Jennifer, I think the length of Plan B would really be dependent on you and how you feel around your husband. For some that is forever, for others it might be a couple of years.

Did you hear back from your email to Dr. Harley?

Not yet. But my resolve is increasing.

Tonight WH dropped DS off, and had made a mother's day picture of our son for him to give me. It was a nice gesture...but still, what I want is my son to have his family together. I'm very vulnerable to him right now, to any thoughts. He left me a voice mail earlier today and not only did it send my body into a physical response, but I must have thought about it and analyzed it for at least an hour after that. A song on the radio...I just think of him until I'm blue in the face.

I need to break free from this, even though it will be painful. But I want to do it right, so I'll wait until the 20th, and on my way out of church that day, hand him the letter.

So just 10 more days for you to feel the protection of the Plan B cape.

You might want to notify the MODS and paste your email in there. They are really good in responding in 1-2 days.

I'm so glad you'll be doing Plan B the right way.

Stay strong, my friend.

Well, I got the rest of our things from the marital home! It felt good. In the morning, I'm going to dive into unpacking full time. There are so many parts of our lives that have been on hold the last year, and I'm so looking forward to making us whole again.

9 days until plan B!!

And I'll admit, a lot of me truly misses my H and wishes I could be back with him. Our son in the car today was asking me, does dd1 love you? I said yes. Does dd2 love you? I said yes. Does daddy love you? I said, I don't know. He said, Daddy says he loves you when I ask him. Oh, my heart burned! I said that it makes me sad that daddy doesn't want to be married to me anymore, because I love him and want us to be a family.

I was reading back over this thread and realized I've been missing the opportunity to plan A until I plan B. I also realized it in my posts to GJM. So, I made an effort yesterday, at least invited H to come with us to our festival, engaged in conversation, etc. I'm not sure how much else I can do, but I guess I'll keep trying what I can. It's painful, but I can do it for now, especially with the plan b up ahead.

Definitely Plan A like a rockstsr. Do the best you can. You want to have no expectations. You want to know you did everything possible to show him what he'll be missing.

Had a wonderful WH free day! Got a nap in this afternoon, and had energy to do some unpacking/organizing tonight, the kids will be so excited when they get up and see the living room and kitchen more like normal!

It should be an interesting week coming up...I just have to keep my eyes on the prize. My freedom, integrity, and mental health are at stake.

Oh, and I have a guy who's practically stalking me (came to my house twice uninvited today, and the second time, invited himself in to use the bathroom, then asked about my kids and went to "see one" who was in my bedroom working on a school project on my computer.) Oh, and then he invited us out to dinner, and called again later. Uggh, the realization that there is someone "single" really brings out the scavengers. He's the guy from church who helped me move this weekend. I'm going to have to tell him to give me space...but didn't want to deal with it today. It was my day No need for confrontations of any sort.

Please be careful with this guy.

Creepers love single women with kids and they sometimes go to Church to find theses kind of women.

Is he M?

Oh, yeah, I'm watching out! He's not married and no kids, and I was warned about him, but only *after* he'd helped me move and I'd bought him lunch (it didn't mean anything other than "thank you for giving me six hours of hard work on a hot day" to me, but maybe meant more to him.) Anyways, I'm keeping careful, and keeping my doors locked at all time as well. I plan to call him tomorrow (from work) and tell him to please leave me be.

Well, tomorrow is my mediation. I hope it will resolve things, somewhat, but I can't possibly feel good about it, even if I *win* what I want it is still a tremendous loss. There is no way to feel good about the situation, it's just minimizing the bad feeling.

I've still had the stalker bothering me, even after I (for the third time) expressed to him that he was not to call me or come to my house again, he still did so. I realized how messed up this is when it interfered with my sleep on Monday night, and then yesterday, when I felt relieved upon getting to work and realizing I'd forgotten my cell phone at home. 8 hours when I wouldn't have to even risk him calling! Of course, when I got home and there were 6 calls, 2 voice mails, and a note on my door...well...it got me overwhelmed again. I am very disappointed with the response of my church, as well, and I'm going to take this up and get it dealt with, as far as I need to. They knew this guy was a creep and didn't do anything, and put me at risk at a time when I'm most vulnerable, and I don't want anyone else to have to deal with this. I also got a trespass warning against him with the local police, and if I need to, I'll file a restraining order.

I think part of what makes it even worse is that, if I hadn't been abandoned by my husband, I'd never be in this situation of being vulnerable to being preyed upon by someone who wants to take advantage of my singleness.

But regardless...I have to move on in life, and I refuse to be a victim to anyone or any circumstance. It just sucks, but I can handle it. I just wish I didn't have to, I wish I could go to sleep in someone's comforting arms, that I had someone who would call this [censored] up and threaten him to leave me the heck alone. I miss my stbx more than ever, realizing the security I felt with him, that I no longer feel.

Well, mediation resulted in an impasse. He refused to negotiate on custody/visitation past 50/50, which is completely impractical, given that he works 1.5 hours from our son's school. We tried to get more information about how he proposes to make that work, and it was all just promises of "I'd do it" rather than "Here's my plan and what I've already done to make this work." I think he just can't possibly see that demonstrating changes and responsibility is how he needs to go forward in life, not in making more breakable promises.

After the attorneys declared an impasse, talking separately with the mediator, I said wait, what about the house!! H then offered to move out at the end of the month, since I'm not willing to quit claim the house to him unless he can refinance it, and only when that is complete. It's all meaningless and shows how he was just there to mess with me, rather than with any honest intentions. But who knows, my attorney doubts he'll actually move out, and I'm thinking he's right. Knowing H like I do, I'm guessing he will either lose or quit his job, try to keep living in the house rent/mortgage free, and expect that this will be acceptable to everyone around him (including, ultimately, the JUDGE who's pretty good at JUDGING situations.) There is a lack of reality that is almost eerie.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the stalker got served with the trespass warning, was told by my pastor to no longer call or come by...and he has called since then, (although only twice!), leaving voice mail messages that he must hear from me personally about whether I want to do something with him this weekend. And in one of the messages, he acknowledges that I involved the police in keeping him away, and yet, he still is trying to see if I want to do this proposed plan for the weekend. I'm deliberately not responding because I don't want him to see his repeated disrespectful attempts resulting in any attention whatsoever. But I'm still going to have to address that all with the church.

Sigh. I don't have an intermediary yet. That's my biggest problem. I'm not sure who else to ask IRL.

Keep those voicemails and take them to the police. This stalker is unsafe.

Tell your pastor also.

Can you put a flag out to the board to ask for an IM? I would do it on the SAA board so you get more chances.

What a tough situation... {{{{JV}}}}

Thanks for the hugs, Daisy, very much appreciated!

Well, today I spent a lot of time fulfilling my own needs! I met a friend for lunch, then went to my son's graduation. H didn't make it, so I didn't even have to deal with that awkwardness (but for our son's sake, I wish he'd been there. Our son deserved to have his dad clapping for him). Then afterwards, I was driving and saw some friends from church in the car next to us at a stop light, we rolled down the windows and said hello, then I said heck, and called and invited them to dinner. When we got to the restaurant, a bunch of other friends from church were there, so it was quite fun! And when we got back home from the restaurant, another friend from church was almost to my house to drop off a couch for us!!

(Can you see why my church is such a big part of my life and why I don't know if it is healthy for me to give that up for the sake of plan B?)

Anyways...I'm trying to figure out how to proceed. Still need an IM. Maybe I should ask the woman I had dinner with, but she's pretty busy with school right now. I can think about that tomorrow. I think she would totally understand where I'm coming from as she's fairly recently divorced herself, and has made big changes to avoid contact with her x, although not absolute and not with an IM.

Also, I've had a few people give me advice that bothered me. I was talking to my dad last night and telling him about the mediation, my H supposedly going to move out of the house at the end of the month, etc. I mentioned I was going to turn off the electricity, which is now in my name. He asked if I was going to give **edit** a heads up. I said yes, but probably not in a big way and maybe not personally (I've explained plan b to him but he doesn't quite get it). He started really harping on how it wouldn't be decent of me to not give him good, fair notice about turning the electricity off, and I was getting really irritated. Now, I could tell he'd had a couple of drinks, and he can be a mean drunk. But I feel like doing anything out of the way for H right now is just a waste of my very limited energy. And it's not exactly like I'm getting any courtesy in return. Anyways, am I failing my plan-A-until-B if I don't play "nice"?

The other advice that didn't sit well came from a co-worker. She asked me about mediation and one of the things I mentioned was that after, I saw H when he was picking up our son from daycare (he didn't have his phone so I couldn't verify if he was picking him up without going to check, when I ran into him leaving). I reminded H about my oldest daughter's band concert. (I didn't remind him that he had told her he would go see it, but I invited him for the third time to go). Anyways, he said he couldn't make it, "but if you're making a video, can you email me a copy?" I said that he was more than welcome to go see the show himself, and just left it at that. My co-worker felt like I was being petty for not doing as he asked, not that it isn't a lot of work I wasn't planning on doing and my time and energy are quite limited.

Now that H missed our son's graduation too, I was thinking of making a cd with all the kids' programs from this week on it. Maybe it would be a good plan A gesture right before plan B?

Thanks BH. I've already talked to the police and my attorney about getting a protective order and really it's not an option since we were never in any sort of relationship in the first place. The police would be able to charge him with trespassing and stalking if he comes back to my house. At this point, that's the best I can hope for. I'm definitely keeping safe, part of the benefit of moving out was to have my own, safe sanctuary, so this has been extremely unfortunate as it's tainting my move somewhat. The pastor is kept up to date.

I'm asking for my thread to be moved to SAA. And if anyone is willing to be IM, that would be wonderful!

Wow...got a bombshell today. I guess my WxH and his AP/wife are separated. So...they made it married 5 years. He said they're in counseling and it's a "trial separation" but I know the odds are pretty long for them. I have to admit, I did feel a bit of satisfaction about that. See, I think she married him for immigration purposes and once that was accomplished, she didn't have much need for him.

So, I have someone who might be able to act as IM. I'm going to send her a link to the IM school and we'll go from there.

Keep us updated on your IM situation. I hope it works out.

Wow on the XWH.

Well, not sure if it's working out with IM. She says after reading that she doesn't feel up to it. And I need someone who will be able to handle it all. Grr, this part is hard.

In other news, I'm trying to deal with the financial headache of the property. I did speak to WH on the phone tonight about it and explained the proposal I had about it. Of course, I doubt he would follow through with anything...right now, he just barely seems to have his life together even with paying no bills, I can hardly imagine how it would work if he had to pay the mortgage and all utilities. But it would at least get me off the hook somewhat, and he says he has someone who will help him with the costs until he gets half of it rented out.

It's strange. He says he wants to go for full custody and felt like he was generous in offering 50/50, but he has no idea how all these things look in sum total. And how it looks that he misses key events in our son's life, like his preschool graduation. Is that just his waywardness? I really have no doubt I would get custody of our son, the only question is how much he would get, and I doubt the judge would disrupt DS to the point of 50/50, it just isn't common around here. Anyways...a few breaths later he was saying how we are probably closer on that issue, and that he had some ideas that were more than 50/50, but he wasn't willing to say what they were. Whatever.