Yes, Plan B.

However, I might respond in this way as precursor to your Plan B letter:

"I love you, WW. I will continue to do everything in my power to end your affair and save our marriage."

Plan B, ASAP.

I need some 2x4s from you about the response I WANT to send but probably shouldn't:

I'm sorry you feel this way. If you have any suggestions to resolve the issues and finalize the divorce quickly I will try to keep an open mind. Let me be clear once again, I have NO desire to be with someone who is cheating on their husband, lies for months about it and still takes no personal responsibility for it. Like I told your cousin, I am divorcing you because of your adultery. As far as telling my family, you are more than welcome to talk to them, I will even give you their phone numbers if you want. I am trying to be honest and live a life of integrity, that's all. I believe I told your cousin the truth, but he will let me know when I speak to him again. I decided that for myself as long as I'll be able to tell my kids the entirety of my life and not be ashamed then I am living a good life. I can tell them mistakes were made and I have tried my best to learn from them. I am responsible for my actions as you are yours. I guess you have to decide for yourself how you want to navigate this journey we call life, and if you are proud to be an adulteress than that's your call.

Below for your reading pleasure I have copied three different marriage and infidelity experts and their response to this email

Rick Reynolds/Tony Fetchel (both of whom had affairs): It's very normal for a spouse to have reasons and issues to hold over another spouses head. We call that justification of their affair, or rewriting the past to excuse their behavior.

Anne Bercht (husband had affair) : we believe the martial issues need to separated from the infidelity. Your marriage was not perfect, there is not such thing as a perfect marriage. In a marriage we have two imperfect people trying to do life. There will always be failures, hurts, misunderstandings, etc... It is not uncommon for the unfaithful to change the martial history, find fault with their spouse and the marriage to justify the behavior they are or have been involved with.

Dr. Bob Huizenga: 1. O.K. Accept the fact that in your relationships you made mistakes. Yes, you did. Some of them were maybe fairly large. But, who in a relationship of investment doesn't make mistakes; some of them silly, some of them large? Could you have done something differently? Of course! We all could have. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. "Mistakes" in a marriage are often fertile grounds for learning and growing. Did s/he use your mistakes as a springboard for learning and change? And even if you made NO mistakes, how boring and predictable would that be? Yawn..... 2. come to the realization that the decision to enter into an affair is his/her personal decision. A rather poor decision, but his/her decision nonetheless. You see, affairs have nothing to do with love (although you probably believe or s/he says s/he fell out of love with you and loves someone else) but more with three different factors. Affairs may arise out of deep unmet personal needs (such as the affair type, "I Fell out of Love..and just love being in love.") One become attached to another seeking to fill that emptiness or deep chasm. (Little does s/he realize that another person cannot make me "complete" - sorry Tom Cruise.)Someone may choose an affair as a result of a character disorder ("I Don't Want to Say NO'). Or, s/he chooses an affair as an attempt to deal with a dysfunction life-long coping pattern ("I Can't Say No"). Infidelity is a blind attempt to manage one's inner ghosts.

My theory (hatched in over 25 years of clinical practice, research and my conclusions about the nature of humanity) tells me that eventually those who benefit MOST from infidelity are the wounded spouses. Why? They typically become the ones who in their pain, confront themselves, learn, make shifts in their thinking and feelings and redesign themselves in ways that are more harmonious with whom they truly are.The cheating spouse? Well, s/he misguidedly throws him/herself more and more into his/her personal neediness, character disorder or coping pattern dysfunction. His/her emotions, values and behavior goes down the tubes, although s/he at that moment of infidelity and attachment to the other person may deny so. That's why the divorce and unhappiness stats for those who have an affair, divorce and marry another are exceedingly high. No learning, no personal evolution has emerged. At some point s/he may discover that s/he has taken him/her self with him/her... and that is the problem.

ABC,

(((HUGGGSSSSSS))))

Send nothing of the sort. But, you know this. You cannot educate a wayward. You can only show/highlight the consequesnces of their actions. Plan B, my friend. Got the Plan B letter ready?

abc, I've quoted the part where she's going to stop reading:
YOU CANNOT EDUCATE A WAYWARD.

ABC,

You'll spend a more productive evening counting the brush hairs in your broom and alphebatizing your DVDs than in expending any more mental energy in deciding how to respond to a drunk and fogged out WW.

Seriously, go ponder the number of molecules in Leanord Nemoy's butt. It will be a more productive use of your time.

LOL...I know I know...

ABC

Our stitches are very similar. In my late 20's, no kids, M-2, T-11. The best advice I can give, plan B and act as if you are moving on. Look your WW's email to you, she is still emotionally attached to you whether she likes it or not. If she wasn't, she wouldn't care who you were talking to, she wouldn't feel the need to blast you. She is mad. She had an affair, that isn't exactly a bullet you can take back.

I assure you from this day forward no matter how hard she tries she will always know she cheated on her husband and POSOM deep down will know this too. Also their relationship is not all chocolate and roses, it just isn't. If I am ever having a tough time especially if I find out bad news about WW and POSOM, I picture them together 5 years from now being just another lame couple I see. I picture them fat, used up and boring. I picture them always secretly wondering if the other will leave them or if the other will cheat on them. I picture them finally coming down from their emotional high in a state of just blandness. Your WW will keep on repeating the same mistakes over and over while you will grow from this to be a much better man, this I promise. POSOM is a band aid, nothing more, nothing less, pay zero attention to him, I don't care how you slice it he is a POS and anyone that says any different is just flat out dumb. Her family, her brother, they don't know what they are dealing with and they may never truly understand which means squat in the grand scheme of things.

Trust me this a hard pill to swallow. But if she never comes back to you, you will be better off we all will. And even if some day she makes a move to return even after D, there is a mighty good chance you will not want her back. I know that doesn't seem like a possibility now b/c you truly do miss her, but give it time.

Take a hard look at yourself. What do you want in life? What do you expect from a partner? There are women everywhere, you will eventually meet someone else. There are women out there who won't cheat on you, who will honor their vows. We did didn't we? Even as much as I miss my WW, she is not the person I want as a partner right now, even if she were to come crawling back tomorrow, I'd kick her to the curb until she fully understood the depth of what she did. Focus on you and move forward. Picture your next W or your next g/f, what do they look like, what type of relationship do you want to build. How do you see yourself growing from this, where do you see yourself? Picture your life w/o your WW, what does it look like? Think about all the new people you will meet, all the new things you can try and do with your life. Your WW set you free, opened your eyes to really live and appreciate your life and your relationships, set you free to experience life in such a deep and meaningful way that few people will ever reach or get a chance to do. Stay strong.

A great post finah, one of the best I've read on here. Thank you for that. I guess the only thing I have a problem with is "there are women out there who won't cheat on you, who will honor their vows" Yes there are but obviously we both thought our WWs were the same otherwise we wouldn't have married them. There's just no way to know.

ABC it has nothing to do with your analogy.

Based on Dr. Harley's 40 years of experience, SAA, and thousands of radio archives ...

Here are the facts about Waywards, Affairs, and how they work.
1) Most waywards are content and happy in their pre-A marriages. Yes there are issues of needs not being met, but the greatest factor for the affair is the lack of boundaries. Once the boundary is lowered and the opposite sex comes in to fill the EN's you have the beginning of an affair.

2) Once the EN's start filling up in the wayward, they begin with the contrast effect. The Affair partner begins to look great and the spouse begins to look awful ...

a) I haven't been happy for years ... because these new addictive feelings are so great and over power the wayward's previous threshold of happiness. Of course they now see their previous threshold of happiness was much lower because that long term committment cannot and WILL NEVER beable to sustain the level of chemicals in the brain caused by new romantic love.

b) You have sucked for years as a husband and I wanted to leave you for years ... Again the same addictive pattern applies here based on the waywards "Happiness Threshold". The new AP looks 1000x better at the moment than the Spouse, so this is when the next phase happens in the affair. This is when the Approach/Avoidance Conflict begins within the wayward and ULTIMATELY this begins the path of lies and deciet.


Where is your wayward wife at today?

She successfully accomplished 1 & 2 and now is stuck in trying to sustain her HIGH.

Here lies the issue each time you come in contact with her you up her HIGH with POSOM because of the Contrast Effect with all Adultery. Get out of her way and let POSOM be her negative. In the meantime - start looking like the KISA in PLan B. When this affair dies, you have a chance at getting her back, if you haven't already moved on. Those are your choices.

Because she lowered her values, she will seek men at the same value level. Her HIGH will be with men of "No Character, Morals, or Values". Because a man with those three bases will NEVER date your wife. She emotionally cannot get to the upper level until she ups her values. The only way for her to up her values to the next level is to repent and seek forgiveness for her adultery.

She is heading towards using men now to not only fulfill her "HIGH" she needs, but also these men will forever abuse her because they cannot respect her. Her values are now too low.

It is the dumbing down of the affair. All infidels lower their values.

TODAY CONSIDER YOUR WIFE AN ADDICT. How you chose to deal with her is your choice.

We here believe Plan B because that protects you from her addiction.

It is up to you to decide. Please understand her choice of leaving had nothing to do with you or your family. Your Pre-A marriage had a certain happiness threshold, and unfortunately her addiction raised that threshold and she believes your Pre-A marriage can never sustain that level she needs to feed her brain chemicals. At this point you are not the better option for her. Become the person she first started dating. Who was that guy?

Tough~

I understand why you may be apprehensive about that. In my personal stitch. There were small signs. I guess little red flags. Which to me at the time meant absolutely nothing, lol. Knowing what I know now I'll be able to weed out some of those that I may not think are "marriage" type material. But you will never be 100% sure. If I were able to go back and not get married, I am not quite so sure I wouldn't. I mean yes it is painful and still is. But the insight into my own personal life has been immense.

You have to prepare yourself for the notion that nothing last forever. Your next W, your next g/f, yes could cheat on you, could betray you, could be 5 years down the road, could be 30 years. Nobody is perfect, we are all perfectly flawed in a sense. But it isn't who you are, it won't define you. I seriously question how much of a role a BS truly plays, I understand owning your 50%, you need to do in order to grow. But at the same time there are choices in life. There are a million stops that she or any other WS could of made before they decided to go outside of the marriage.

Just like I make a decision to stop at stop signs, I don't want to injure myself or potentially anyone else. It isn't necessarily the ticket I am afraid of, while that is a consequence, causing damage to myself or someone else just isn't a risk I am willing to make.

Now if a person wishes to run a stop sign and ends up killing someone, while that is horrible, it doesn't necessarily mean that the person was bad or meant for it to happen. It just meant they were willing to risk it. Of course there are safe guards in place to prevent us from running stop signs, like tickets and laws, but ultimately it's the person who decides on whether they should stop or not. There is nothing in this world that will ever keep a spouse from betraying another spouse 100% of the time. I and everyone here wish there was, but there isn't sadly.

So as soon as you can let go of the fact that you will never be able to fully control someone and their actions the more control you have in your ability to deal with how you react and hold onto your sense of self.

Think about it. If it were to happen again in your next M. How quick do you think you will respond? How much faster do you think you will be able to deal with the situation and fight it correctly and head on? You will know deep down that you will survive. You know that you have the ability to forgive. You know deep down you can walk away or choose to fight. Your ability to save your M and save yourself will be something you're prepared for and either way life will go on. You can wallow in it, or learn and move forward.

itistoughlove made a great post

abc,

If you must send a response, Surfer's is in line. Trust me (and the others) WW won't read much more than two or three sentences.

If you must add that third sentence, just add "Dang, since your affair is so wonderful, I thought you'd want everyone to hear the great news!"

Did either of you actually file for divorce?

Legal update: I was supposed to be deposing her family members tomorrow. Her attorney filed a motion to quash the subpoenas. My attorney objected saying not enough notice was given. Judge agreed with us however her attorney stated that no one will be showing up tomorrow. So next we will be filing a motion to compel depositions as well as try to recover some money for dissipation.

Waste of money. You're simply digging a hole for someone that you'll never recover your marriage with and with whom you have no kids to fight over custody for.

Not only that, but throwing people on the stand that hate you and will say nothing good about you will accomplish nothing.

But, I'm sure your lawyer will enjoy the new Mercedes you're helping him buy.

I'm telling you this as a man who fought this fight already.

I'm plan D at this time....but do want to depose some people first
And see if I can recoup some money by the dissipation motion

I know I'm throwing money away but just want to try and depose first..then I'm done...

What do you hope to accomplish if there is no custody fight? Smearing the ex will do nothing but create more damage.

Want to maximize your chances at recovery someday? Then DONT make this divorce ugly.

This is the opposite of what I advise when there is a custody situation, but you don't have that.

So what is the end goal? The judge isn't going to give you legal costs unless there is some sort of pattern of fraudulent filings by your STBX.

Not trying to make divorce ugly...just want to have her parents and herself on record for my own purposes...

If she is spending excessive marital assets maybe i can get some of that (dissipation)

I'm not even thinking about recovery anymore...after divorce there's no more thinking of her...move on the better things

I am getting really tired of this process...so depose and out

Instead of buying a BMW for my next car I'll buy another honda civic...

I have racked up significant attorney fees though...10G so far..ouch!

abc,

I know you want to show that you're right here, but your inlaws and STBX flat out don't care and won't be persuaded otherwise.

Unless there's some financial goal here, I'd drop it, be content to never hear from them again and know that you know what NOT to look for in a woman.

Aren't you just ready to be done with this and close this chapter?

I was told recently by someone, "Don't spend dimes to save pennies."

Think about it.

abc,

you already have something no one can take from you and it is priceless: you own the truth.

Eventually, you just have to let them wallow in their own stuff. Their thinking and way of life is generations old and you can't single-handedly change any of them. Your money would be better spent feeding the hungry or taking a vacation to kick start your new life.

I wish you well.