I am. This was pre His Needs; Her Needs reading.

How about love notes?

Or
What's the set up for tomorrow when you give her the plan?

I did do one letter. I also try to talk about her in conversations and try to be nice with her in that area. Right now, though, anything involving touching is a no-go with her. Makes it hard.

I plan to wait until after the kids are asleep and just tell her I would like to talk to her about her choices; i.e. Divorce or renewal. Any advice on that? Initiating the conversation will be the toughest thing. Once I get going, it will be easy enough.

Are you both in the marital bed?

Do You have it written out what you're going to say?

No. After exposure, she took her ring off and started sleeping on the sofa. Ironically, she has left "married" as her FB status, and not the ubiquitous "it's complicated."

My plan is typed out in word, and includes what I want to say about the plan. I thought about typing something up for explaining the divorce option (she's clueless about the process of divorce in my state - by law everything, including time with kids, starts at 50/50 and courts always lean to the spouse wanting to maintain stability for the children - she wants to take the Kurds and bolt 1000 miles away to the OM).

That's good. She should be the one to sleep on the sofa anyway, not you. Do not ever move from the marital bed.

Do whatever you can to prevent her bolting. Courts would not approve but you should be very prepared.

The No Contact letter is the main priority now. She refuses to write it because she wants to remain in the affair.
That's a huge red flag.

I would keep it simple. Don't threaten divorce and explain it to her.
Her option is simple: @I love you and I am willing to work with you to create a loving healthy marriage where both of our needs are met. In order for me to remain married you must end your affair and agree to marital recovery"


She answers yes or no.
If she answers no, which she will because it is an active affair then you don't explain recovery.
If she answers yes then you follow the recovery in the book.
Remember the affair must die before recovery can begin

I'm prepared. Right now she is waiting for us to pay down debt so as to make the divorce financially easy. So she's doing some cake-eating to a degree. But without contact with the OM, she's thinking she'll bolt up there and show up at his house and it'll be a party, or something. Rude shock waiting for her there.

if she starts to run I can get an ex parte order for the kids and the police would start looking for her, amber alert style. It would take a few hours for her to get out of the state by vehicle, and I would know if the my son didn't show up at school (they send notice to all parental contacts on the child's list).

I plan to stay in this bed, and this house, through thick and thin.

You would be shocked at how many BHs move out of the marital room or bed. Good for you!

Paying down debt is good. While a divorce might force you to give her money, at least if you pay down debts before going to court (if you decide to go that route) there won't be any she can shove on you.

Yesterday, she committed a major love buster with me. Our son has been trying repeatedly to try and get us to all go out as a family (she hasn't since exposure). So he begs her to go to a restaurant that fits her diet, and they like to go to, and she decides she wants something else and the kids can have the golden arches. So my son now thinks we'll al, go and eat there, but I had to explain that I would have to bring the food back. He gets upset and goes outside and sits in the driver's seat to try and block me from going. He's upset and crying a little and the wife is watching him do this and laughing. She had total disregard for what he was trying to do. She continues, at times, to show utter selfishness. Occasionally, as I am around her more, she starts doing things for us, and the selfishness fades a little, but she still gets upset at minor things we do.

I'm really having a hard time holding on to any love I still have for her. I really am doubting that I want to save this thing, as the woman she is right now, is someone I would never marry. Right now, I just have to think about all of this.

To hell with paying down debt.
She needs to end her adultery and meet your conditions or be divorced.
Don't tell her you will help her pay down debt so she can have good credit after the divorce.

Actually...we both have good credit now and we are paying down two of the cards in my name right now. In my state, FL, debts are marital, and responsibility is 50/50. So paying the debt down helps me every bit as her.

Now, as I have said, the OM is no longer in contact with her. And since he is 1000 miles away, kind of hard to have an affair. She is still in the fog, though. Not sure if she will ever come to her senses or not, but plan B will likely go forth soon enough and we'll see.

So did you give her the plan? What it will look like if you D or if she chooses to join you in recovery?

I wasn't saying to pay down debt for HER good, I meant it would be good for him should divorce occur.

If she's still as foggy as that implied, they could still have some form of contact...

Have you been snooping?

Yes, I've kept a tab on communications. She had her enabling cousin try to make contact, and she mentioned that he hadn't contacted her. She had been crying most nights as well until last Sunday when she seemed to break the fog for a while. Now she's been happier since we are getting along, but she still gets easily upset at me and the kids.

Sounds like some real withdrawal then. Continue to Plan A--and make sure contact to enabling cousin is totally cut off. She(he?) is no friend of your marriage.

Her father and mother called last night (they used to do so every week until she stopped talking to them after exposure. She appears to hold a conversation with them, but was more reserved in her talking. She was nervously rocking the recliner back and forth as she talked. I thought I could hear her very lightly sobbing. The FIL later wrote me an email and let me know how she sounded to him. He thought she sounded like someone who felt trapped in their situation. If that's the case, she may very well be in the right spot of withdrawal now. He's going to be writing her soon and I will gauge how she responds before I do anything further. I want to see if she is in the right mindset to consider taking my hand when I reach down to pull her out of the pit she has created.

I hope he's right. After Saturday I lost a lot of hope and didn't really feel like saving the marriage at that point.

Saturday I lost a lot of hope and didn't really feel like saving the marriage at that point.

...and I can only think of two reasons for wanting to fight the difficult fight:

S 7
D 3