Melody - you could be right. But if they were crumbling, would she still be so determined to get divorced? She obviously has not been questioning her decision at all.

As far as the payments, she is going to pay me for last months. Those payments will no longer be coming out of my account.

Okay, I've drafted up an e-mail I want to send my wife today as a follow up to our conversation yesterday. Tell me what you guys think?

"I humbly ask you to read this, WS. After our conversation yesterday, I just wanted to follow up on a few things.

When you started talking about me trying to control you, I didn't want to argue about it right then. I know I could have better explained my mind-set to you if I could type it out.

From my perspective, I am not trying to control you, nor have I ever. Instead, I feel I have been trying to *protect* you. (Part of our marriage vows was to protect each other). I know you feel that you don't need to be protected. I respect that. But try to understand that from my perspective, watching you do what you are doing is like watching you walk into a burning building that you *don't know* is on fire. Ask yourself, if you watched me walking into a burning building, would you not tackle me to the ground? Try to hold me down? Ask for help from family and friends to keep me from doing it? From my perspective, OM is trying to pull you INTO the burning building as I try to hold you back. I am yelling at OM saying "STOP!!!! You are going to burn my wife alive!!"

From my perspective, what you are doing is self destructive behavior. If you came home one day and saw me sticking a heroine needle in my arm, would you not pull it out? If you did pull the needle out, I may lash at you as well, and tell you to stop trying to control me! But in the end, after the withdrawals of the drug abuse was over, I would be so grateful to you for protecting me from myself. I am not trying to control you, WS. I am trying to protect my wife that I love more than anything in this world.

You asked me yesterday why I wouldn't be able to be your friend if we got divorced, and what I was trying to protect myself from. In the end WS, I cannot force you to not walk into the burning building. But I am not going to stand by and watch the person I love most in this world walk into it and destroy herself."

My suggestion:

Good morning Sweetie. Hope you have a great week. I love you.


You are expecting her to think. She can't do that right now. You need to appeal to her base instincts. Be strong. Be safe. Be comfortable.

I think I like the email. Sure you can't educate a wayward but she (and OM) keep responding and engaging with oddjob. It must be getting incredibly inconvenient and annoying to OM to have to talk about oddjob hour after hour.

The first email is no more annoying than calling her sweetie and wishing her a nice day. She's not going like either email but the first one she MAY come back to one day if and when she has second thoughts.

Call Dr. Harley's radio show. You don't have kids...so the recommendation to move on and divorce her in the face of her blatant adultery is likely first advice followed by "if you really want to save it...do this" and I THINK that would be short Plan A followed by Plan B. I just don't think Dr. Harley would be telling a 28 year old BH with no kids to Plan A for two years.

It's only been a month of Plan A...but I think he's gotta keep sticking it to these adulterers. Being a thorn in their sides (especially OM while being more loving and respectful towards his wife) until he's restrained from doing so further (they change their emails and phone numbers or get their own restraining order). His email above talked about HIS feelings and clarified how he felt about things. He could edit it even more to pare it down some but it's not the typical misguided attempt to educate a wayward about how THEY should feel.

Someday...when the affair crashes (or IS crashing and Oddjob is in Plan B unavailable for her to talk to)...she will hopefully go back to that email and smack her forehead and say "oddjob was right...OMG what have I done".

There's no wrong answer here....sure he's a bit overengaged right now but I don't think we are talking about a 1 or 2 year window within which we/he can or will want to save this marriage. I would think another month or so of Plan A and then Plan B through Sept or Oct with your attorney fighting it out and making it as difficult as possible for WW and OM in court and if the affair doesn't end ...save his money...settle the divorce and go on with his life. The waiting period will have long been over by then and he can likely be officially divorced by Thanksgiving or Christmas.


I found this:




For maximum effect, up until a date decide to settle and move on, your WW and OM must believe you intend for this divorce to "take months or even years". Now you really can't say that out loud or in writing. You don't want to give them any indication you are delaying the matter purposefully. However, there's nothing wrong with saying "I don't talk divorce but anticipate it taking a really long time....I've read contested divorces in Utah take years sometimes".

You also want REASONS to contest terms of the divorce so any answer you make to their divorce must fire ALL canons...counterfile on grounds of adultery, ask for money, alimoney, spousal support, return of marital monies she took and spent in furtherance of her adultery, and every personal property item you can think of.

Mr. W

Oh no, it is not obvious at all!! She is very confused.

no way!! You don't debate with a falling down drunk.

I decided on my own to send the e-mail. I feel very strongly that they are words my wife needed to read, even if they fall on deaf ears right now. I think if you guys knew my wife like I did, you would agree that sending that e-mail was the right thing to do. I have now said everything I am going to say to her about our relationship and how I feel. The next time I talk to her about these things will be if SHE wants to, or a final goodbye letter.

sigh.......... She only said that as an objection to your objections to her cheating behavior.

You might know your wife, but you don't know WAYWARDS. Trying to reason with a wayward is about as effective as trying to reason with a falling down drunk. You will not educate her and will only pick a fight with her.

As long as you are picking fights you keep the focus off of the growing problems in the affair. YOU become the lightening rod rather than OM.

You are probably right. I am just going to go NC with her for awhile I think now.

+1

Right now you are giving them a reason to unite against you.

Agree. That is why patience is so important right now. (albeit hard)

Reality may be starting to set in now for them.

No pressure, No heavy conversations/emails/texts. She already told you she thought you were trying to control her. Although this is nonsense, it is real to her. I say back off completely.

Yes. I have decided I am going NC except for official stuff.

OJ, just focus really hard on being as pleasant as possible in all your interactions. I assure you the OM is not lecturing her so if you lecture her, you look bad in comparison. Just think how it looks in comparison whenever you communicate with her. You don't ever want to make that RAT look good in comparison. See what I mean?

You have set the stage for the affair to begin crumbling. As it crumbles, the OM's true character will come out. And you will shine in comparison. That is your best hope.

You did a great job on the stick, so focus now on the CARROT.

noooooooooooooo, look for any opportunity to communicate with her and show her how PLEASANT you can be. You don't even want to give her the cold shoulder!

Man I suck at this, haha. Okay, I gotcha Melody.

Oh no, you do not suck!!! You have done a magnificant job all the way down the line. You have pretty good instincts, my friend, and have manned up at every turn. I am very proud of the job you did.

Here is her long winded reply to that e-mail.

I understand that you feel you need to protect me. But what are you trying to protect me from? Myself? Why is my ending our marriage necessarily a bad thing? For you, for now, it is, for me, it is not.

I haven't brought this up, because I wanted to spare your feelings, but now I feel it needs to be said. BS, I'm happier now than I can ever remember being with you, or before you, for that matter. I was happy the day I moved out, before ANYTHING ever happened with OM. I instantly felt like I was free of a relationship that was technically a marriage, but to me felt hollow and robotic. I was generally happy, that part is true, and I've said it over and over again, if I hadn't of been, it would have been that much easier for me to leave. That being said, I believe I am a pretty optimistic, and overall happy person, and I didn't truly understand what a happy marriage should be. Because of that, it was pretty easy for me, for a long time, to go through the motions, to just accept that this was my life, you were my husband, and our dysfunctions were a part of our relationship. They were normal, and nothing to worry about. (Ray and Debra from Everybody Loves Raymond come to mind.) But I looked at *friend couple*, even *suitor in waiting couple*, for a time, and questioned, "Why aren't we like them?". "Why don't I want to be with BS all the time?", "Why would I rather be with *suitor in waiting*, or other friends, if I have a choice?", "Why am I so irritable around him all the time?". I didn't want to feel that way, I didn't want to be bitchy, and a lot of the time, I ignored many of the things you did that bothered me, but I didn't want to live like that. I didn't want to settle anymore, we're just not a good fit. We don't work well together as a couple, we are not compatible, in a lot of ways.

You know that you are not an observant person, you are not a thoughtful person, these are facts, I'm not saying this is a good or bad thing, it just is. I can say this confidently, having known you for over ten years now. That is why it does not surprise me that you believe I am making a huge mistake, that you are, for some reason, the best possible option for me right now. BS, you have been practically oblivious to the state of our marriage, you have taken it for granted, you have not been paying attention. Our friends were not surprised by my decision to leave, they were aware, they noticed things, they KNEW that I was not happy. Even they can now say that we were not a good fit, they can see that, why can't you?

You used the analogy of me burning alive, (dramatic much, btw?). A comparable situation comes to mind; your leaving the church. How do you think your parents felt about that, at least initially? Do you think they believed, they KNEW, that you were making a huge mistake? Possibly the biggest mistake of your life? They still believe, I'm sure, that you are on the wrong path, that you will eventually wake up and realize the error of your ways and return to the church. Do you appreciate the way they've handled your choices? Do you think you would have the relationship you do with them if they had tried to pressure you? I believe they did the right thing in respecting your decisions, as an intelligent adult, they understand that you will ultimately do what is best for you, even if you do occasionally make mistakes.

Despite the circumstances, or what you perceive the circumstances to have been, surrounding my decision to leave, it was not sudden, it was not impulsive, it was a long, thought-out process of questions, debates, and discussions with myself and close friends and family. I apologize that you could not be a part of this, but it was not your decision to make. It was not about any of the changes you've made, I'm so tired of repeating myself, please understand this.

In my experiences, and apparently in *suitor in waiting's*, his gf, and all of our other friends' as well, you do not want to hear it. You don't want to hear what they have to say, and you certainly don't want to hear what I have to say. I've pretty much gone insane, just fyi. All you care about is 'the affair'. You wanted something or someone to blame, and now you have it. The affair is separate from our separation and divorce. The timing is an unfortunate coincidence that you can't seem to wrap your head around. I'm sure it feels so much better to point your finger at OM, than to accept that you and I just weren't working. I believe in time, when you find someone that's crazy about you, you will fully understand what a marriage should be.

I would also like to say, that it was never my intention for us to have the relationship we do now. If you recall, before I left, it was uncomfortable, but we were able to carry on a normal conversation, even laugh a little. Technically, yes, I cheated on you. From my point of view, I was done, and I had moved out of the house, before anything happened. I understand that this is not 'acceptable' to you. That's fine, I get that. I chalked up a lot of the crazy [censored] you've done to the fact that I cheated, but you should know that it is because of that that I can barely look you in the eye, you are not the person I married, it's like a switch was flipped, and you went to crazy-town. Calling OM's parents? Telling them my house was full of alcohol and marijuana? Changing the locks on the house when you knew I still had things there? When the dog was there, for F*** sake? What the hell? Moving in, suddenly, when we had agreed to be separated? Apparently inundating our friends, and my family, with messages on Facebook? Asking *suitor in waiting* not to enable me? What does that even mean? Do you honestly believe that I require any kind of support from my friends, or anyone for that matter, to make the decisions I've made or am making? Do you think if *friend* told me I couldn't bring OM to a BBQ that I would end our relationship, and come running back to you? How does this make any sense to you? You say you're not desperate, so what is your excuse?

Talk to your lawyer, do what you feel is best for you, and let's end this so we can move on. I do not need your protection, I don't want it, I'm not asking for it, so stop doing what you think is best for me. That's not your decision to make, it never was.

Goodness, what a bunch of spew. You must be hitting close to home!

She's kind of got a pathetic need to justify the unjustifiable, doesn't she? Try not to laugh at her for any of this, because that's a love buster. Keep calm, and carry on.

I'm assuming you already know that there is no need to defend yourself against anything she said there. It's completely pointless. Like MelodyLane said, you just keep working on being as pleasant as you can be in interactions with her. Debating her spew won't be pleasant for her or you, so don't do that. Just stick with what you are doing, whether she likes it or not. It's as unilateral as her decision to have an affair, and doesn't need to be debated with her.