Is this the end of my marriage?

[P17]

I am concerned about you, P17. You feel so despart to do "something" and that you must do it immediately. You do not feel convident in the NC letter and yet you just feel that you must do some sort of action.

I feel fine with the NC letter. It's straightforward and to the point. I do feel desperate to do something because I feel I can no longer tolerate what is happening. The continuing contact is allowing my W to have her cake and eat it and is causing me emotional stress. What I should have done was stop contact immediately.

As I told you before, you need to be sure that what you say in that letter is what you mean......and that you can stick to your guns after you've sent it.

I can only look back at my situation last month. No contact worked really well for me. It was tough for the first few days but was fine after that. I actually felt like I had started to slowly detach and move on. Going back to regular contact is killing me. As I said there are no other options on the table - all I know is that I cannot continue to stand by while my W continues the A and I continue to facilitate contact with my D and I. She can't have her cake and eat it.

I can tell you that I am determined to go through with this. At the moment, other than discussing things about D via text (and in the last week we have exchanged 3 texts - I wrote one, she wrote 2 and I left her a VM that has had no response - so there is little contact for me to break anyway. There is nothing there. If it wasn't for my D I would have heard from W at all since she left. There is no dialogue or communication channel to cut - it's not there.

I have an uneasy feeling that you see it as a gimmick to either be the ticket to stopping your pain or else to get your W to come home. It is not an insurance that either will work.

I don't see it as a gimmick at all. Although I do hope it allows me to deal with my pain. At the moment she is here, I have difficulty for a few days after she leaves, I have 1 or 2 good days, difficult again, then she is here and then back to the start. I am getting no time to heal / grieve / work out my feelings. This NC is partly for me to do that.

I don't believe for a second that it will bring her back. I pray that it does but deep down I know it will not. The NC, for her, will be a blessing and I [b]will not hear or see her again[b]. That I can PROMISE you. That is what is terrifying me but I KNOW that I have no other option.

As long as she lives next door with another man, it is going to be hard to ignore

She is not quite next door but I know what you are saying. It is going to be hard to ignore her. This is a small town and she is the friendly face at the local supermarket. I have no other choice though. I need to ignore her.

and I think she may fight you on rights to see the D.....if she has any rights, IDK.

She has no rights to see my D. I was trying to facilitate contact between them for various reasons, the main one though was for my D.

I'm just saying to make sure you feel like you are doing the right thing and don't be looking for some magic formula, b/c there is none.

I know but as I said, I can't see any other option for me to get over this situation. I have good and bad days and I am fed up with it. I want to get a break and get some time to heal. I can only do that through NC. My D is also saying things about W and OM that I don't like. It's time we all just stepped back and let them get on with their sitch.

Sometimes it is just waiting it out and you have not wanted to do that.....you have wanted to perform some sort of action.

It's not so much I wanted to perform some sort of action and couldn't wait it out. If I didn't have a D for example, there would be no contact anyway so it wouldn't be a problem. The problem IS the contact. It's also a case that I find the whole situation so difficult to deal with emotionally that I need NC to allow me to get space and detach.

I do agree that you need to detach, but be careful about some other things you are considering doing b/c it may cause you more hurt--than what you set out to do.

I'm not sure what you are referring to here.

I also am concerned that you seem to be planning on exposure to a very wide circle of family and friends. Exposure -- done properly -- should only be to a very tight-knit group of close About half a dozen people or so.

That's all I'm planning. Two of her friends personally and probably 2-3 people via email / phone. Nothing huge. I won't be emailing everybody in her Facebook friends. That's not my intention - close friends and extended family (their family is very close and I would only be contacting the closest ones).

reconciled. I don't think she believed me when I told her I only told 5 people (my brother, her close friend, our two adult children and a close friend of mine). Everyone else figured it out on their own, but I wouldn't lie to them when they asked.

That's the same here. Apart from my family, I have told maybe 3 people outside of it.

Effectively I can't continue to go through this each and every time she visits my D. It's too much for me to bear. That is why I have to do something immediately.

IF there was contact and we were talking about the house, the dog, the weather or something else then I wouldn't even be considering this. However as I do not hear from or see her apart from when she is due to visit D it's clear that she is not in the slightest bit interested in me, my family or what I do in my life. The contact is all about my D. Once that contact stops, there is nothing left to discuss. OM is here now. She doesn't need me.

If somebody else has other suggestions then I am open to trying anything.