Hi -sorry for repeating post but I put it in he wrong place..First Time!

Hello, I have been searching many sites regarding infidelity and looking for help in general and this site seems to answer what I need. A brief history: I am married for 31 years with two grown sons, one of whom is getting married in 2 weeks. I thought my husband and I had a typical marriage - no big problems except that a few months ago, he began acting not himself - short-tempered and cold. I believe that my husband reached middle age with problems of his own mortality firstof all. He has been retired for 10 years because of injured knees (not severe, but severe enough to stop working as an active civil servant) I on the other hand began working 9 years ago as a teacher. We also have a vacation home about 2 hours away from our residence and my husband became a member on the board of directors at the vacation home. What began as our retreat in effect became his "job" and on weekends - he was there without me although I spent summers and week-long school holidays there with him. Long story short - after a few months of grumpiness - he left for a golf week with buddies and never really returned. I knew something was bothering him and tried to discuss it the last night he was here -saying: only one more month till school is over (and my college classes would be finally finished towards my masters degree) and I would be up the country with him for the whole summer to reconnect. This was met mostly with silence and I went to bed with hurt feelings. Next day he left for golf without waking me. I sent off an email with heartfelt words and to my complete shock received a cold and quite impersonal email back saying that he wanted a divorce - loved me but wasn't "in love" with me blah blah blah...... I couldn't believe it and called him immediately to be met with a stranger. Two days later I went up to our vacation home and surprised him having barbeque with te OW and her two small children on my patio....He acted guilty....since that time he has been at vacation home and I have been at our home with our two sons. I have pieced together quite a bit of incriminating evidence - although not solid proof - but I'm sure he's having an affair and his own friends told me so also although they did not see her - he spoke of her coming to be with him for 3 days after the golf outing was over. Of course I have done everything wrong - writing emails and talking to him face to face on a few occasions trying to reason with him etc. I also ignored family and friends advice to back off. I realized that I needed to stop and sent an email that I would no longer talk to him about finances because he wanted to pay past bills and didn't want to divide some savings equally. Now I see that I need to stop talking about EVERYTHING - My problem is our son's wedding in 2 weeks - He is going and so am I and both of our families will be in attendance as well as friends of both of us. What should I do to keep my son happy at his own wedding? I wasn't planning on sitting with H - but should I completely ignore him? I thought this occasion might show him what he's giving up?
I'm confused now after reading advice on here. Also if there is no contact how do we go about the legal separation that he is so all-fired on doing after the wedding....I don't want a divorce and I am willing to do anything to work on repairing our marriage but he says no. He also will not admit to having an affair - he says he goes out for fun with a lot of people!
I have already called family and friends and recently sent an email to the head of the vacation community to inform him about the affair and how much I want our marriage to work out...but I also asked him not to tell my H that I let him know that I told him and I didn't mention anything about him talking to him. Most of h's friends did try to talk to him but said he will not listen - that he just won't and tells them he has given this much thought and that he just wasn't happy. Any thoughts on the above? I know it's long but it's such a relief to think I might get some input and some hope. Thanks or reading.

Hi Susan!
Sorry - saw your post on the other thread this morning and planned to write and suggest you move it over, but I ran out of time - by the time I remembered again you were already here. :-)
Anyway welcome! And I'm so sorry for what has brought you here. I won't offer any advice as I don't know what to say, but I just wanted say hello and welcome.
It does sound like you need a different approach - I'll leave it up to the folks here to suggest what that is. Re: the wedding - have you spoken to your son about it? Or do your kids not know?
All the best
Mags

Hey Susan I saw your post on the other board and responded there. I'll repost here.

~~~~

Hi Susan! Welcome to SYMC. Sorry I didn't see this sooner. I'm going to reply here and hope you see it. And then ...we're going to move you to the actual Infidelity board so you get more traffic.

So. Does your sons know about the affair? I think that might be a place to start in deciding what to do about the wedding.

In general my advice is to get your hair and nails done, buy a dress that looks utterly delicious on you, and be spectacular. Don't be cold toward him and don't engage either. Pretend he's some obscure relative of the bride. Sparkle and flutter and enjoy all your other guests. Put a shield up between you and him --- one that works one way so he can't help but see you but that you are unaffected by his presence.

Under no circumstances whatsoever are you to engage in any in depth conversation with him. If he tries to initiate it just smile brightly, look distracted, touch him on the arm, and let him know you are needed somewhere else .... right now. Flutter and sparkle. Got that?

Then after the wedding we need to get you into Protection Phase and we need to make sure your finances are protected.

Alrighty - I hope you find your way back here. I'll keep an eye out for you!

P

Hi Penny and Mags, Thanks and Penny I am planning to do just what you said! Yesterday I sent him the very last email saying that I can't have any more contact with him with the exception of the rehearsal dinner and wedding reception and that is for my son and his fiance. Lord knows I need protection - not only have I been rebuffed (mainly through his ignoring mostly everything I say) but now that I have openly acknowledged that I know about the OW and so do his family and friends, he is becoming sneakily aggressive regarding paying bills and sharing spending money until school starts again and I start getting my own paycheck. I don't know if I did the no contact letter properly. I started out by telling him exactly how I felt in a firm but concerned way. The told him I would no longer be comfortable speaking with or seeing him as long as he was involved with the OW. I may have ruined it at the point by saying that since this was possibly to be the last time I would be speaking/writing to him directly, I let him know some things thatI felt I needed to. I thanked him for all his love, care and concern over the years,I thanked him for our sons, and so on - other personal events in our 35 years of knowing each other. Then I said I was sorry that there may have been things that I had done that made him unhappy and that I was sorry that he didn't love me anymore and I ended by saying I was sorry that he didn't want to try to work on our marriage. I also told him that I was feeling better - that I needed to do the no contact for my own well being and I told him some thoughts I had on us, our apparantly different values and that I had no guilt because I had tried my best to convince him to work on our problem. O also said that although my efforts failed, I didn't fell that I failed him but that he had failed himself. I was pretty eloquent and in control of my thoughts and words. I don't know though, I was trying to find that little chink in his armor - I'll admit it. I may just have given him more guilty feelings to run back to OW. It's so hard to know how to do this.......

For now, practice fluttery sparkly stuff. P provides excellent advice, but I'm going to take it one step further. Don't just look spectacular, BE spectacular. The best advice I got at my wedding was to be relaxed and happy and take it all in. It worked wonderfully well -- and the tiara was a pretty good touch, too! (Ok, ok, you don't have to wear a tiara, but I hope the bride will be!)

But do wear jewelry that makes you feel fabulous. Do wear those really nifty shoes. And do treat him politely -- as P says, a distant relative of the bride. So, perhaps you're the Queen of England and he's the third son of the Emperor of Japan, hmm? Something along those lines. Absolutely worthy of respect, but not someone you know very well, or have very much in common with.

And yes, please do practice being blond. ("Oh, dear, I'm so sorry. I just recalled that I said I would help the flower girl put all the plastic swans into a bag....")

I'm practicing my fluttery, sparkly!! LOL
I've been brousing some of the posts and I have a question about something. I think I am starting to understand about PP. I know I need it.... but there was a menton about the "fog" and I wonder - if I withdraw contact and learn to adjust and get happy again with myself that will be great. I wonder about the WS though - he or she is in a new relationship with all the excitment etc. of being in love. What happens to their "fog" ?---in what way does the PP of the BS impact the WS? IN other words, I understand that trying to convince the WS to come home/save the marriage causes them to retreat further (I think I experienced that already maybe, or maybe he just was far gone anyway and anything I said or didn't say, made no difference to him)...

Actually, I know I'm in the fog because I don't know if I made any sense.... try again. How does PP work on the WS?

thanks for trying to understand me!!! Susan

Hi

Can I jump in here and ask a question that I have asked elsewhere but am still puzzled about? When a BS is in PP, which I realise is for the wellbeing of the BS, doesn't the non contact erode the bonds of the marital relationship? Why should noncontact help break the addiction of the affair but PP (which is also non contact) help preserve the marriage? Is it because affair is a chemical addiction and the marriage relationship is based on attachment?
Jules

Hi Jules: That seems like my question too. Anybody fill us in?

Okay.. ladies..

Here I come to save the day!!

a little explanation about PP

PP is a strategy to protect the hurting or betrayed spouse from the daily pain of the affair or destructive behavior, to protect the straying or offending spouse from the inevitable anger and backlash of the hurting spouse, and most of all to protect the marriage from further destruction due to continued contact by the spouses.

Basically.. this is what we call the marathon..

Many times all the pain that continued contact has is extremely wearing for the BS and in many cases THEY are the biggest threat to ending the marriage.

One of the things we hope will happen when you end all (and I mean ALL contact) with the WS is that the attachment chemicals that they had to you, to the marriage and the whole kitnkaboodle that your lives together has attached to it is triggered. They miss it! They miss you. Sometimes that is enough for them to raise their head above the fog and say "heyyyy.. wait a minute here.. what am I doing?? What am I walking away from? Have I lost my mind??

Sometimes though it is not enough. And so what happens is the WS does begin to live a life with the AP...and many times.. more often than you'd think... after time, and after that initial fog begins to lessen...well there are chinks in the armor. Cause no one is perfect. No relationship is either.

Sometimes they stay for whatever reason anyway.. and sometimes they realize that maybe it isn't so great... and the person I left somewhere out there.. hopefully still loves me enough to want me back.

In the meanwhile.. while they are out there in that nanafogland... you are here. Protected from their chaotic behavior. Able to heal from the deep wounds that the affair caused and maybe even grow and learn to be a better you.

So.. that in the event mr. wayward comes back knocking on the door...you are ready for him. And if he doesn't, you are ready to go out there into the big wide world and be a healthier, healed self.

I know it sounds like a long shot and I know it sounds COMPLETELY intuitively wrong. But it does work.

What we want you to do in PP is focus on you. Not on the WS's chaos.

Does that explain things a little better?

Loui

LouiE - you so rock.

To answer a bit more directly, yes. Protection Phase, over the very long term, will erode the strength of the attachment bonds between you and your spouse. If you're in Protection Phase for a year, you will be more strangers to each other than if you were not. If you're in Protection Phase for five years, well, there will still be an attachment. But you would have to get to know the person all over again -- and it's very likely in that time that you would become interested in someone or something else to the point where you would no longer want to reconcile.

That's why we call it a marathon. Continued contact is sprinter's way to destroy the marriage. It'll happen fast and like a train-wreck. The marathoner's way is to dismantle it piece by painful piece, resisting every step of the way. It's slow. There's many more opportunities for rebuilding. But without a profound shift somewhere along the way, the outcome is the same.

Oh and Susan..

one more thing... you should know.. usually PP is the last resort. Its when every other avenue has been tried and hasn't worked.

Thats why its so focused on you and your healing. Cause either way the relationship goes, either back to the marriage or not, you need healing. You need growth and you need relief from the chaos.

quote:

LouiE - you so rock.

oy.. I'm blushing

Loui

okay thanks again Loui - you can tell i'm new at this. What comes before PP? Is there somewhere I can read all the other steps?

Hi Susan - the best resource is to buy and download my ebook (link in my signature line). That has the most information all in one place with all the steps, the reasons and the timing for each.

Intervention Phase is what comes before Protection Phase. This is where you intervene in the affair and, if necessary, in the dynamics of the marriage that led to the affair. Let's talk about intervening in the affair first.

Some of those steps are:
Tell the people closest to you and your H and ask for their support and advocacy for your marriage,
Confront your spouse with what you know about the affair,
Confront the affair partner and ask him/her to do the right thing and remove themselves from your marriage,
If the affair partner is married tell his/her spouse,
Talk to your faith family / spiritual leader,
Avoid enabling the affair

Intervening in the marital dynamics leading to the affair is a bit trickier. Sometimes, maybe a lot of times, there's really not much to do here. The issues that would raise a red flag would be addictive acting out, abuse, infidelity on your part, or neglect to the point of abuse. The rest? Virtually impossible to address in a way that helps end the affair. Certainly you can make a sincere statement about your willingness to create a better marriage once the affair ends ... but once an affair is in the picture your efforts to improve the marriage are pretty much futile ... and have the potential to be counter-productive.

So - after you've done the confronting and exposing, addressed any serious contributions you've made to the detriment of the marriage then you get yourself into a nice cozy PP - with natural consequences for the WP - and you stay there.

P

Thanks so much Penny - that clears up a lot. One more question for you or for anyone that may have had a similar experience.. It's about confronting the OW. My husband has asked for the divorce, has removed himself to our vacation home where the OW works. He does not want to return home, work on the marriage and most important he refuses to admit his affair. Do I still send her an email? I think it will anger him to the point of hurting me as far as financial support goes... Should I wait until after the separation agreement? Not sure what to do - and feel pretty aprehensive writing her since I don't think she would comply in any way.BTW - I found her at the vacation house with my husband and her two children having a barbeque 3 days after he told me he wanted to divorce (which he explained as innocent) and she didnot act guilty in any way - I did not confront her at the time because I believed the story that he gave me (dumb, blind and not wanting to believe otherwise at the time) DUH

Are your financial arrangements in danger? Are you entitled to what you're asking for under the laws/guidelines of your state? If you are then I don't know that we need to worry about it. If the plan is that he's going to be more generous than your state guidelines then we might want to wait until that's settled.

You're right - she probably won't change what she's doing just because you confront her. That's not really the point of the exercise. What we want are two things: First - we want you to take back your power and your integrity and to stand up for what is right and real. You do that when you ask someone (politely) to remove themselves from your marriage. Second - we really do want both of them to be upset by your confrontation. Of course, you will not be taking calls or emails or texts or any other form of communication .. soooo .... who does that leave to have the ugly, ranting, conversation with?? Uh huh .... each other. Mmm hmmm .... now, instead of a candlelit dinner oohing and ahhing about how happy they are they can snip and snarl at each other. Truly - I don't care if the topic of the snipping and snarling is what an evil b**** Susan is .... it's still snipping and snarling. A bit of discontent in the fantasy bubble of an affair.

My advice to people is to make a list of the top five people your spouse would be the angriest about if you told ... and then make those people your priority. His anger tells you you've hit paydirt. Doesn't do much good if he says, "Pfft, so you told Uncle Waldo ... big deal. No skin off my nose." But if he's furious that you told Uncle Waldo -- heh -- then you know something's making him squirm.

Just make sure you are unavailable for the backlash. Not even for a tiny peep of it. We want it all to go right back to the AP.

Got it?

P

Woah Penny! that is soooo good. Now why didn't I think of that? I am so naive it is sad..... You are absolutely right! All his long-time friends know(but he has mostly cut off from them and they have already told me that they have given up trying to talk about it with him because he refuses to) and some people in the vacation community know too - I don't think they will say anything to him but gossip there is rampant. Now as far as the money goes I have a bit of a problem. We have not gone for a legal separation agreement yet. He is paying most of the mortgage on the house I am living in and also the car payment for the car I drive (both are in his name) My attorney says that I will do better with this separation agreement then I will with a divorce if I want to stay in my house. I do believe that once a separation agreement is signed, he needs to follow it. I will double check with her and I will wait until after my son's wedding for sure. After that I really would like to send OW the letter. There are several other people I can think of talking to that he sees in his daily life there. It's scary to know how far I can go before he tries to retaliate. When I told him that my new budget would allow for nothing but bills and necessities- he said then we have to sell the house. When I said yes, and the vacation house and all the other assets (mostly his) he got livid and said I was just trying to get back at him and he left in a huff. He has pretty much been able to convince himself that he is justified in everything he is doing (or is trying to) and that I am the one who is being unreasonable and thorn in his side!!!! It is so infuriating! All I wanted was to TRY to reconcile before getting a divorce. I thought that was the right thing to do..and I still do.
Susan

Penny - you are so patient! I have one more queston. I located the exposure letter and I was wondering if it should be used exactly as worded or if it should be personalized? If so, how much additional info should be in the letter? Thanks again from the bottom of my heart. I am going to download the e-book tonight~ Susan

Absolutely personalize it. Just make sure the pertinent points are in there and that you don't get too wordy. Feel free to post it here first and we'll be happy to review it for you.

I don't know what state you're in ... but many states are some form of community property -- which means all assets, regardless of who holds the title, are considered marital assets and that you are entitled to half. Be sure to talk to your atty about that. You should have a detailed list of every single asset - from life insurance and savings accounts to boats, homes, jewelry, stocks/bonds, etc. Your atty should have a checklist for you to reference.

P

okay. I've been thinking about what I would like to say to the other woman, but not sure of what might be more effective: 2 different approaches: What do you think?

Dear "OW"

I'm the woman who' husband you are involved with. We met on several occasions and chatted sociably. The last time I saw you I believed my husband when he said it was just a friendly and innocent get-together but in the past couple of months I have discovered that this is far from the truth. I have all the evidence I need to know that you are involved in a realtionship that has hurt our family deeply and I am asking you to end it now. I have notified your employer and other people that you know in your work that you are involved in an affair that has caused my husband to become unfaithful to me. I have asked for their support. I love my husband very much and want to to reconcile our marriage. I am asking you to end this affair so that we can try heal our pain and differences.


#2
Dear OW,

I wonder if you realize that you have destroyed a marriage of 31 years and helped to create chaos and great pain in a family that was in the midst of preparing for the joyous wedding of their oldest son? I see that you and your children are enjoying all the benefits of much of my love and hard work. My family's vacation home, our boats, our hard-earned finances, all of our other assets and most important of all, my husband and my son's father. You should be ashamed of yourself - what kind of person does that? I have the support of my entire family, most of my husband's family, our mutual friends and even some of the people that you work with and for. They all know what you have done and how much I love my husband and want to reconcile with him. I am strongly asking you to stop this affair before it is too late. We are not financially capable of supporting both households, so unfortunately what you have been enjoying will soon be no more because as you already know through your own experiences with divorce and separation, assets must be sold so that each partner can have their share. You will not reap the rewards that have captured your interest and greed. They will be gone and I have no doubt that when they are gone, so will you. Do not play with my husband's spirit and do not harm him emotionally. Just because he is separated from me doesnt' mean that I don't still care for him a great deal and I will protect him from you in any way I can.

Please let me know if I am on the right track and I'd be interested to know how other OW's reacted when they received letters from the BW.. Thanks Susan