Okay, as promised, here are the letters that i wrote telling H I wanted no contact until he ended his affair.
I took the text of this one almost word for word from Surviving Infidelity (Dr Harley). I copied this email to his girlfriend.
My dear H,
I am writing this letter to you as I told you on the phone yesterday.
I apologize to you for my part in the breakdown of our marriage that helped make your affair with ow possible. I foolishly allowed my insecurities to prevent me from building a solid marriage with you and did not understand that this left your most emotional needs unmet. I was too scared to allow you to have any power over me and this, added to your contributions in the breakdown of our marriage, has made us both suffer.
I am willing to avoid the mistakes that I've made in the past and create a new life for both of us that will meet your needs. But I cannot do that until you end your relationship with ow once and for all.
Until then, I will avoid seeing you or talking to you. I will also not be able to help you in any way. I will request our neighbours L and M to help make arrangements for you to visit D4 whenever you would like. But I will not be here or at their place when you visit. If you want to communicate about D4 or any other matter, it will have to be via your sister (whilst you are in Central Asia) or via L and M when you are here, or we can request your sister if she can continue to be the intermediary via e-mail.
I ask you to respect my decision to separate from you in this way. You must know about the suffering I have endured these past ten months because of your relationship with ow and I simply cannot be with you any longer knowing that you are with her. I still love you but I cannot you see you under these conditions.
As soon as you are willing to permanently separate from ow and are willing to follow the measures that are needed to ensure total separation from her, I will be willing to discuss our future together.
I want us to be able to rebuild our marriage some day. I want us to be able to meet each other's emotional needs and to avoid doing anything to hurt each other. We need to build a new lifestyle in which everything we do makes us both happy. Then there will never again be a reason for us to separate. I want to be your best friend, someone who is always there for you when you need me. And I want you to be my best friend.
I loved you when we married and I continue to love you right up to this day. I just cannot be with you or help you as long as you are seeing Toha.
With all my love Sophie
Ow: I love H with all my heart and am willing to do whatever it takes to make him happy.
H then wrote back but I did not receive it as I had blocked his email address. However he called, said he would do whatever I wanted and asked me to look at his sent items folder and asked me to respond.
His email:
Hi Sophie
Thanks for the letter. I appreciate this.
First of all, it seems to me that you are talking too much and it was not good that you are sending this letter to everyone. I told you that I had an affair but I was not serious and now I am not serious at all. I lost my interest and desire. The only interest I have left with is to drink and smoke. You are obsessed with all of this. Because of you I am staying in my sister's house, I am afraid to go out to the shop, because if you call and don't find me, you will make your assumptions. In any case, you should know that I am not interested in ow or anyone else. If you want I can write letter to her and say whatever you want. Though it will make me look stupid, because she realised that there is no future for us anyway and I only kept contact to make it easier on me. I AM NOT INTERESTED IN HER but that is fine, i don't care i will write any kind of letter you want. Just tell me what do you want in that letter!. If you want to get hold of me, these are my contacts:
Office 1: ***** Sister's mobile is with me: ***** office2: *****
And please, don't make unnecessary copies or blind copies of your emotional letters to everyone. I haven't told ow to marry me or what kind of problems we have in our marriage. Don't do this. It won't make you look good, and won't help you feel better.
Bye H
I did not want to respond to this letter as I had made my point of no contact but since he was asking me what I wanted in the letter i felt I had to respond. So here was my email:
Dear H
As you requested yesterday on the phone, I looked at your sent items folder and have pasted the letter you apparently tried to send to me. I have blocked your email addresses, so I dont receive any mail from these addresses, they are automatically deleted.
I am going to respond to your letter based on the points you raised (your comments are in a different colour).
First of all, it seems to me that you are talking too much and it was not good that you are sending this letter to everyone.
I sent the letter to everyone because there are too many secrets around and I feel that way forward is to have these secrets ended. As I told you before, in London, if you really want to be with ow, you should. There is no shame in ending a marriage; but there is a lot of shame in carrying on an affair secretly. To stop this shame, I decided to copy all the involved parties on the email.
I told you that I had an affair but I was not serious and now I am not serious at all. I lost my interest and desire. The only interest I have left with is to drink and smoke.
It is your prerogative if your only desire is to smoke and drink. My only desire is to protect myself and my family, that is, D4 and myself. My only interest is to make sure that she and I are now able to repair the damage that has been wrecked in our lives.
You are obsessed with all of this. Because of you I am staying in sister's house, I am afraid to go out to the shop, because if you call and don't find me, you will make your assumptions.
I have never stopped you from going to any place, be it to ow or to the shop or anywhere. If I wanted to control your movements, I would have come to CA with you in July. I told you then and I am telling you now, my desire is not to control your movements. I want to be able to have a husband I can trust.
As a very wise man said, "He who hides nothing, has nothing to hide". If you were to be open with me and get rid of all the lying, hiding, cheating and betraying, it would have repaired our marriage. The only reason someone would object to telling his wife about his movements is if he has something or someone to hide. My obsession with all of this is justified. You have continued to lie to me about ending your affair. If you were consistent with your actions, maybe, it would be easier to trust you. Trust is the foundation of any marriage. You have continually eroded that foundation and this time, you blasted it out of existence.
In any case, you should know that I am not interested in ow or anyone else. If you want I can write letter to her and say whatever you want. Though it will make me look stupid, because she realised that there is no future for us anyway and I only kept contact to make it easier on me. I AM NOT INTERESTED IN HER but that is fine, i don't care i will write any kind of letter you want. Just tell me what do you want in that letter!.
If you are not interested in ow, why did you keep contact to make it easier on you? If you are not interested in ow, why do you listen to her recorded voice at night? If you are not interested in her, why do you keep in touch with her?
I dont want you in my life simply because we are married. H, your attitude is that I should be grateful that you are giving your love up. You say that you are not interested in anything except drinking and smoking.
Well, if I put all the above three points together it seems to me that you are telling me that you are not interested in our marriage either. Smoking and drinking are the only things you are interested in. Well, H, I dont want a husband who is not interested in our family or who does not love me. I dont want you to write a letter just to keep me quiet.
H, I dont want anything from you. I am not interested in making your life miserable. I am not out to harm you or destroy your reputation or anything. I simply want to be able to get on with my life. If you want to be a part of my life because you love me then this is what you have to do:
provide me with clear evidence that your affair has ended provide me with continual transparency about your whereabouts and your doings prepare to work on our marriage seriously and consistently
H, for too long, you have treated our marriage as a free hotel - a place where you can park yourself when you want it and have your needs met without any payment being made. Well, H - the hotel is now closed. I am not interested in being used any more. But, the family will always welcome you.
If you want to get hold of me, these are my contacts
No, I do not want to get hold of you. If you decide that our marriage is what you want, then you have to do what I have already said. However, it will be hard work and I will expect you to give priority to our marriage. If, however, you decide that this marriage is not what you want, then I am ready to end it.
What I said in my other letter still stands: I do not want any contact with you until you decide to end all contact with ow. If you decide, instead, to end our marriage, then I still dont want any contact with you. All that is necessary to end the marriage can be done without direct contact. Since you have not sent a message via your sister about whether you want me to look for a hostel for you when you arrive back in London, I am assuming that you can handle all the arrangements yourself.
H, as I told you on the phone yesterday, it is very likely that my personal responsibilities are about to be increased significantly. I was told that I will find out for sure soon. Keeping this in mind, I have decided I am not interested in playing games. I know what I want my life to be and I am not afraid to do what it takes to make it. I am also not afraid of being alone.
I started out this letter by saying there is no shame in ending a marriage but there is a lot of shame in carrying on an affair secretly. The shame has to end. Either by ending the marriage or the affair. The choice is yours.
Lovingly, Sophie
I know the second letter leaves a lot to be desired - it is very different in tone from the first. I would be interested in comments on what did not come across well or what I could have written instead.
