A brief synopsis of my previous posts.

Wife had an A while on a trip in another country. It was both an EA and PA, she feels they are 'soul mates'. The classic line of "I love you but I'm not in love with you" has been said to me about 1000 x.

We went to a counselor, thought we made progress. We have been working on things for about 3 months and I thought I was seeing some progress. She shows love/affection every now and then toward me and said she was having 0 contact with him.

Come to find out recently she has been text messaging, emailing, sending letters etc. you name it. She sent him a package, he is sending her packages and it is just ridiculous. Not only this but she has become obsessed with the culture of this other country - laguage, countries, music etc. All trust and work from the past 3 months is gone.

We had a talk where I revealed what I knew. She said she cannot give up on him because she doesn't know if she can ever love me. I have explained many times, same with the counselor, that she has to have 0 contact w/ him to work on our marriage. She disagrees and thinks she just needs time to sort things out.

Well here we are, I thought we made progress and she had just been lying to me. I now basically do not trust her at all and have so little respect for her. I want things to work out, I really REALLY do, but I dont understand how someone with the attitude of "We'll just wait for something to happen" will ever change their mind. Nothing is going to dramatically change w/o work.

If anyone has some words, I would be happy to hear them. I'm doing good, no LBs or anything. Holding my own just fine, confident that no matter what happens I'll be in a better place but I am just finding it hard to work on this marriage when the other party shows 0 interest in stopping the affair.

How are you doing trying to meet her ENs? Have you been making special effort to meet her more than halfway? Has she seen the best of you? Are you confident that you are working as hard as you can?

Then it's time for Plan B. Not necessarily the end, but often times what the WS needs to get the idea what life would be like without you. And a way to protect yourself from anymore hurt.

Have you thought of how you would want to do this? Every person is unique in the way they implement their plan...

Thanks for the reply StillHereMakingIt !

I have discussed with her many times about her ENs and how I can meet the ones that were unfulfilled. One hard thing is that she considers one of her ENs to be this new culture she loves. Basically she holds the fact that I am not from that culture as a mark against me.

I am trying to learn and respect the culture with her and am even taking classes to learn the language! Its actually something that I am enjoying but doesnt seem to make a difference with her. One of my questions to her was that if I met every need for her, mastered the language, agreed to move anywhere she wanted for as long as she wanted etc. etc. would she want to stay with me - her response was that she wasn't sure.

Basically I feel as if I could be perfect, but it wouldn't matter but that has not stopped or slowed my trying to meet her needs!

I am confident I am working as hard as I can and that I am going in the direction the Lord wants me too. But I feel that this road is coming to an end, she is showing 0 sign of wanting to let go and milking the remainder of our marriage for as much as she can.

Plan B unfortunatley looks to be in the near future. I would probably use a letter and mutual friends on both sides to help with arrangements etc. I think it would be a HUGE blow to her for me to do that which may be a very good thing! Not sure about the specifics yet, didnt want to put too much thought until it was the right time. Any ideas if or when I should do B?

Out of curiosity .... exactly WHAT language and culture are we talking about?

he he, sorry I guess I never explicity said in this post, did in others.

S. America so Latino w/ the language being Spanish

Could your wife be bored with her life, and be seeking excitement and intrigue?

Pep

Plan A is about negotiating an end to the A without love busters and a willingness to meet the WS's EN's AFTER the end of the A. Part of Plan A is also informing the OP's spouse (if s/he is married) and every person close to the WS. Plan A is not supposed to become a permanent lifestyle where the WS has both BS and OP meeting all of her/his EN's and must be followed by Plan B if the WS is unwilling to decide between the BS or the OP AND the BS's love bank for the WS is getting close to closing.

FA start preparing yourself for Plan B, for it sounds like you are approaching the time for its implementation.

<small>[ June 25, 2003, 08:47 PM: Message edited by: T00MuchCoffeeMan ]</small>

"Any ideas if or when I should do B? "

You should implement plan B as soon as you cancel joint bank and credit card accounts, joint car and medical insurance etc.. and if you have children get a court order to make sure that she is not allowed to take them out of the country.

Thanks for the replies everyone, good to have educated people to talk too.

Could she be bored? Of course she COULD but she never showed any signs of it nor gave me any indication that this was the case. Even today. She still claims, "Our marriage was perfect, I just fell in love with someone else. I wish I would have never gone." Talk about confusing. W/o going into all the details, the counselor believes that S. America is an escape for her from her childhood and growing up. Her parents made a serious impact on her feelings & the way she is now and he thinks they are related.

We had negotiated her to stop talking to the OM, that is why I was so shocked to find the emails after 3 months of her telling me tha had not had any contact. Also why I was putting my all into the marriage as I thought the affair was ending/over. The OM doesn't have a spouse or girlfriend and I can barley speak spanish which is all he speaks. I wouldnt know how to get hold of him if I wanted too. Some of our Christian friends know but that is all, no family etc.

Thankfully we have no children but bank account etc. would be an issue. Its hard to admit that plan B looks to be around the corner but I guess it is pretty much the only option after what has happened.

Well wife emailed him again, aparently he has left voicemails for her, she was so excited to hear his voice etc. etc. etc. duh.

I'm hanging in there, doing well. The whole thing just seems so childish and stupid now. I think that the next 2-4 weeks will be huge for us. I am going to try to negotiate separation between her and OM calmly a few more times and then plan B will need to go into effect.

It is tough to try and keep the smile and happy look so she continues to the see the good side of you, when all you want to do is scream. Talk about unfair. "Hey, while you get treated like crap and lied to, keep your smile on." Oh yeah and also keep trying to meet her EN's, while you fight every urge to pull your hair out, feel alone, sad, and lost.

My W is also sort of in a fantasy land right now. I am seriously thinking about the plan B and not looking back until a positive sign appears. I could probably do this easy enough if I didn't have our 3 year old son.

Good luck and one thing I try to focus on when I am going through a low moment is that I know from reading on here that there are a bunch of people in the same boat, all trying to just make it through this.

Hang in there.

K