I have posted this in D/D and GQII, and added the things happened in the six weeks since he left me. This is going to be a long post, sorry in advance!!!<P>My story is a long one, but I'll try to summarize. We have been together 17 years, ten of them married. We have had ups and downs along the way, but the last two years our life circumstances have put additional pressure on us. We moved to another country for his work, we sold our home before we left. The new country was tough to adapt to (Mozambique). Last year my brother died. Then my H got another job so we moved countries again, and then he had an affair, along with which came an AIDS scare, which thankfully turned out okay. (By the way, he doesn't think these events have anything to do with our situation).<P>If we don't reconcile, I have to back to Australia because of visas.<P>After the affair we decided to try to put things back together, and visited this website for information. We Plan A'd and things seemed to be great. I guess we should have gone to counseling, too. But things were going fine, except that dealing with the affair was not easy for me. I found it was having such a bad effect on my life in a cyclic wave (great days, bad days) that I decided to let it go, forgive him and trust him again. So I told him. This was June 20th.<P>Two days later he tells me he wants to leave, that he is tired of working at it all the time, that he has never loved me as much as I love him, and that he has to go and make up his mind whether he wants to continue the marriage. He asked me to give him space, which I did. He put a gigantic wall between us and couldn't even look at me. The only time I contacted him was to ask him to phone the kids, arrange visitation and to send him the "letting go" letter. He told the kids to phone him any time they like (they are 8, 5 and 3). He has only phoned them three times in six weeks, but he refutes this.<P>So we agreed to go to counseling during his time away, and the one and only session was awful, happened 10 days after he left. Basically, I don't know if the counselor was a good one or not, but what she did was say stuff to him like, "Well you sound like you've already made up your mind" and he said "Yes...I don't want to try again". He doesn't want any more counseling. I was stunned, I though he was going away to think about it, and that 10 days wasn't long enough. His reply was he has to be selfish right now and he feels better away from me.<P>I think he's going through a mid-life crisis or a nervous breakdown. His behavior is totally out of character. He is being very hard about all of this, even his kids don't seem to matter. If this is what he wants, I have to go back to our own country for support from my family and he will be working here for another two years. He was so matter-of-fact about not seeing the kids for this length of time.<P>I felt that I was doing the best I could to meet his needs over the last six months (since the affair) and he was doing a pretty good job of meeting mine until about a month before he left, when I noticed the beginnings of his "wall" going up.<P>Since then he has barely talked to me, and kept that wall up. But on Thursday he chose to talk to me and said nothing has changed. Mind you he has never said the D word, he just agreeed with the c when she said it. I told him a lot of Plan A stuff, Lb'd, but not much, and asked him to think about what I'd said. But at the end of the conversation he told me he had taken a mutual girl friend for a drive in the past week, and when asked, said he didn't know if he'd take her out again or not. (BTW, he only told me because another mutual friend found out about it and told him she would tell me if he didn't...he said he told me because he wanted to be honest with me.)<P>Thing is, before he left, he was showing signs of another A, and I DID suspect this girl. I said "I'm more disappointed in her than you". By the way, this "girl" has been married and divorced three times, the last divorce was finalised a month ago, and she also dumped her then-current boyfriend at around the same time my H put up his wall.<P>I just don't know how to deal with this. I am in a strange country with only one good friend, and she has been great. But nothing can be resolved when he has such a wall up. I am Plan A'ing, but losing hope. What do I do?<P><BR><p>[This message has been edited by Nina too (edited August 19, 2001).]

Hi Nina too,<P>Thanks for replying to a couple of my posts. Its really hard to do this plan A stuff when we don't see them very often to be able to put it into practice isn't it? I think that is what makes it so hard for us and a lot of others whose Hs have actually left, or like mine, are only home at weekends. We have too much time alone in between seeing them or speaking to them. All this time means that we get too much time to think about what has happened and to imagine all sorts of things and to torture ourselves. We wish we could be psychic or somethinhg and be able to look into the future and see that this plan A stuff does work after all. You have helped me with my post about whether to look through his things or not, and I'm also going to try your advice on not expecting my H to call. I tried that a few weeks ago and felt really happy when he did call. This is much better than the feeling I am getting now when I expect calls and don't get them. I wish I could give him a brain transplant!<P>Anyway, sorry this doesn't answer your question really does it. From what you have said though, it doesn't sound as though this A he's started will last. Carry on with the advice you gave me. Are you not phoning him at all? What do you think would happen if you phoned him, said lots of good things to him, such as talking about what the kids have done etc. being careful not to LB. I don't know your situation well enough to know whether this will work. I just know that so far, in the short time I have been working on plan A, that each time I do speak to my H and have a LB - free conversation, he seems to get a bit (and it is only a bit) closer. I can't imagine how plan A would work if we didn't speak at all. Or, have I got this wrong. Are you now doing plan B?

Hi Wounded One,<P>What an appropriate handle! Sorry, I've had a bad day, so this is a vent.<P>I don't know about this girl...I think, from a few things that happened before he left (catching them having a few intimate talks) and after (like the day his cell phone rang while he was visiting the kids and he pretended it was his sister in Oz - 5am there) that there is more to the girl than he wants to tell me. In fact, I'd say, judging by his behaviour from the last time, it has already hit Pa, not just EA anymore.<P>I have been Plan A'ing since the first affair, so I've given it a good shot...but as I have to leave the country anyway by January if we're not reconciled, I chose to tell him last weekend that I was going, by early October. He was stunned, but I had to take control of my life. So now I suppose I have to Plan B, but I feel I'm being forced into it. Strange but after I told hin he hugged me twice and later actually talked to me, a real conversation for the first time since he'd left. What was that? Relief at finally getting rid of me?<P>I am extremely depressed, in a place with only two real friends I can confide in, I'm only here because I wanted to support my h's career, and look where it got me. I am so, so angry, maybe I am ready for Plan B!!!<P>Thanks for replying. I'm glad I helped you with the snooping thing. And the calling. Oh I wish he would, but I never expect it now. And you're right about the thinking...too much time for us to sit here and wonder...