You have never been in Plan B. I think what has happened is that you have been confused by what Dr Harley told you to do. You have missed a critical step. BF needs to meet the conditions of your Plan B. You do not set eyes on him AT ALL until he meets those conditions; actions not words. Once he has done that and you are convinced he has genuinely addressed the issues, the next step will be to start dating.

Dates are for enjoyment, not for discussing your relationship. If, when you are dating him you find that he starts flirting/drinking/arguing, you will dump him. I'm sure you would not have been attracted to him when you first met him if he had done any of those things and you will not be attracted to him now.

The final happy ending, if he has cleaned up his behaviour and you are sure that the changes are permanent is that he asks you to marry him. That is the final step, you will not get there for a year.

I hear you Living_Well I really do.

I think I got sucked back in because I was hating the children going away and wanted to test the waters.

I get it now I really do. I have changed since he left in January. This time spending time with him and as different and I was looking at him in a different light. It was almost like I was dating him and thinking well the fact that I can’t talk to him without him blowing up is not a good sign.

It’s going to be a long road but I am not in any rush and I am not going anywhere.

I have read back over old posts and people were right. Melody Lane was right that when he knows I am serious about this he will barge into your home and he did. If only I had kept it up, I think he would have met my conditions.

I do have a question Living_Well. You mentioned you think there is hope for me because BF moved out. I don’t quite get this because I thought there would have been more hope if he had tried to stay and work things out?

Raining non stop here in the UK, chilling out with the kids doing some baking and watching family movies.

So pick yourself up Cool and get started. You have nothing to lose.


Interesting question; I looked back at your early story. He left temporarily, apparently for another woman. That apparently quickly fizzled out (maybe he dumped her). I get the impression that he stayed away in the hope that you would 'get over it'. If he had decided to pull the plug because there was no hope, he would either have moved straight back in or put the house up for sale.

Thank you Living for getting back to me:)

So I will have the dreaded conversation with him today, meet my conditions in the letter or stay away. More heartbreak looming.

Happy weekend everyone, I hope you are all keeping safe.

I think the benefit of the plan b letter is you don’t have to have these dreaded conversations. Makes big love bank withdrawals for both of you. I know all this quarantine stuff is hard. My DD is staying with her dad so I visit her outside like on the patio maintaining the 6 feet. It’s for my protection too. We go for social distance walks too. So a rainy weekend like this one we meet online until the rain lets up. Do you think something like that would work for your kids? Their dad can visit outside. You can change the locks if you want.

Hi all

Everyday I have been meaning to have the conversation with BF about Plan B letter conditions and no time seems right. He is making such an effort and completely different to how he was the year before he left. He is giving me lots of compliments, helping more around the home not showing any of the bad behaviour before he left like snapping at me, taking me for granted etc. So me having this conversation really feels like I am being disruptive.

However I know it needs to be done, as I feel this anxiety when I am around him.

Anyway he is coming round this evening to put the children to bed and then wants us to spend some time together so I guess this is it . I will tell him tonight. He feels that everything is going well and that we are getting on. His complaint before was that we don’t get on. Well the difference is now he wants to get on!!!! That’s why we are.

I known it’s the right thing to do, as if he were to move back in without meeting any of my condition, the anxiety would eat away at me.

The marriage issue is eating away at me the most and how any woman puts up with this their entire life I don’t know.

I have another question - are some people better at burying things and living with relationship ‘issues’.

I have so many friends who have weird things in their relationships/marriages such as one husband who tells her he works late every evening’ he has cheated in the past. Regularly she posts on fb how in love she is. A friend of mine waited for 14 years for her now fiancé to propose but never let it really get to her enough.

Thanks guys Happy Friday.

I agree with NewEveryDay. Give him the letter again. Be clear that these are your rock solid boundaries. Don't even hint that that marrying you would allow him to bypass all your other conditions. You do not want to be married to a drunk with anger management problems that chases every female who smiled at him. Let him know that you understand this is going to be hard for him. Tell him 'faint heart never won fair lady'. Smile sweetly, shut the door. Change your locks and start a proper plan B.

That went well, not!

So having spent four weeks together, I finally told him how I feel about things.

He has been making an effort in his way to get on with each other. He has been doing jobs round the garden, spending money on the house to get things fixed and being affectionate. Something just has not sat right with me. He has stayed over the last 3 nights sleeping in the spare room. He has tried to have SF with me which I have not done. To me it has just felt like it was before with him living here and not been fully engaged. He has not made any verbal communication with me, he sees the situation that we did not get on for 3 or 4 years and that this is giving it a go to see how we get on.

So I have been telling him for the last few days we really need to talk. So this morning he came over to pick the kids up and then I had a conversation with him to say that I am finding this situation really difficult. He said it is difficult because of the corona virus and if it wasn’t for that we could date each other and see how we get on that way. I said that maybe it is a good idea to revert back to how the situation was before until the lockdown is over and pick it up from there. I then told him that I wanted to be clear that in order for us to live together again we would have to be married. He then started to get angry and say things like who do you think you are? It is like you are blaming me for all our problems that I am playing the victim and I am at fault for the broken relationship too. That I expect that we can pretend to be all fluffy and happy and everything is ok?? He then said I have to live in this awful Rented house, and I told him that he never had to he could have came to see me to try and sort things out. He thought I was playing the victim and that he was going to stand for friends and family looking down on him.

He then calmed down and tried to find me in the house and came up to me and gave me a hug and left.

This is so sad and I think I have finally had enough of clinging onto someone who is so half hearted about me.

I feel relieved again. Its all absolute horse manure.

He basically feels we are both to blame for the relationship breakdown. That he feels the affair was just a moment of madness and that he is back here helping his family through lockdown seeing how we get on.

So sad. Anyone been in the situation were you are desperately trying to make things right and you can’t.

I am now laughing at his response. I actually said to him I don’t want to lead you down the garden path, that if we do decide to date again I would want to be married.

This is when he actually freaked out and started to say ‘Who do you think you are’???

My world that I value myself enough not to live with a man who doesn’t want to marry me?

I have had enough of this rubbish. Who wants to be with a man who has to twist their arm to be with them?

I am so relieved that I have told him where I stand, already the anxiety I have been feeling is disappearing.

Lousy father and lousy partner, he can quite frankly jog on.

Cool I'm sorry it ended this way. Now go back to the solicitor and get the division of assets, child support and custody sorted out. With the lockdown about to end, he will get busy. You can do most of this on the telephone. Your top priority now is to protect your children. Why not see if you can stay in the house, at least for a while? Get those locks changed tomorrow before he decides to move back in. Much harder to get him out than keep him out.

Thank you Living, I really appreciate your time and support.

I have totally shut down and I am out as far as BF is concerned.

He turned up the following day pretending everything was normal. I told him that I meant everything I said to him that I told him yesterday. I pretty much told him everything I felt which is that he has treated me like dirt for a year which ended with him having an affair. He has shown no remorse for the affair and the only reason we are getting on now is because he is making an effort to get on with me rather than before when he irritable, short tempered and basically totally uninterested in me. Now he is making an effort with me because he has had a taste of what he can lose.

The only reason I gave into him when the lockdown came is because of the children. It felt so good to have them under the same roof as me again. Not having to have them leaving me twice a week.

I don’t feel he was totally remorseful about his affair and he said it ended the day he moved out. I think he is lying about who she is and how often they met up.

I don’t feel I can ever come to terms with the children being away from me 2 nights a week. As always I will dread the time they will have holidays without me.

Are you going into Plan B? Do you have an IM lined up? Will you be actually doing Plan B this time?

I am a bit embarrassed to come back here and you were all right about him.

I let him hoover me right back up into my life. He turned up 2 days after my last message and made it clear that marriage would be an option for us both in the future.

Then during the course of the last few weeks he decided that our son would go to private school after him making it clear during the last couple of years that he wasn’t interested in this. When he phoned to tell me he said I though you would be more excited that this, I was just perplexed as to what had changed his mind? For 2 he had made me think he didn’t want to send him and now all of a sudden he is doing this great thing after 2 years of telling me no?

So things had been going on him coming here all weekend. He had been getting drunk every weekend to the point of being ill the next day. Just yesterday Fathers Day he stayed at his house and then turned up at 1pm hungover. My daughter had cried in the morning saying where is Daddy? I guess there is a point in everyone’s life when you realise you have had enough?

He then proceeds to ask me if he can have son or daughter to stay at his house this week and I told him no this is there home. He then said but that’s where I live in the other house? I said is it so you have no plans to come home? He said well I think we need to get us right first. Laughable.

Yes you were right Melody Lane he has absolutely been cake eating. Yes you were right Goody2Shoes he was coming back to test the waters to see if it wasn’t as awful as before.
I am gobsmacked and dumbfounded. You have may all seen it but I definetly didn’t. I knew you were telling me but I didn’t want to believe. Not because I was desperate for him, but desperate to keep the family together and my children under my roof every night.

I am in Plan B.

I told BF over the phone this evening that I have decided it’s a good idea that he stays in his house and that we put in place a schedule for the children. He got really defensive and said that he doesn’t want what happened before and that he wants a custody agreement in place. I agreed with him that it would be a good idea. I also told him that I don’t want him coming to the house anymore and that my terms of the letter stand then put the phone down.

I know I have been here before but this time I have really come to my senses. I feel fine and relieved.

This time I will change the locks so he can’t get back in!

Do you have an intermediary?

My brother will be IM.

What a mess, I can’t believe I allowed him back in.

I spoke to his best friend last night he agreed with me that he has been cake eating and even he said that he has always needed therapy and I would stipulate your conditions before letting him back in. He told me how he grew up with a mother who completely doted on him and did everything for him. That he was put on a pedestal. That she covered for him and would lie for him to get him out of difficulty. He agreed that he changed about 2 years ago, stopped communicating and caring.

BF is not in his right mind to treat his children and I this way. It would be easy if I could put a label on it such as BPD or narcissism. Then I would at least help me understand. Maybe he was just ambivalent about me and that he wasn’t in love with me and that was it no more. He needs serious therapy before I would consider anything.

I now need to change locks as he will barge back in when he knows I am serious. I also need to sort out finances and child arrangements.

Thank you.

and I understand all of those who have posted are probably fed up telling me, but I had to realise all those things you told me for myself. I couldn't face the reality of what I was hearing. I also understand if experienced posters dont want to post as they may feel I am a waste of time. No pity party but I understand that aswell.

I know he has a serious drink problem, and I know he needs serious therapy. That if I was let him back in now it would cause serious damage to the children. The most important thing is right now the children seem to be ok. They are behaving well and seem very happy.

Please explain the situation to them in child appropriate language. Otherwise they will be left trying to work it out for themselves and children always blame themselves unless someone tells them otherwise. You are absolutely right to put your children first. Best of luck to you,