Hope4us' Struggle, part 2

[Hope4us]

Thanks Pup, changed the typo.

I'm going to give her the letter and let her think about it a bit. Then in a few days I'm going to say to her, "do you want to do this nice or do we need the lawyers involved?" If she wants to get the lawyers involved I'm going to tell her that I will be suing on grounds of adultery and she and OM can tell the whole story in court, and I'm going to fight with every penny I have to not pay alimony. Then I'm going to tell her I'm going to go for all the child support I can get since DS15 wants to live with me.

Let her deal with that some.

[Hope4us]

Well, that didn't take too long for her to cave. I just received this reply from her to my note I sent her this morning.

Hope4us,

There are too many issues in your letter for me to address at the moment. But for now, I want you to know that I haven't seen OM since last year nor do I have any plans or intentions of seeing him. Whether you want to believe that or not is up to you, but it is the truth. I would like to continue this marriage until DS15 graduates and I will try to repair the damage that's been done to them. If we're at a point at that time that we know it's not working, then we can part and go our separate ways.

I know it's going to be difficult and there are a lot of trust issues involved. There are things we both need to change in order to move on and I hope you will consider this, not so much for me, but for the kids' sake.

WW.


Ok, what's everyone think? I'm thinking I need to lay this out on the line. I will agree to stay together for the next 2 years IF she truly intends on working on the marriage. If she agrees to that, here are my conditions: No Contact period, Complete transparency, Retro weekend or similiar.

How's that for starters?

[InLikeFlynn]

Well it just sounds like business as usual. Roommates until graduation. She may go to a MC meeting once or twice to placate you but eventually she will want her emotional needs met and will contact the OM again. If she doesn't push for recovery and not just roomates then I would proceed with the big D. I would let her know it is Full Recovery of the Marriage with her driving the recovery bus or divorce. Just my two cents!!

[Abbey]

I agree. Powerful and it's EXACTLY what your wife needs to hear. I just gave my H the same verbal type speech this morning. You keep in contact with your "friend" any longer... ANY contact what so ever... then you can kiss me being your best friend EVER. You'll be deemed to have made your choice. CASE closed.

(we're separating so we can reboot... friends... best friends... and where it goes from there.)... Either he has to make the effort to work on the friendship (aka marriage)... the way it it deserves to be worked at ... and with the effort it requires)... or we just simply stop the bs now and get on with our lives.

Powerful... he responded well to it.... assured me that he has NO intentions of having contact with her ... and now is FULLY aware of the consequences should he be so stupid as to renege on it.

Your wife needs to hear/see/be read the same riot act.

High Five!
Abbey

[Hope4us]

Thanks guys. There is no way I'm jumping back saying "woohoo, everything is ok" because, even though she's said she hasn't seen him since last year (it was DEC 8 to be exact) and claims she has no intention of seeing him, she was trying to arrange a meet the week before last. I don't care one bit that you haven't "seen" him, she's continually talking with him, either email, phone, what ever and WANTED to see him only 8 days ago so THE AFFAIR IS NOT OVER.

So, what I do will all depend on what SHE is going to do to make me feel comfortable enough to give us a try. Because there is no way I'm going to put myself out there, give my kids false hope, etc if she's just mailing it in. That isn't going to happen. I'm ok separating right now. I'm done. If she wants to stay here and work on our marriage, then SHE has to be the one to show me how SHE intends to make me feel safe and secure in our marriage. I also think she needs to apologize to the kids and really OMW for what she's done. If she's not willing to do that, I don't know if she's really sincere.

I just hope she wouldn't sink so low as to tell the kids that she wants to try to work it out, not do anything to make me feel safe and then blame our marriage not working on me to the kids.

We'll see what she has to say.

[Puppy Dog Tails]

I hate to say it, but it feels like false remorse to me, H4U. I could be wrong. My wife gave me the same thing, as soon as she got served and found out I was going for custody of OUR boys. Then suddenly it was all crocodile tears and promising to do ANYTHING.

Still, you have to call her bluff. Lay out your terms (and yours sound very good), and have a good transparency and intel system in place to see if she's following it.

I've posted before that there are several layers of remorse. There's the "I'm sorry I got caught," and the "I"m sorry my affair is over" and even the "I'm sorry I hurt you." But you will know when you truly get the "I'm sorry I caused you and our family this pain, and I'm also sorry that I've failed to live up to my own sense of morals and character."

This just doesn't smell like that to me. Again, I could be wrong.

Puppy

[Starshyne]

I think Puppy is totally right about the false remorse. My H is just sorry that his A is over...nothing more. I think your W might be in that same feeling right now.

sara

[Hope4us]

Thanks Puppy, Sara. I think you guys are right on. Talked to WW for a while last night and I just really didn't feel like she truly wants to try and make it work. More like, she saw that DS15 was going to live with me if we separate and she didn't like that so she's going to say and do whatever she can to carry out her 2 year plan to leave when he graduates.

I told her at one point that she would have to do a number of things for me to even begin to consider not going to see a lawyer. She asked "like what"? I said the first thing is NC with OM for life. No email, no phone, no IM, nothing. And I need to be able to believe and verify that. She said "what, you want to look at my cell phone some more?" I said, "if I feel a need to. But what about work email/phone/IM"? She asked what I wanted so I told her a NC letter telling OM that you never will see or communicate with him again in any way. She replied "I already did that". I asked when? She said "today". So I asked if she sent an email and she replied, "uh....no, it was an IM." I asked her what she said and she replied "just what you said, I told him I couldn't talk to him again and he replied 'I hope you can work it out'".

I don't know about you, but that sounds like a B.S. story to me.

The whole time I just got the feeling that it was like you said Pup, she was sorry she got caught. Nothing more.

I also said to her that I didn't believe her contention that she has no intention of seeing him or being with him again because of those text messages I saw last weekend. She still sticks to the story that she wasn't going to see him. I repeated the TM conversation between her and GF and said "I'm having a hard time believing you". She said "It's the truth. It was just some back and forth conversation between GF and me, it didn't mean anything".

So there we are. I'm going to send her a note today telling her I thought about our conversation quite a bit last night and I'm just not ready to commit yet and list out the reasons and ask her what she plans on doing to make me feel more comfortable that she's not just air mailing it in.

I just got the feeling that the only reason she's saying she wants to work on it was because she feels DS15 slipping away from her and she's manipulating me and him into getting what she wants.

I'll keep you posted.

[Abbey]

No contact... get her to SAY the words.

I used the line: Let's not play Clinton here... not... I won't phone her ... but say nothing about THEM phoning the spouse etc.

NO CONTACT means exactly that... NO contact. You break it... you're done.

That's what I pushed for yesterday as well... and again this morning... now... I sit back,... work on my relationship (friendship with him)... and see what happens over the next month.

At some point you have establish the boundary and be willing and ready to stick to it. That's where it sounds a few of us are really at.

Yes, the walk away spouse will go into selfish confused mode,... have to ignore much of what they say and half of what they do etc... but boundaries... at some point for our own sanity and the safety of our own and kids mental self... ya gotta push the ball back into their court and stand with your hands on your hips til they do the right thing.

Abbey

[Puppy Dog Tails]

H4U,

You're continuing to handle this very well; kudos to you, my man.

Her "I already ended it" sounds like B.S. to me, and it simply doesn't matter. The rebuilding of trust is something that needs to be done for YOU, as you stated, so the no-contact letter must be done in a way that YOU are comfortable with. You should have final approval of its content, and you should mail it so that she can't add anything to it or soften it in any way.

I suspect that they are at an EA stage, and will only try to push the relationship more underground, especially over the next couple of weeks. They have probably already had several "HE IS WATCHING ME LIKE A HAWK!" conversations, and I would expect that your wife will be on her best behavior for the next few weeks.

She needs to:

- send the no-contact letter, the content of which needs to be approved by YOU;

- change her cellphone number;

- agree with you on a full transparency system -- change the cellphone # with detailed on the new # coming directly to you; leave her cellphone out for you to look at any time you wish; the two of you should exchange daily schedules; she is to tell you when she's slipped up and had contact, and answer you truthfully when you ask "have you contacted him?" and not be defensive about it.

In exchange, YOU have to not "lord it over her" and rub her nose in the affair at every opportunity, and you have to THANK her if she's honest and tells you about contact.

Do you think you can do that?

Puppy