Noooooo. Don't ever speak to her about Plan A. Plan A is not about any expectations other than her ending the affair forever. She should never know about it. Once she agrees to recovery, you can ask her to send a no contact letter to the OM. The NC letter is part of recovery.


You are already in Plan A, right? You are following the suggestions to be as attractive as possible eliminating lovebusters.

I have been here for many years and have seen spouses in the worst of circumstances find a way to file when they were serious. There are many ways to do this, a) take out a credit card, b) find an attorney that will take it out of the settlement, c) get a loan from family or friends. In many states, you don't even need an attorney, you just download the papers and file yourself. I don't believe your wife is too serious about this.


Do you know what this is about? Is this a "class" to prepare your kids for something that may never happen, divorce? Do you otherwise need help with your parenting? It seems to me like this would be very confusing to your children if there is no divorce.

What makes you describe this as her "pity party"?

Do you realise what a disrespectful judgement that is? Even though you didn't say it out loud, if that's how you see her perspective on how your marriage has been, how can you hope to meet her emotional needs?

Ah, I get it. Dismissive and disrespectful. You're right.

I feel, though, that she is being manipulative rather than acting in good faith. And I shouldn't perceive it that way.

You're still doing it. You need to stop.

Well, exposure did not happen this weekend. Called her mom and she was on a road trip to Mt Rushmore; called her dad and he was horseback riding, called her brother, but he wasn't available. So that was half her family and I stopped. I am taking a day from work tomorrow to do the exposure to family via phone and our friends via text and then FB for the OM.

Extremely anxious about doing so because I know that the OM has initiated no contact.

In the meantime, I am getting pressure from my wife about mediation (scheduled for the 14th) and this parenting class. Here's her email to me this morning:

There is so much we have to discuss about the future. You have told me that we cannot continue to live the way we are, although in my opinion it’s the best our family has ever functioned. This leaves me with 2 choices, return to the marriage or divorce. I have chosen divorce. We need to tell our kids and I would like to do it together. Do you want to do this after our mediation sessions have ironed out the details of custody? I signed them up to take the class on Saturday’s with me. I have tried to bring this up but it feels like you shut down when I do.

Right now, I am giving the love and affection that I feel safe giving. I understand that you desire more from this relationship but I can’t give you anything more than a kind and considerate co-parent. This is why I am pursuing a divorce. I know I can’t be the wife you desire me to be, I gave all I could to this relationship.

Hopefully we can find time to discuss this as loving co-parents who do not want to drag our children through a nasty divorce. When would be a good time to have this discussion?

What is "it"?

I did see an email to her dad and found it, well, interesting. She indicated that we're not working on the marriage and she mentions nothing about the OM.

Things around the house have been calm. DrD is working hard on changing his behavior and connecting with the boys. We aren't working on the marriage but it is nice to see the boys receiving positive interactions with DrD. He is capable of being a good dad to them. He started Prozac in July and is still working with a therapist. I have not started the EMDR therapy yet. Working and being the main support for the boys leaves very little time for counseling sessions for me. The basement is still unfinished, which means I am still sleeping on the couch at night. We eat dinner together as a family, which is a new change. In the past, DrD would either get home to late because he would sleep in and get to work late. Or he wouldn't eat with us at all and simply come home and get on his computer. I have noticed a positive changes in the boys behavior. They are enjoy the attention from both parents, finally!

Also, caught a text to her sister from late last week:
http://imgur.com/a/A0IGh9a

It is so hard to maintain the effort to work through this and maintain the desire to try to repair this marriage.

The constant drumbeat of "I'm done" and "it's over" is exhausting.

That's great. It sounds like you have a great plan. In the future if you can't reach those people by phone, send them a thoughtful email or a text asking them to call you. There is no such thing as a PERFECT TIME so you need to roll with it.

Did you change up your epxosure letter as I suggested? You will greatly confuse your exposure targets if you add in a bunch of garbage that is not related to her affair. For example your angry outbursts.That will muddy the waters.


Of course, she wants you to bend over and just - happily - cooperate with her intended destruction of your family. Don't do that. Don't do that to your kids. When she sobers up from the effects of the affair she will wonder why you never fought for your marriage. Your kids will wonder too. There is no virtue in cooperating with the destruction of your marriage and your children's family.

Write her back and tell her what I told you previously about this. "Co-parenting" is a MYTH created by uncaring, lazy court bureaucrats who want to make their job easy. 85% of divorces are not amicable [or they wouldn't be getting divorced!] and trying to FORCE them to be so only causes added stress on the parent. Most parents who "co-parent" end in horrible, emotionally charged fights that greatly impacts their ability to parent. More and more courts are waking up to this fact and using PARALLEL PARENTING where there is no direct contact.

I would add that to the letter I wrote for you above. Tell her: I have "no desire to participate in any divorce actions. If you feel obliged to file for divorce I fully understand that is your right and I will respond by getting my own attorney. I sure hope you don't drag our kids through a nasty divorce but I will be letting them know that I am not interested in divorce and won't be cooperating."

You need to make it clear to her - AND TO YOUR KIDS - that you are not going to cooperate with this. That will buy you some time for her to come out of the fog.

Calling her manipulative is a lovebuster.

Your positive changes are being noticed!! This is a very good thing. This is another reason why you need to not cooperate. This is a good sign!!

What does she mean when she says she is the main support? You do work, right?

Why is she considering having EMDR therapy?

Wow what a sad letter. I encourage you to download the marriage builder radio show app and start listening every day. You need a massive overhaul of what you think extraordinary care is. This will help you make a marriage where you find your greatest happiness and so does your wife. She sounds so in withdrawal in that letter. And I read in post after post that you use her attitude as an excuse to withdraw yourself too. Please take a listen to that show daily and let it show you a whole new way to enjoy life with your family.

I have rewritten it with your suggestions included, though I imagine during the call with her family and mine that I'll end up talking a bit about my side of the street. But the focus will be on that I don't want the divorce, that she's in an affair, and I want their support in ending the affair and repairing the marriage.


Thank you for the suggestions. I will.

I'm thinking that tomorrow after I expose, we'll have dinner together and I will engage her and our boys in a conversation about her wanting to divorce and that I do not. I'll let her and the boys know that I am not going to engage in any conversation about divorce, but a I will certainly talk about repairing the marriage and reconciliation as soon as she sends the OM a clear no contact forever letter.

If she hasn't already gone ballistic about the exposure then that's the plan. Oh, I will expose to family tomorrow. Have the dinner talk if she's not flipping out and follow that up with email and text to friends after bed time.

I can imagine at dinner that she will launch into her litany of reasons why we should divorce. She was lonely, felt uncared for, unsafe, it's been over for a long time, she wants a chance to be happy with someone else, etc. I will be a broken record. The affair is unjustified, you're being unfaithful not just to me, but our children, too, we are a family and I am committed to fighting for this marriage, to repairing it, and meeting her most important needs which is why I won't participate in divorce talk and will not cooperate with mediation or parenting classes.

Oh, I don't tell her I think she is being manipulative. But it is what I think of behavior at times. But, maybe I need to be more compassionate and know that she is hurting, too.

That is a PERFECT PLAN. I like the idea of saying this in front of your kids. I don’t think you will be able to have that discussion with HER there tomorrow, though. She will be furious at you for exposure. Expect her to blame you and demonize you for a few days. Expect to hear “I was going to work on our marriage but now i’m not.” That is CLASSIC. Just prepare yourself for the worst and don’t let her bait you into a fight. Have full control of your emotions no matter what.

If she launches into her reasons for wanting a divorce, just agree that you were doing a terrible job of being a husband but have changed. No arguing and no defensiveness no matter how tempting.

You are very much on the right track and I want to applaud you for thinking strategically.

Yeah, I know she noticed it, she just always smacks with that the changes are too little, too late for her, great for the kids, I'm only making them because I am losing her....


I'm not exactly sure. I think it means that she gets home earlier from work than I do, hence, rather than going to IC, she's taking care of the boys and supper and then I'm home at 530. Except, the boys are 10 and 12 and generally come home from school and then go out to play. So I'm not sure why she's using this as a rationale for not doing IC. Although, she has told me that her IC has and would continue to tell her to divorce me.

A theme she has brought up to me is that shes been the primary care giver as she's been a sahm and because I would withdraw and isolate.


My younger brother did it after his breakup with a live in girlfriend and I pursued it with my IC (and we ended up shifting to somatic work), so she was also looking into it.

Thank you, I didn't know about the radio app.

I don't think I use her attitude as an excuse. Rather, I would screw up somehow, eg, angry outburst, yell at the kids, yell at her and would then be ashamed and embarrassed and in my own kind conclude who would want to love a f'ed up person like me that can't control his emotions or reform his behavior and then withdraw until stuff died down.

I can imagine that she won't be furious about the exposure and I doubt that she will say anything like she was going to work on the marriage but now is not going to. I imagine that because that is my nature. In other words, it's easy for me to assume the worst outcome. In this case, that being she really is checked out regardless of the affair and really is done and totally closed off. It's hard to back my mind away from that, but I am comfortable in catastrophizing.

I appreciate the advice.

Melody, or anyone else reading...

I'm curious about something. The OM had initiated no contact. My wife may suspect I know, but hasn't told me about it.

When I finally indicate to her that I want to work on the marriage to reconcile but that requires a no contact forever letter from her to the OM, what do I do when she inevitably says that he's already stopped contact? How do I know, if she chooses to write a letter, that it's meaningful? How do ensure that she just isn't reinforcing the OMs wishes and keeping him in a dominant role?