BDA, welcome to MB. I have known at least two other BW's with a WH who suddenly "jumped ship" and were cruel and angry toward the BW for no reason other than needing to justify their sudden departure. Please don't take it personally (easier said than done, I know).

Feel like I am spinning in circles and can't move forward. Have things to do, and cannot accomplish them. Some days are good, but this summer has been HARD. Seeing him not work 2 days a week while he has the children and is NOT paying us support (only a meager amount which is garnished) is beyond frustrating. Then seeing him show up at an event (which he didn't know I would be at) and lo and behold - who gets out of the car - but the OW's 2 children along with MINE!!!! We aren't even divorced and there he is with his 'new family' of 4 kids. Mine are not happy about this (but I don't know how verbal they are to him - what difference does it make - he doesn't listen to them anyway) - they have even expressed that it is all about what Dad wants.

Unfortunately, I found MB over a year into his affair. So, without the good information I now have, I made mistakes. I exposed (although I now know it was done in the poor way of a smattering here and there which only allows them to do damage control). They are still together (unknown how happy) and I am being destroyed emotionally and financially. (more to add on the financial later)

Sorry to be so wordy. I am in lots of pain here. A year and a half of this unbearable pain. I need to heal, and stop spinning in obsessive thoughts.

Help!

Betterdays, I would strongly advise you go into Plan B NOW. That will save your sanity and you will feel better than you have in months and years. Send a letter, go pitch dark and I promise you will feel much better in no time.

What you are doing is harming your mental health and ruining any chance whatsoever of reconciling. Dr Harley calls what you are doing "Plan C" which does nothing but cause harm.

The purpose of Plan B is to protect your emotional and physical health. Staying in touch with your abusive husband only serves to tear you down. It is a death of a thousand cuts. I bet you already have physical ailments as a result of this.

Another downside of staying in touch is that you inadvertantly prop up the affair by keeping the focus on YOU and not on them. You are a rallying point for them that keeps them closely aligned. With you out of the picture, they will be forced to focus on themselves.

Soon enough the affair will begin to crumble because they don't have the benefit of Marriage Builders concepts. The very traits that made the affair possible will destroy it: selfishness, deceit, thoughtlessness. They will never be able to trust each other and once the gloss wears off, these traits will start to come out and destroy the affair. With you out of the picture, they won't be distracted by a common enemy anymore.

Melody,

If I send a letter I feel he will just laugh in my face. That is my hang up about Plan B. In the past I sent lots of emotional emails about our family, how it was so important to me, etc., etc. But he is doing things like painting her RENTAL house, chauffering her kids around. I really thin he is GONE! There is not ONE even teeny tiny act of kindness towards me. No running back and forth. Just the first 3.5 months he was undecided, then when he moved out, NOTHING. No help. HUGE yard, no way to mow lawn, 4 pets, I was left without a job, dragged through bankruptcy, now foreclosing on home of 15 years (sob!). He once held me for years with such reverence, and shut it all off so quickly, my head is still spinning.

I think I found this site WAY TOO late. I'm sure I am in plan C - because I am so caught off guard and know no one who is going through this (until finding this site).

I'm going to search for plan C to see all the mistakes I am sure I am making.

But I have started to seriously disconnect - a part of Plan B. Can I do it without the letter? I just know he will tell OW and they will get such a laugh out of it, possibly even bond them even more. They are getting towards 2 years - sometime between Aug - Feb 2012. When is it going to start fizzling?????

As Melodylane said....you are the enemy binding them!

Your WH is being mean to you in order to feed into that bond between them. His cruelty to you is part of his dance with her!

Find an intermediary who will be neutral to handle all financial and child oriented matters that must be communicated.

Write a love letter to him. Who cares if he scoffs at it. You will have gone no contact and be oblivious. Or, should he cross your plan B boundary to scoff and ridicule it.....you know that he is trying to grasp his drama of you against them.

Either way:

You win!

Get ready for plan B. Implement it. If your divorce goes final.....stay in it. As a poster named Mulan (I think it was Mulan) says "Plan B isn't just for married people."

Both your kids are old enough to understand you need to not have contact with their dad since he is causing you dreadful emotional pain. You don't have to talk negative about dad to them. Just the facts and they are individuals who will look to you for strength of character in the storm.

Yes, most WS's do laugh at the Plan B letter. But you won't know because you will not be in touch!! But that is ok if they laugh. What he will do is shove the letter in a drawer and when he and skanky start having problems he will pull it out and read it again. And again. And again.

It is his path back for when his affair begins to crumble. He will put out that letter and read it again.

And you might be very surprised when you go DARK and refuse to allow him in. What almost always happens is the WS goes CRAZY and tries to get through all of a sudden because they don't like losing control. A WS who was avoiding the BS suddenly has a multitude of "reasons" he just HAS to talk to her. I have been an intermediary for many a BS and this has been the case in every single case except one.

Plan B is to your greatest benefit in that it helps you save your sanity and it gives you the BEST CHANCE of reconciliation. And if your H does not end his affair and come back, you will be in a much better state of mind to move forward in PEACE. You won't be so distraught.

Betterdays, you have to go watch these hilarious videos about an OW and her adultery partner: http://soulmateshmoopies.wordpress.com/2010/11/06/part-1/

Melody,

Was typing my post to your first reply, while you were typing this gem.

It is all SO TRUE!!! I am dying a death of a thousand cuts. The pain is UNBEARABLE at times. My friends, admittedly, are just beyond help as no one has ever been through anything close to this. I cannot afford to go to counseling anymore. Working on getting food stamps (unbelievable) so maybe able to get some other benefits also. This is one of the timgs I need to do and can't get done because I am spinning in circles.

I definitely did prop up the affair by keeping the focus on me. I was definitely a rallying point. CRAP!!!!!

I need to remove myself as the common enemy. But mostly to protect myself. Because at times, I cannot bear the pain. A year and a half of this.... It is too much....

This is my first time attempting to quote - hope I did it right....

[quote=reading]As Melodylane said....you are the enemy binding them!

Your WH is being mean to you in order to feed into that bond between them. His cruelty to you is part of his dance with her!

Uggghhhhhhhh! I had a feeling of this. But to see it in print here - where everyone can see things objectively except for the person in the thick of it - it makes me sick that I did this for so long.

Find an intermediary who will be neutral to handle all financial and child oriented matters that must be communicated.

Who would possibly do this? My close friends and family think he is unstable and do not want to have any contact with him.



dreadful emotional pain.

No doubt.....

You need to get to work on writing a good Plan B letter and finding a NEUTRAL IM who will act as a go between. It has to be someone who a) has some balls and b) will remain neutral and c) agree to screen out fogbabble and only pass on PERTINENT information in her own words.

Who could do that for you?

Write the plan B letter today.

Post it here for editing

and

get someone who agrees to be an intermediary (work on this today)

and

Write the final version of the letter out in your best handwriting on pretty paper with a whiff of your perfume (if you have some) and give the letter and step back from the drama

and

refuse to add more fuel to it unless he ever ends his affair and is willing to do the very difficult task of rebuilding a damaged marriage.

Even if the affair continues into a divorce and they 'marry'.

As you stop direct communication with WH, turn and focus on yourself, your children and protecting your financial life as best as possible given this horrible abuse of your trust.

Reading - guess I did not get the quoting to show up like other people can. I have SO much to learn on SO many levels. Thank you sincerely, for your post.

To use the quote feature, click on the "quote" button at the bottom of each post and then just remove any text you don't want to quote.

OR do it manually [remove the asterisks *]

[quote*]paste text here[/quote*]

After you write the letter, make a copy and send it to skankyhola with this note on it:

Pg 81
Skankyhola, I love WS with all my heart and am willing to do whatever it takes to make him happy. I will wait for him to give me that chance.

[put her name in place of skankyhola]

Letter from Survivng an Affair:

My Dear Sue,
I apologize to you for my part in creating an environment that helped make your affair with Greg possible. I foolishly pursued my career without understanding my responsibility to meet your most important emotional needs. I was not there for you when you needed me most, and we are now both suffering for my mistake.

I am willing to avoid the mistakes I've made in the past and create a new life for both of us that meet your needs. But I cannot do that until you end your relationship with Greg once and for all.

Until then, I will avoid seeing you or talking to you. I will also not be able to help you financially. Our friends Jane and Paul have agreed to help make arrangements for you to visit the children whenever you would like. But I will not be here when you visit. If you want to communicate about the children or any other matter, it will have to be through Jane and Paul.

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 Greg, and I simply cannot be with you any longer, knowing that you are with him. I still love you but I cannot see you under these conditions.

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

With my love,
Jon

refuse to add more fuel to it unless he ever ends his affair and is willing to do the very difficult task of rebuilding a damaged marriage.

Even if the affair continues into a divorce and they 'marry'.

As you stop direct communication with WH, turn and focus on yourself, your children and protecting your financial life as best as possible given this horrible abuse of your trust.

Refusing to add more fuel to the fire is EXACTLY what I need to do. Funny story - The very FIRST time I did not appear at the door when the children were leaving for visitation, he noticed. He asked my son if he was home alone. Then, instead of bolting back to sit and wait in his car, suddenly he lingered around the front door....

Jeez - sorry all - I still did not quote correctly and get it into neat little boxes... what the heck?

Searching for Dr. H's Plan C to read.

Also more examples of Plan B letters. When I read them it makes me feel weak inside. I just feel like 18 months together with his married OW is too late for me to be giving him one. But you are the experts here - so if you think it is not too late - I will listen to your objective opinions.

Intermediary - love the idea, love the idea of going into a dark Plan B (mainly to protect myself from the extreme hurt that I have been experiencing). But how does one accomplish that with school open houses, orientations, etc., that are coming up?

Still having trouble thinking of someone neutral to do this for us. It sure seems like something HUGE to ask of someone. I mean, who would want to get in the middle of our nasty, nasty crap? Talk about a toxic job - it would have to take a person who's been through this - and I can think of no one.

You don't let him know about most of them. And avoid anything you can where you know he will be attending. If you do get stuck somewhere, try and get lost in the crowd. And whatever you do, DON'T talk to him or sit next next to him.


Oh nonononoono. Trust me on this, it is the EASIEST JOB in the world if you do it right. IT only becomes difficult when an IM tries to get involved or tries to REASON wtih the WS. The IM is simply acting as a spam filter and she weeds out the crap to send the pertinent info to you. If the WS sends something inappropriate [which they always do] she just tells him "I won't be sending this to Betterdays in accordance to her letter dated XX-XX-2011." If your IM has any trouble at all, have her email me at ohmelodylane@aol.com