Ech, I know you are right. It's so difficult to do this.

I remember.

Of course it's difficult, it was for all of us, but the good part is knowing you have the best chance of recovering your marriage if you do it.

Here is my PBL and addendum. I wasn't sure what else to put in Finances. Any other suggestions for the "Measures" part?



Dear Cucu,

I love you with all my heart and hope that we will be together again someday. Some of the happiest years of my life have been shared with you. I cherish the memory of waking up in your arms, spending lazy Sunday mornings in bed together, and hiking in the woods with our sweet puppy.

I apologize to you for my part in creating an environment that allowed for your online infidelities and decision to move away without me. I foolishly insisted on living in Minnesota when it was clear that you were unhappy there. I did not negotiate this with you when you needed me to the most and now we are both suffering.

I will avoid the mistakes I�ve made in the past and create a new life for both of us that will meet your needs. But I can�t do this until you are willing to follow the measures to rebuild our marriage that we have been discussing for the past several weeks.

Until then I need to avoid seeing or talking to you. My friend, Indiegirl, has agreed to be an intermediary for you to communicate with if you need to contact me.

I ask you to respect my decision to stop all communication with you. It is too painful for me to continue contact without an agreement to the measures in order to rebuild and safeguard our marriage.

As soon as you are willing to follow the measures that were suggested to rebuild our marriage, I will be willing to discuss our future together.

I want us to be able to rebuild our marriage. I want us to be able to meet each other�s emotional needs, avoid doing anything to hurt each other and have a beautiful life and family together. We need to build a new lifestyle in which everything we do makes us both happy and all decisions are made enthusiastically together. Then there will never be any reason for us to separate. I want to be your best friend again, someone who is always there for you and makes you happy. And I want you to be my best friend.

I�ve loved you for the past 8 years and I continue to love you as I write this. When you find yourself truly ready and willing to agree to the measures that I need in order to rebuild our marriage, I will be ready to discuss our future together.

With all my heart,
Chichi





Measures:

Commitment to negotiate and make all decisions together using the policy of joint agreement � Do not do anything without an enthusiastic agreement between you and your spouse

Complete honesty and openness about all past infidelities, verified by a polygraph test

Take full responsibility for your affairs and admit that they constitute infidelity

Start anger management program (could be online) to learn to stop angry outbursts
Stop independent behavior and disrespectful judgements

No female friends or female facebook contacts (other than relatives)

Give wife access to all internet passwoods, phone and voicemail

No more nights apart or going out without wife

Finish reading Surviving an Affair and fill out the Love Busters and Emotional needs questionnaires in �Five steps to Romantic Love�

Email Dr. Harley and begin counseling with him

Enthusiasm about our recovery program

Finances/Shared Property:

I will continue to pay our phone bill, please don�t rack up charges

Our credit card will be cancelled and I will take you off of our joint bank account. You will have access to your private bank account

You can have our car and I will keep our dog

I like the main body of the letter very much Hoping and I can't suggest any improvements.

As to your conditions, they're a bit long and complex for a Plan B letter. Its a love letter, and it must read simply. I like the way its summed up in the letter as 'the conditions we spoke of' or you could also phrase it as 'until you agree to make all decisions openly and honestly with me' or 'end your single lifestyle'

If you want him to have them in writing, I'd email him them now as part of your Plan A.

Then for Plan B I'd give them to the IM for her to use with him.



Hmm. The phone arrangements needs splitting up. For a start a wayward can't be trusted not to rack up charges. Particularly if he thinks its a way to get you angry while he can't speak to you.

Also you will get way too much intel and triggers from it. In plan B you can't know anything about what he's doing, you can't hear any news.

Plus in Plan B he can pay for his own phonecalls!

You can't meet any needs or consider him in any way and paying a bill meets the need for FS and affection.

Of course you keep the dog. He has no legal access to it, don't even mention that.

As for the car. Only let him keep it if you can't get it or need it. Don't mention 'giving' it to him though as its an asset which may get divvied up later. Also its an ongoing sign of affection and you want the last sign of affection to be the Plan B letter.

Hoping what about the practicalities of staying dark?

Can you separate things so you won't hear any news of him?

What would you do if he showed up on your doorstep or bombarded friends and family with messages?

What will you do if you become tempted to call or google him?

If you prepare for things like this, you can stay dark.

Is the thing about the bank accounts ok? We have one joint bank account with most of our money (which my work checks go into -- he doesn't put his money in this one but has access to it) and then he has his own that his work checks go into. I'm concerned about leaving him as a jointer on our main account because I'm afraid he'll spend it when that money is actually "mine" and he has his own account that he puts "his" money in. I don't know if it's legal though to cut him off from our joint account.

As for the phone, we have a family plan that we share with 3 other family members that I've always paid and had control over. Maybe I should tell him that he needs to find a new phone plan and we are taking him off of ours? He might be pretty upset about this, he loves his phone. How can he keep his phone and pay his part without triggering me?

If he shows at my doorstep I will have trouble with that, I think I might give in and see him because he would have come all the way from Texas. What would you suggest?

If I'm tempted to call or email I will instead come on this forum or call family/friends. I'm living with my parents right now so I could talk to them about my feelings.

I've thought about him bombarding family with messages because he's close with my parents and extended family. I had planned to send everyone an email about what is going on (maybe the day before going dark or day of), explaining that I've given WH specific instructions on how to get me back and he has refused them and I've made the decision to have no contact to protect myself until he decides to follow the instructions. I will tell them to avoid passing on messages because it will be hurtful to me. This may be hard for some of them because most want things to work out between us and don't understand MB.

My other plans were to block him on FB, change my phone number and email because he will be trying desperately to make contact. He will HATE the concept of no contact and not understand at all. One thing I worry about is getting him the rest of the stuff that he left here in Minnesota. I figure he doesn't really *need* it since he left it here when he went to Texas.

I'm worried he will show up in Minnesota to try to take our dog. He loves that dog and feels that it is his. He also would have no qualms about showing up, taking the dog and running without asking anyone's permission. He's a bit sneaky that way and doesn't have a guilty conscience. I love the dog too and don't want to lose him.

That sounds fine. Most Plan Bers do this. Its a must.



In Plan B you do not consider him or his feelings. This is so he can see the million little ways you make life nicer for him - and fully experience the loss of those things.

I mean really, the man cheats on you, refuses to make amends and you're worried not paying his phone bill will upset him?

You don't get to cheat, and continue being a danger to your wife without losing stuff. Tough beans.

He's not going to hit rock bottom and find repentance if you continue to hold his hand. He's a big boy and can make his own phone arrangements.


Not answering the door. Calling the police if begins to harrass you.

If he's truly repentant, he would contact your IM and say 'I've come all this way how can I see her?' And she would ask if he agreed to conditions. If yes then great, if no he's an FR risk and was simply hoping to use a 'grand gesture' instead of honesty.



Sounds good.


Again, sounds good. People do come around in time. If they feel strongly, tell them to urge WH to meet your conditions but not to increase your pain by talking about it.



He's supposed to hate Plan B and not understand it!

As for his stuff, some people put things in a storage facility, or leave the things with mutual friends or family members and tell the wayward to have it picked up by such a time. If not it goes to goodwill.

I actually think hed be too lazy to show on your doorstep but there are other methods he might use

Steel yourself to throw away handritten letters away unread, (very hard) and to refuse deliveries of flowers without reading the card. Tell the guy through the door you have allergies and to take them to the nearest hospital or an elderly neighbour.

Though these seem like loving gestures, they're manipulations.

They're refusals to go through your IM and start a good, healthy marriage.

Nights are hardest for me. Here I am, not even in Plan B yet but I already miss him so much and want to call him (but I'll wait till tomorrow because I know he's probably asleep). I'm going to have a hard time with nights. It's going to be difficult to tell him that I'm not coming on Tuesday to see him. I haven't had a good chance to tell him yet and I'm afraid of his reaction. I'm afraid it will make me feel terribly guilty or he may talk me into coming anyway.

I keep having these doubts that maybe I should just forget everything and go back with him. Then I remember that I'd be signing up for a life of misery and that goes out the window. I think this means I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Ok so you need to be proactive about the conversation so you aren't reactive.

Write down what you're going to say and then when he goes off have a "comeback" ready and just keep repeating it.

You need to be strong now or if you give in you'll limp along in a broken M. You need ACTIONS from here not words.

Something like " I will not live in a M that our M isn't top priority for you and your actions of not emailing Dr. H or POJA'ing with me shows me you aren't serious".

On the nights do you have a sister or girlfriend that you can call up at whatever time to talk when you're getting weak to call him?

You need a back up plan. So let's come up with some.

I agree with BrainHurts that a plan and preparation will be your safety net.

I also think a slight change in your phrasing shows a promising change in attitude.

Not so many pages ago, every time you stood up for yourself you said you 'felt guilty'

This last post you instead say you're afraid his reaction will make you feel guilty. You're starting to recognise his manipulation of you.

Its only one small step for you towards 'I won't apologise for needing to be safe - you could easily make me feel safer'

And the nights are hard!

Are you the sort of person who can lost in a book? I invested in some pageturners which helped me but everyone has their own method.

You two are very insightful.

I will prep some answers today and then call him and steel myself against the guilt trip.

In my head I've been doing this already. My answers so far have sounded like "I don't know if I'm coming on my visit." Him: What? Why? Me: It will be too painful for me to see you when you've decided that you won't make joint decisions with me or take a polygraph. I won't stay in a marriage without those things because those are requirements of a true marital recovery." Him: You don't love me or miss me. Me: I do love you and miss you very much and I want our marriage to recover but I won't stay in a marriage where you make decisions that hurt me and won't verify that you're telling the truth about your infidelities by taking a polygraph

How does that sound?

I love your suggestion about books. Books are my escape. I thoroughly enjoyed the series "Girl with the dragon tattoo." Lisbeth Salander always made me feel strong. She's a character who doesn't take any BS and enjoys life as a single woman without any regrets. Strangely, I finished the series the day before D-day so these books have special meaning for me. I may pick up the series from the library again and reread them over in the first weeks of Plan B to help me escape and feel strong. I have another good book I'm reading now by Louise Erdrich but it is striking some sad chords with me because it's a story of lost love.

Calling friends and family at night may be harder than I thought. I spoke with a friend last night who is also going through a break-up and I just felt worse and found myself comforting her. I don't have many that I could cry to over the phone.

Another idea I had was listening to classical music -- it is so emotional and makes me feel comforted. Problem is, my husband is a musician and this may have the opposite effect now. We also listened to classical music together the last time I saw him. I may as well try it and see how I feel.

I will of course continue to write in here, you all usually make me feel better although there's often a bit of a delay with responses and with nighttime I may need the instant contact with friends or family.

I would get rid of the joint account, if you can't, remove your name from it and start your own bank account. You never know what an estranged wayward will do. My XH quit his job, went into hiding in our new motor home with his OW and withdrew thousands of dollars from the bank that he didn't have in there, also wrote hot checks. I hadn't expected that, he'd never done anything like that before. In the end, I got stuck with $50,000 of his bills which I remortgaged my home to pay off so they wouldn't garnish my wages and make me lose my home. Then the market crashed, my home became upsidedown and then I lost my job. Please don't place yourself in a vulnerable position like that. Even if he's always been honorable financially, you can't count on anything right now.

I would give him a deadline on removing his phone from your account and if he doesn't, suspend it. It can be a trigger to you to have him on your account because you can see what calls he's making, don't let yourself be in that position.

He is a jointer on my bank account that I've had for around 20 years. If I take him off as a jointer he will not have access. I will have to check with the bank to make sure this is secure. He has checks from our joint account so could maybe still try to use those and that worries me.
Thanks for the horror story -- I wouldn't want to find myself in the same problem.

You could have the bank block the check numbers he has but he could always have more checks made.

I was going to suggest classical music! Debussy for nighttime

I love this sentence and change in perspective. If you know what his war weapons are, they won't work.

Your prepped sentences are great.

If he wants to win you back, hell need more honest tools.