The past 6 months have been a nightmare as I never imagined our marriage and relationship would come to this. I loved you from the moment I told you in the Tony Roma's parking lot, to the time I proposed on the beach in California, to when I saw your beautiful smile and teared up when I saw you walk down the aisle at our wedding, to when I found we were pregnant with DAUGHTER and have never stopped loving you.

Recently, I have learned much about marriage, communication and the mistakes that I made and I have become a much better person in all aspects - father, boss and partner. I am changing and have held myself accountable for my mistakes in our marriage. At the time I didn't understand, but I realize now how I made you feel that you were second to anyone in my life, spoke harshly and hurt your feelings, made you feel unloved, not a great mom and wife or that I wasn't proud to be your husband and for that, I do apologize. My stubborn reactions clouded my vision. You have always been extremely special to me and I regret that I did not meet some of your needs that made it possible for you to look outside our marriage for those to be met. I want nothing else than to move forward and work on an amazing life together as I feel we can still have that and would be proud to walk hand-in-hand again as a husband and wife.

You know I do not want this divorce, but realize I cannot do anything about that. However, I cannot continue to share my life with you and another man. Unless you commit to ending your affair and recommit to working on our family, I will no longer be available to you in any way - I will no longer accept your calls, read your emails or look at your texts. Any messages can go through your Mother as I care and respect her and her relationship with us. I will leave a weekly calendar with her so we can write any necessary changes to our weekly schedule with DAUGHTER. Please respect my decision. Please do not think this as any sort of punishment or manipulation; it is only to preserve the feelings I still have for you.

I have continued to have hope for our marriage while not standing in your way for your vision of a life without me. I am still dreaming that you decide to give our marriage a chance as I want to grow old with you and create new memories. I remember all the good times we had and continue to hold on to the dreams we shared. I have loved you always WIFE and am still loving you while writing this letter. I just cannot continue to endure this pain that I am going through.

I love you.

Hi Igrip,

Have not been looking on here much but did plug in today. You have a big "guy" hug from me much like the Brett Favre type. Yea I know he is now a joke, but I think you know what I mean.

I am very sorry to learn that your WW accepted the terms and is still persisting on the D, at least in her mind. I can only imagine how hard this must be for you to go to a Plan B after all your valiant efforts, and truely you have been a valiant fighter for your M. Like Mr. W, I have not been thru this, but I have been thru other things, which are somewhat similar in terms of stress and discouragement.

I did read your letter and I agree with Mr. W - should be more like a business letter. Again, I have not had to write one, so easier said.

Igrip, I can only hope for you that an excellent Plan B on your part will drive some sense into her mind in terms of what she is giving up. On the positive side, she has not experienced the loss of you yet - i.e., I believe she has felt you would always be around and available. So, from that standpoint, it is possible that your Plan B will wake her up from her fog. Just stick to your gameplan and keep posting here.

Prayers and good luck my friend...

Tom

Thank you Tom...and MrWondering...I do value you both for sticking with me through this tough time in my life. I do understand that my daughter may learn one day but am confident that she will see, through actions, who did what. I will be printing out my entire thread here one day and perhaps even a letter to my daughter...so that if/when the time comes one day and she wants to know, it will all be in print and she can learn from that.

Will keep everyone in the loop...thank you and keep the thoughts, prayers and suggestions coming.

Just an update as I have not posted for a few weeks since working on the Plan B letter. The past two weeks I have found PEACE. Quite the contrary of the previous six months of turmoil and anxiety. Life is quiet and I am returning to the previous happy "me" and people have noticed (church divorce care group, customers, friends). I am listening to upbeat music like before and 'getting on' with my normally scheduled life enjoying myself, work , my friends and most importantly, my precious time with my daughter. Do not know the reason - writing, healing, a great support group, God and His word, reading, learning, time or all of the above.

Even yesterday, wife tried to 'bait' me during drop-off of our daughter and I was able to turn around and just say 'have a good day' without being affected for hours or days. Healing is good. Thank you all. Will keep updates as they occur.

Working on the letter is not the same as giving the letter. Have you given the letter?

Talked to Steve Harley and he suggested that wife had "too much support" for Plan B (namely her mother).

But, as part of the marriage builders plan, it is not to rebuild the marriage at any cost. It is to preserve the betrayed spouses sanity and after a grueling six months of Plan A with NO change from wife, this peace I have found is liberating. Life WILL be ok. I WILL find someone that will appreciate me and what I have to offer. I have learned lots in the past six months and will continue to learn becoming a better person and partner to the one that chooses to share their life with me AND my daughter.

I believe that a divorce is here - but I did all I could do in this and can rest well with that knowledge. I will be ok. I appreciate all the support from here - I will be coming out with favorable divorce terms, a great custody agreement and peace. If I would not have found this site, I am sure I would have begged and groveled for months......and lost part of myself in the process.

Will keep updates coming.....as they occur.

Why can't you just say Steve said plan B odds are poor in my case but I have sent plan B letter and now in plan B.

The way you avoid being direct here I suspect you have had no balls and were not direct in your dealings with WW.

As the commerical with Lee Emmory as a counselor were he yells at the wuss wake up in namby pamby land, did I make you cry, want a tissue, throws the box at him in disgust

Healing is good. You�ll get to a point where you could care less what happens to your WXW. She could get hit by a bus and you�ll greet the news with a shrug. It takes a good two years or more to get there.

You�ll go through false moments of healing where you feel all is good. They�re spurts of healing. The reality is that you have a long ways to go. It will likely take about 3 years before you feel normal again. You�re also damaging your heart. Take your BP if you don�t believe me.

I also recommend dramatically cutting down the length of your Plan B letter. It should be no more than a few paragraphs laying out the conditions she must meet to speak to you again.

Once the D is final, however, it is time to move on. The best revenge is living well. That doesn�t mean you become friends with the WXW, but it does mean you interact with her the way you would a pizza guy. You do this for your daughter. You�re not friends with the pizza guy. You interact, get the job done, pay him, and then he�s on his way.

Your daughter won�t want to see you guys angry at each other. So you must eventually let go of that, which actually comes with the healing process. You eventually feel indifferent.

My DD and sons enjoy seeing my ex and I around each other. This doesn�t mean we hang out and have dinner together. But she did join us for trick or treating. We accidentally bumped into each other while eating out and the kids were playing musical tables. We sat next to each other for them. Not being friends or hanging out. Just sat next to each other for the kids.

That is progress. You�ll get there eventually as well. My biggest piece of advice to you is to not date for a loooooong time. It takes a while to heal and feel normal.

The lesson I learned through my ordeal is that the WW is to be written off as lost from the moment you learn she is a wayward. This helps in dealing with the steps needed to either save the marriage or end it. The fact is that she is lost. The woman you knew was either a construct of your imagination or is gone for good. She is now replaced by an addict.

It isn�t your job to change that or save her. That will have to come on its own. All you can do is control your own actions in the mess, which is what Plan A and B really are intended to do. They really aren�t for getting the wayward to come back. They are to empower the betrayed to either get the wayward back or move on with life.

They are plans that are supposed to help restore self respect for the BS. If a WW is not immediately remorseful about being caught in an affair, then I feel she�s lost. The only way to bring her back is to play hardball mixed with the reluctance of not wanting to take the hard love approach to her.

Time might open her eyes. But by the time that happens, you may have long since moved on and not care anymore. It�s a great place to be when it happens.

Great advice.

From everything I've read by divorced betrayed husbands THIS is perhaps the MOST important.

I didn't end up divorced but I definitely thought it was heading in that direction back in 2005 and experienced the thought-process of "I'll show her" thinking wherein I was going to go out and find myself a great woman that would somehow make her feel jealous and ashamed for giving up on us.

I've also seen way to many divorced men run around town philandering...like kids in a candy store. There are an abundance of desperate divorced and single women that WILL be attracted to you soon (after your divorced). They too, will likely be emotionally unhealthy and attracted to your uber-emotive state (as every BH is super emotionally sensitive). You don't want that type woman for you OR your children.

Fornication is a sin equal to adultery. It will bring you just as much unhappiness as your wife's unrepentant adultery will eventually bring her. Besides your children already have one corrupt parent...they don't need another one mixing them up. SF needs weren't meant to be satisfied outside of marriage for a reason. Figure that one out.

Besides...you just entered Plan B. Maybe things will turn around. Trust the process. Don't date while married. Protect your integrity and model appropriate behavior for your children. Somebody has to.

Mr. Wondering

He did not say odds were poor - he said exactly what I said - too much support. I have been direct throughout this thread with my feelings and thoughts...no balls? I weighed every option before proceeding and I can sleep well at night knowing I did what I could - that is important to me.

Thank you everyone else for the advice..I do not hang out with women as I am married - have not ever and have not started now as I make it a rule to be loyal and faithful because I do not want to be 'just like my wife' in any way in this situation. Indifference is setting in..slowly, but surely. I see her and my anxiety does not rise for long anymore - I don't recognize her or what she has become. I am civil and we speak only about our daughter and things pertaining to that. So, without giving an official Plan B letter, I am still acting out Plan B. May give it at some point..as it is ready, short and waiting. Not sure but she is not even close to the same woman that I married, as many of you can attest to. Helpthelostdads...your advice jives with what a good friend told me a few months ago during one of my rants to him...'she's not your wife anymore.' True. Nothing of her now is what was there when we were married....and it is only up to me to deal with myself and daughter and ensure our healthiness and happiness throughout. WW can fend for herself as she has 'made her bed.'

As a word of encouragement...

I had a friend/poster herein that Plan B'ed his wife...

eventually the divorce was finalized...

xw moved to a neighboring state with the OM...

and he was getting on with his life.

Then after a few feeler emails from xw...she called him one night crying and telling him how abusive OM was. She wanted out because she was scared of OM and wanted her family back.

My friend drove to the other state and helped sneak his xw out of the house in the middle of the night while OM was working. He took her home where they began recovery.

Shortly thereafter he is contacted by the police. Seems OM tried to hire a hit man to kill my friend. Turns out "hitman" was an undercover cop. BH ends up testifying against the OM and OM is now "up the river" for many years for his crime.

Last I heard...their recovery is doing fine.

My point is...at some point...some WS's wake up.

Mr. Wondering