Okay, I've been struggling these past days. I think I am going to send the PBL now. Xmas is coming up. We made plans for her to spend the night Xmas eve and spend Xmas with us (me and the kids). We made plans for her to ride to my son's Xmas program together. All of this is wonderful, it's like being a family again, but when it all over, she's back with him. So, I think I am going to send this. Tell me what you all think.

Oh, a little background. Last week, I did hand deliver to her door a handwritten love letter. It was very beautiful. So I am not going to do the same with this one. It will be short and to the point. Here it is...

Rhonda, you know much I value you and you know how much I value this marriage. I will not go into a long diatribe about my feelings for you.

But right now, your affair is killing me. I try so hard to pretend that it is not happening and to ignore it, but I cannot. I have to be totally removed from this. Please, as long as you continue in your affair, do not contact me for any reason. If there is something that needs to be told to me, contact Ms. Johnson and have her deliver the message to me.

I know Christmas is coming up and we had plans to make things easier for the kids, but I cannot go through with it. When it is all over, you go back to the affair. They will hurt when its all done and they will see the hurt in me. Have them Christmas morning and I will have them picked up from you Christmas evening.

The affair that you are in is far too much for me. I will be no good for the children who need me to be strong right now. That is the only reason I am doing this. Don't take this the wrong way. I want this marriage to work, but the current circumstance is driving me crazy.

With love,

This is NOT a Plan B letter.
What happened to the other you were working on?

I...well, I gave her that letter, but I left out the part of not contacting me. I know, I know, I punked out. I just could not bring myself to cutting her off totally. Everything was the same except for the NC part. That is why I say that this letter should be short and to the point. She got the love part last week. Now, the NC part will come.

What's wrong with this letter?

Personally, I think it's not bad on the Plan B stuff. I'm sorry that you feel you can't go through with your Christmas plans, but if you can't do it without LBing, it's probably better not to do it at all.

A couple of things I'd change:

- I do think you should take out the "diatribe" sentence. Wrong word for the context, and you could just tighten it up to say, "you know much I value you and you know how much I value this marriage. Right now, your affair is killing me and I have to remove myself from from this situation."

- When you have kids, there is always the possibility of a true emergency. Please allow for that possibility here; there are possible times when you really WILL want her to contact you.

- You should probably indicate how you're going to handle transitions of the kids and say what (if any) changes to their schedules you expect to make.

- I think I would take out the "don't take this the wrong way" part. You're explaining how she should take it in the entire letter; if she takes it some other way, well, there's not much you can do about that.

solon:

The plan B letter you had written, and sent her in almost its entirety, was well done and appropriate IF you were going 2 plan B. This one is NOT, as Chris pointed out. Just J did, 2, only in a different way, by pointing out the shortcomings of the letter, IF it's a plan B letter.

In the end, you could play this either way: Send a plan B letter and go dark for Xmas, with the exception of logistics for transferring kids. OR, keep plan Aing remotely until after the holidays. It's hard, but so is "easing" in2 plan B. Think about it.

All my best,
-2long