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I posted this on my original message. I wanted to post it again to get more feedback. WS is already angry that I didn't think his first note was enough. After his second note I still feel like he isn't serious. Is it me being paranoid or is his letter really saying that he is being forced to do this.

Note 1 (on a post it)

OW,

Returning your gifts.

I'm working on my marriage

No more contacts.

WS

Note 2 (on another larger note pad)

OW,

I'm returning your gifts

What we did has hurt my marriage: I need to give my all to it.

There should be no more contacts.

WS

Every time we talk he says that he knows I am trying my best to communicate with him but he is devastated by my words. I think he is going to end the marriage because he doesn't like the way I communicate. That is why he had the affair in the first place, because I didn't validate him.

[This message edited by LearningToFly at 1:14 PM, April 27th (Saturday)]

Not assertive enough. How about...

I want nothing more to do with you. You are the biggest mistake of my life. All my focus in now on my wife. Do not contact me again. Do not reply to this message.

About the gifts - don't return em - burn em - or toss them in the trash where they belong. His willingness to destroy them will speak volumes.

The first one is bad and the second one is worse. It makes it sound like he doesn't really want to do it.

Btw - about communication...you can fix that in mc but you can't start mc until you are in R. So first things first...NC letter, NC maintained, complete transparency and then MC to work on communication.

My husband is NOT assertive. He is passive aggressive. I think his note is passive aggressive to me and sends her the message that his wife is bullying him and forcing him to write it.

If I could do it over I should have waited until we went back to counseling and brought up his inaction then. I wouldn't have been the bad guy bully. The counselor could have asked him why he didn't follow through.

Even in the emails we have sent back and forth, I write well thought out messages and he just answers back to what I say with Bold Caps within the letter. He isn't proactively communicating to me. He is just responding to my words and nothing more.

Tell him...write a NC letter that convinces me you are done...one that makes me feel safe to try again with you. Do you want to R with someone who can't convince you he wants to end the A?

Wait, he is telling you he had an affair after 28 years of marriage because he didn't like the way you communicated?

He couldn't have found some other way to tell you?

At some point in the prior TWENTY EIGHT YEARS?

That is blameshifting. Do not allow him to give you ownership of HIS affair.

And no, you are not wrong, that is a pathetic, spineless letter.

LTF - I just read your other thread...YOU MUST TELL THE OBS!!! He has a right to know...I know it's scary and uncomfortable but you need to blow the A wide open...

Dollars to doughnuts her abusive H comment is crap. My H didn't want me telling his OW's bf because he was a mixed martial arts fighter and would attack my H. I believed him - let's just say he confessed that was bull a couple of months ago...he just didn't want the drama - it self-destructed on its own weeks after Dday so there's nothing I need to do now...liars lie - and AP's rewrite their marriages ...tell him.

I feel like telling her to leave my husband alone just like a junior high school girl would. They re connected on FB after being girlfriend and boyfriend way back in high school. (Funny how she was just a girl he rode horses with for the past 30 years). Now she validates him and makes him feel accepted. i would love to throw caution to the wind and post on her Face Book page.

It really doesn't matter what she did to my marriage. My husband is the one who promised to love and to cherish and didn't do it. She has her own issues with her own husband. I can't hate her.

I will probably contact her husband. I just don't know how to tell him without hurting him. The pain I feel is devastating and I don't want to do that to someone else if they aren't ready for it. (Not that I was ready)

I wish someone had told me - and you tell OBS not for revenge but because it's actually a caring thing to do. Would you rather have never found out and just have the A continue in perpetuity with you none the wiser?

You also tell the OBS to out the affair - right now their luurrrve is all about glitter farting unicorns in la la land...apply enough pressure and the A often fizzles. Plus you will have 2 pairs of eyes watching their NC.

Don't contact ow - she will only be a source of pain. She will not feel badly and she will only add salt to your wounds (I learned that the hard way). Let her realize she has a comfy life to lose too. When you are ready to tell OBS, post again...wiser folks who have done it will give excellent advice about how to do it wisely AND compassionately.

Btw - how was he planning to return the gifts - by mail?

We went to marriage counseling Tuesday. WS has been going for IC about 8 months. He didn't tell the counselor about the affair, just that I am not following the communication rules the counselor gave us earlier during marriage counseling.

He has been working on honesty with the counselor yet didn't tell him about the affair. Irony. He told the OW that he wanted to be a more honest person for her. I have been begging him to be honest with me for years. Most of our problems are based on his dishonesty. He says one thing but does what he really wants to do. Then he gets mad because I get angry with him.

Anyway. Yes. The counselor told him to write the letter. I brought up the pictures she sent him and he said he would send those back too. The counselor encouraged me to write a letter to be sent along with my husbands. I wrote the letter that evening. WS "didn't have time" and is angry when I complained about that last night.

I know that it would not be fair for the OWs spouse to not know. He deserves to know why she has disconnected from him. I read an email about them being in marriage counseling. I really think she is just as mixed up as my husband. How can they judge their marriages when they have been putting all their efforts into an affair for a year and a half? Its so unfair.

My WS and OW are hundreds of miles apart. They have met up twice and tried to meet up a few other times. Its mostly emotional. What hurts is that he kept telling me that he isn't capable of being emotional. He is still saying that about me and him. But, he can be with her.

Excuse me??? WHAT FUCKING GIFTS did she give hijm that YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT???

I can relate to this, and you are absolutely right to let him know that it just isn't enough.

My husband's NC email said Dear AP, we can't be in contact anymore. Sorry this is so sudden. Take care.

This was before I found SI or even knew to ask him to go NC, so it isn't like I had any say in it; but it has always bothered me that it sounded so much like it wasn't his choice to end things.

She gave him an Angel Christmas card with no writing on it. She also gave him a 4th grade school picture and a highschool picture from when they "dated" each other.

In all our years of marriage he never told me he dated her, just that she was a friend way back in high school. Either they are rewriting history or my husband has just never been open with me from the beginning. Both are probably true.

As far as other gifts. I know she raved about his valentines day gift. I don't think it cost a lot. I think he recorded himself singing her love songs. Its funny that he says he doesn't have her address or phone number. Maybe he just sang to her over the internet.

After he told me it was over, they met up to say "good-bye." He gave her a love poem he wrote about how he had never loved like this, she was his soulmate, if they couldn't be together it was a "waste of love". It included memory after memory that they had talked about from their dating times and since then during their affair. How can my husband think that I am going to get over this?

Last month, after he told me that the affair was over, he drove down to a southern city. She was visiting with her husband. I was asleep and she left her husband and went for a walk. He picked her up and they drove to the beach. They walked, talked, exchanged gifts, and he kissed her. It hurts that after telling me he was done, he took things to a deeper physical level even if it was just a kiss. I know that kiss was packed with emotion and it really hurts. He also poured his heart out while writing that poem when he could have been pouring his heart into making up with me.

After they met up, they continued to send friendly emails on the account he thought I had the password for. They mislead me. They had a secret account to really communicate. I discovered this when he sent a copy of the poem to it.

I asked him today for a break. We still live in the same house and have been doing everything as usual. Except for emailing me to tell me that he knows I have always tried to communicate but he cant' deal with the way I do, we haven't had contact. His email spoke in the past tense. I think his decision to work through this has disappeared after less than 2 weeks. I guess I'm just not worth much to him.

Hopeful,

Did he ever come around?

His need for external validation shows a weakness of character, and makes him prone to infidelities.

Very telling.

From what you've shared here, I don't think you have the whole story yet. And no, I don't think you're wrong to feel that NC note is wimpy & pathetic.

I'm sorry you're going through this after 28 years of marriage!

When I first read the NC note you posted, I tried to put myself in the OW's shoes. It's a habit I have, trying to put myself in another's place to gauge how they might feel. I think if I was the OW, I would feel slighted that he could so abruptly end it all with just a few words, like I wasn't worth an explanation or anything. Then I thought I would try to convince myself that he only wrote that because his wife wanted him to. Yet, if that was the case--he did as his wife wanted him to, which would mean that she was more important to him than I ever was. I would be mad and upset.

HOWEVER, I DO understand what you mean. When I put myself in your place, well, after 28 years of marriage and after him saying that he doesn't like the way you communicate, he ends it with her without expressing love for his wife? I would want to see words that he ruined his life by having an affair with her, that he cherishes his wife above anyone else, and that he never WANTS contact with her again.

One thing that confuses me is this: He told you he doesn't like the way you communicate, yet he communicates with you in bold all-caps? And he communicated his NC with her in so few words? Does he want you to communicate to him in very few words? If the answer to that question is no, then why doesn't he communicate with you better?

If you both want to R, I personally see nothing wrong with MC now. Ordinarily, I would say not to because the two of you don't seem to be in R already, but in this case, with communication being such a problem, it might be best. You might gain more of an understanding as to what you both want and expect from each other in MC, and then go from there. 28 years is a long time.

Edited To Add: As to the other betrayed spouse, I would tell him gently and with proof. He has a right to know, and he has a right to know that it isn't your imagination, thus the reason for the proof. I would do this in person, if possible.

I also want to add that the story about going to such lengths to see each other and then share only one kiss sounds like a fairy tale. I agree with the other poster that there was more to it than that.

[This message edited by stillhere09 at 10:04 PM, April 27th (Saturday)]

This is how I see the note.

He wrote only what he was told to by our counselor and got angry with me when I pointed out that it said nothing about his love for me.

The first line is fine. I am a scrapbooker so I can understand returning the pictures.

The second line bothers me because I have read their emails to each other and he told her he wanted to work on our marriage until the end of the year so that he could leave with a good conscience knowing that he had given it his all. Her response was that she would look forward to seeing him again in December. So I think she may read it that way. I do.

The third line is not strong enough. He told her that he "needed" to tell her that he "needed" to stop already in an email. When they said good-bye it was not final. He gave her a poem telling her she was his soul mate and that if they were never to be together again it would be a "waste of love." Saying no contacts FOREVER is too final for him and I know it. He knows it too. I believe thats why he used the word should. We all know that "should" means what is expected. It doesn't mean that is what is wanted or what will happen.

[This message edited by LearningToFly at 3:07 AM, April 29th (Monday)]