<img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" />
It has come to this... I would appreciate any feedback on how this sounds: Sorry so long..

"Dear J:
I feel badly that I became so angry at you..........please understand how hurt I was, how lost...and now that things have really set in................I wanted so badly for this marriage to work.. I have given so much of my life to it...to you. My heart has been ripped from me and I feel now as if my only desire in life right now is to heal. I tried to find an ideal sacred love to share with you, and it is failing miserably.., you were a gift sent to me from God and I all of my hopes, all of my dreams, all that I had found holy and joyful are dying. I will not let you treat me this way after what you did. It is your responsibility to be understanding of me, love me, recommit back to the marriage, and cater to my hurt. I am not expecting you to be a slave for the rest of our live, but your actions and words should take into consideration my hurt, feelings and condition. You need to take special care of my feelings until we are in a healthier place. I feel this would only take a few months if you would recommit and break all physical, emotional and all contact whatsoever with mike. I am not accusing, but my gut tells me you are inappropriately talking to mike. That is an important factor, but minor factor considering the way you are treating me.

I love you…
• I married you for life. I want to stay married to you.
I want you to treat me the way my Mother and your Nana threat my father and your POP. I want to treat you the way my father and your POP treats my mother and your Nana. I want to treat you better than my father treats my mother.
• I do not want a divorce
• I am willing to forgive, but feel that I have not been given the chance or environment. You have not taken steps to reassure me you are committed to the marriage. You are not respecting my feelings. My hurt. You have shown in your lack of understanding, in your actions, in your inability to be close to me, that you have not recommitted to the marriage. You are using counseling as a shield and taking it too word for word. If you do not want the same things I want out of a committed, sharing, caring marriage…I will understand… but I will not play games anymore. I am not sick or psycho… I do not want to spy or an environment where I need to. You know I am a secure person who is not jealous.
• I know my actions have been far from perfect… but you should understand them and get past them. If I am will to be close to you and open up to you with what I am dealing with, it should be easy for you to work harder than me.
• I am willing to do what it takes to be the spouse you've always wanted and to address the things I did wrong in the marriage.
• I love you and can be close to you even though I am so hurt and disappointed.
• I feel your reasons for withholding love and affection from me are not valid.
• The affair/neglect/abuse is so painful for me that it will destroy the love I have for you. In order to protect those feelings I must end all contact with you. I do not want to cloud my feelings with neglect anymore. My love for you still grows every day.
• It is not just about your continued contact with Mike. It is your treatment to me, your inability to help us heal, your actions of distance.
• As soon as the affair/neglect/abuse is over I would love to talk with you about our future.
• When you wish to fully recommit to this marriage and fully end all contact with mike and understand I will be insecure for a few months, I would like to talk. I understand and know it is hard that I had to spy. I do not do it to I would like to forgive. I would like to get back to enjoying the things that make us us. J and B . Remember your vows.
• Until that time please respect my wish for no contact whatsoever
• I will remove my basics over the next few days while your are not here.
• If you wish, though it is not what I want, I will remove all belongings at your request.
• In an emergency you can reach me through at my parents xxx-xxxx"

Personally, I do not agree with the letter thing. I would just do the plan B. Just do not contact her in anyway......I find that to be much more effective. The letter sounds way to needy in my opinion. Its up to you though. Good Luck. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Bob -

I'm tempted to go through line by line and ask questions about why you want to send this letter at this time. It doesn't look to me like a Plan B letter. Instead, it looks like the completely understandable demands and accusations of someone who's been hurt very badly. But... it's not about you, Bob! It's about ending the affair. That sucks, but it's the way it is.

I don't have time to go through line by line right now. But: Look for demands and judgments that you're making in here. This part is particularly judgmental, I think:

"I will not let you treat me this way after what you did. It is your responsibility to be understanding of me, love me, recommit back to the marriage, and cater to my hurt. I am not expecting you to be a slave for the rest of our live, but your actions and words should take into consideration my hurt, feelings and condition. You need to take special care of my feelings until we are in a healthier place."

That's never going to work; her response is going to be, "Oh my god, what a selfish [censored] to demand all of that from me!"

Look also at each and every sentence that contains with "... should..." or "... must..." or "I want you to..." or "you're doing..." or "... your actions... " or anything like that. It looks like a ton of selfish demands to me.

Also, don't say things that aren't true. Your
love for your WS isn't growing every day. It's diminishing. Your hurt and clinginess might be growing, and that's understandable! But it's not the same thing. And don't say that your hurt and clinginess are growing, either. That's your problem to deal with, no matter how much you want her to fix it for you.

And finally, ONE STEP AT A TIME. You know there's a ton of work to be done, here, and you want it all done RIGHT NOW. But the last thing you want to do is tell your WS that again. I'm sure she's heard it a thousand times already, and is sick to death of it. She's probably working as hard as -she- can (perhaps not at things you want her to work on). Don't put her efforts down just because you can't feel them yet. Your anger blocks pretty much everything she may be attempting to do.

Summary: DON'T send this letter! Call Cerri and get some help with it. And calm your Taker down. I understand -exactly- where your Taker is coming from, but he's not helping right now. Trust me on this one!

Personally, I do not agree with the letter thing. I would just do the plan B.
[sarcasm mode on]
Yeah, that way the ws will think you are just mad at them and do not want to reconcile
[sarcasm mode off]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Chris -CA123:
<strong>Personally, I do not agree with the letter thing. I would just do the plan B.
[sarcasm mode on]
Yeah, that way the ws will think you are just mad at them and do not want to reconcile
[sarcasm mode off]</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Who cares if the WS thinks you are mad and need time to yourself. The BS IS more than likely mad. The WS already knows that. The letter sounds like begging.....just what WS hate anyhow.

Who cares if the WS thinks you are mad and need time to yourself.
But by NOT sending a letter, they have no way of knowing that.

If you wanna divorce, then do it. Don't play games. ANd PLan B is not playing games. It's giving you time to decide what you want.

It shouldn't sound like begging (nor should it be).
It should be that you are waiting for a chance at reconciliation. It does NOT mean you WILL reconcile, even if the affair ends either.

You're hurt and cannot accept contact anymore until the affair is over.

What's wrong with doing this?

<small>[ August 07, 2003, 04:59 PM: Message edited by: Chris -CA123 ]</small>

Hi,
Don't send that letter. Not the way it's worded. Been there,it does NOT work.

Take a few weeks to calm down . Your perspective will become clearer.

Best Wishes

<small>[ August 07, 2003, 08:48 PM: Message edited by: getting better ]</small>

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by getting better:
<strong>Hi,
Don't send that letter. Not the way it's worded. Been there,it does NOT work.

Take a few weeks to calm down . Your perspective will become clearer.

Best Wishes</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Exactly, I sent a plan B type letter also and it didnt work. My EX basically ignored it, filed and signed.

Nothing is guaranteed to work 100% of the time but the implementation of Plan A and Plan B has been shown to help end a WS's A more often than not. In your cases, it didn't work because your WS and/or marriage had deteriorated beyond the point of no return, and nothing short of a miracle was going to turn things around. Now if BobS doesn't send his Plan B letter, then the only thing he is conveying is his acceptance of the way things are instead of his desire to save and rebuild the marriage. So my vote is to send a revamped Plan B letter almost a carbon copy of the Plan B letter that Jon (from 'Surviving An Affair') gave to Sue, his WW.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by T00MuchCoffeeMan:
<strong>In your cases, it didn't work because your WS and/or marriage had deteriorated beyond the point of no return, and nothing short of a miracle was going to turn things around.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Sorry, but BobS situation sounds just as if it has deteriorated AT LEAST as much as mine did. Heck, almost all the situations on this forum sound AT LEAST as bad as mine was. Alot of them were MUCH worse. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" />

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by StartinOver:
<strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by T00MuchCoffeeMan:
<strong>In your cases, it didn't work because your WS and/or marriage had deteriorated beyond the point of no return, and nothing short of a miracle was going to turn things around.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Sorry, but BobS situation sounds just as if it has deteriorated AT LEAST as much as mine did. Heck, almost all the situations on this forum sound AT LEAST as bad as mine was. Alot of them were MUCH worse. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">But that is your perception and it's still no reason why he shouldn't send a Plan B letter to his WW. What does he have to lose by sending it?

Well, you made a perception that my marriage was beyond repair.....IT WASNT.....the EX just chose her route. She is unhappy now and is no longer seeing OM much. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by StartinOver:
<strong>Well, you made a perception that my marriage was beyond repair.....IT WASNT.....the EX just chose her route. She is unhappy now and is no longer seeing OM much. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">You are right I did make a perception and I admit that I was wrong for doing so (should have cover my buttisimo by adding the word MAY <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> ) but that still doesn't change the fact that unless he conveys via a Plan B letter, his desire to rebuild the marriage, his WW MAY interpret his no contact as a multituded of reasons all of which would be wrong.

I hear you, and understand.....have a good one. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Just an update guys. I gave the letter and went to my parents. She called 8 times that night and wanted me to come home to talk more about it. I didnt but came home the next day(thur) night. Mistake. I thought things would have sunk in. She is still cold, defensive, and claiming she has no choice to avoid him because of school. I am now going back to my parents. It seems she did not take the letter serious. More important she doesn't take me serious. I refuse to accept excuses anymore.
Bob

How about posting here a copy of the letter you did send.

I had a feeling that would happen BobS. Not all things work for all situations. I would just not contact your WW........just do the plan B. It works much better when the WW does NOT know exactly what you are thinking. Keep them in limbo for awhile.