Good point. I am leaning towards sending it - just to make sure she knows I didn't just ask for D out of the blue but as a response to her asking me to wait 6 months. Here's the text (with blame hopefully removed), which is kind of like a Plan B letter. I know I should have just sent this rather than agree to D - even when I wait 24 hrs I react too soon. Anyway, this is my attempt to make sure things are in context:
Mrs Lodo,
I am writing to make sure you realize why I've agreed with you to divorce. First, please understand that this is not something I want. It is time, however, for me to let our relationship go. Your request for me to wait 6 months while you tried a relationship with OM passed the boundaries of my moral and ethical principles and I just can't participate in that kind of behavior.
I apologize to you for my part in creating an unhealthy marriage environment that helped make your attraction to OM possible. I foolishly neglected you and failed to encourage basic relationship activities like spending time together, helping each other with daily tasks, participating in new experiences, and being intimate. I was not there when you needed me most and now we are both suffering for my mistake.
It had been my hope that we could work out our problems in what I consider a healthy manner - by being willing to share and then address them in order to reach understanding and not carry them with us into the future. I've had a hard time understanding why you seem unwilling to do this.
I am willing to avoid the mistakes I've made in the past and work hard to create a new life for both of us that meets both our needs, realizing that you have limited time and energy. I want us to be able to rebuild our marriage some day, changing and growing it into something new. I want us to be able to ask for and meet each other's needs and to avoid hurting each other. I want to be your best friend and trust that you will be mine. I married you out of love and have felt that love radiated back. It is possible for that love to be recaptured. But I cannot work towards that until you end your relationship with OM, though I recognize he is a symptom and not a cause of our marriage problems. Since you have refused to do this, and you have transgressed my basic ethical and moral boundaries, I agree to your stated desire for a divorce, though that is not what I want.
I'm confused and hurt by what has transpired over the past month, as I know you are. I think I need some space so won’t be calling or talking to you unless necessary. I will be civil, cordial, and will treat you with respect during the upcoming months and perhaps in the future we will be able to truly be friends.
Love Lodo
I know this could be greatly improved and would appreciate any feedback.
Okay, now that I've slept on it, GF is very right. I don't have anything to gain by making her feel confronted. She knows what she asked me and she knows why I would respond the way I did - that given the choice between waiting for her affair to end or D, I choose D. Up to now I've told her we can work on things if she's open to it, so she knows that I feel that is possible. I don't need to repeat any of this stuff unless she asks.
If she wants to do something, that's when I can tell her I need space. I just need to stop reacting to thoughts of her and what she's doing. I need to focus on what I'm doing.
I know she's confused and conflicted, but she's also really acting like this is an exit affair and there's nothing I can do about that. She has to choose our M, at least to some degree, for any of my changes to be noticed.
Just an update. W called this AM and wanted to talk. I stopped by to see her and she was pretty steely. Started talking about mediation.
I asked if it was what she really wanted. She said she had told me what she wanted and I didn't find that acceptable. I said that was true because her request passed my ethical and moral boundaries. She said not to condemn her. Then she said regardless it'd be 6 months before things were final - that was kind of rubbing things in!
More talk, pretty cerebral. I said I needed time to let go and she said she understood. Then she said that she didn't see a future with me and after I had said we should go forward with a D, she'd felt relieved and good. So I told her we should go ahead and proceed then. But that I still needed a little time before starting. She asked if I preferred she not contact me, but since she only wanted to call about household stuff, I said that was okay.
Feel pretty sh*tty, but am coming to terms with the state of things. It's hard because I look at other people's sitches on this board and it makes me really want to have hope. But my W is so shut down that I think I'm just beating myself up by thinking I'm not DBing good enough. I need to concentrate more on myself and let go completely.
You talk morals and ethics and she doesn't want to be condemmed for openly having an affair and asking you to wait 6 months so she can see if it will work out for her? She's so wrapped up in her emotional adrenalin with om it just drips off of her.
Here's a shock and awe 180. Tell her she gets 6 months with om and you get a concuring 6 months with however many whoevers you can be with too. Then she drops om and goes NC with him and gives you the next 6 months. See if she has any clue how silly that sounds!
Sorry I don't have anything constructive to say. You're a good guy that has done your best.
Live your life while you are still living. Riding the trail less traveled.
So does this mean you are not sending the letter? I think it's an excellent letter. And I believe it is better to say things that you are feeling rather than leave them unsaid. It is the unspoken stuff that leads to misunderstnadings. I think you make a very reasonable case in the letter and it explains your behaviors very well. I think you should send the letter.
No, Sara, I'm not sending the letter. It was good for me to write it, but as Puppy likes to say, you can't teach an infidel. I was getting ready to send it when I realized that I knew exactly what her reaction would be as she opened it and read it. Nothing would sink in and she'd just feel annoyed, or worse, nothing at all.
No, I think the best advice is what many people on these boards say but is so hard to truly accept. You have to let the other person go completely - no games, no manipulation. Just focus on yourself and your own life to be the best that you truly can be. Make yourself happy. If your spouse still has the remainder of some feelings for you, maybe those embers will be fanned back into flames. But sometimes your spouse has changed - had changed a while ago without saying anything to you or working to involve you in those changes. Sometimes your spouse is just on their own journey and they're selfish. So when they say the M is dead, it is.
That's where I think my W is, anyway. And to a certain extent she's right. Our M was dead. I should D myself from that M. If I regain my positivity and somewhere down the line she is attracted once again by that, well, it'd be up to her to regain my attraction. But my task now is to make sure I'm really reclaiming my life.
Just updating. Had a bad night last night but felt better this AM. Made a L appointment. W wants to do D ourselves but I'd like to get an opinion. Also went and got ref books to start preparing myself. She wants to start figuring this all out in 2 weeks.
After me asking for space and time, W has already started the sleeve-tugging. I know it's just her way of saying, "still friends, right?" but it still surprises me. She forwarded me an email from her best friend - not sure why. Then this AM emailed saying she got new music and thought I might like some of it. I responded cordially so I wouldn't come off as an ass, but left it at that.
Anyway, started making more GAL plans for weekend/next week.
