All Comments on 'Plan B'

A lot of repetition. Like word for word repeating yourself. Also story just fizzled out at the end.

1 Star too much repetition, it failed to flow well.

I liked it a lot, and I liked that Susanna was an absolute ass throughout. Redemption stories are great, but sometimes it's good to see a narcissistic villain remain a narcissistic villain.

And it was a bit of fun for this non-Spanish-speaker to run the occasional phrases through translation. Sounds like his mother was quite a teacher.

Story is entirely unrelated to anything in real life, and not particularly interesting.

It's almost comforting to seethe LW readers come out of the woodwork to slam a story that doesn't meet their expecations. Watching them threaten the author with one star as they report on your perceived failings is a time honored LW tradition. Nonetheless, I feel I must break from that tradition and give you the full 5 stars for a very entertaining story. I certainly wasn't bothered by any repetition and enjoyed the ending. The good guys got better, the bad gal didn't. Oh my. Anyhow, that's my 5 cents.

4 or 5 stars? Gave 5 stars rating after some thought.

Well done. Great story. Thanks! 5!

Sorry, but this story is pure nonsense. It belongs in the category of "bullshit fairy tales".

The author wrote the narcissistic wife character perfectly. Was all the husband‘s fault; she never did understand it. The husband explained very clearly that he could no longer trust the wife with the kids and the kids were his top priority.

I went through almost this exact scenario, except I didn’t have to disappear. First wife gave up the kids when I gave her a lot of money. Excellent story five stars.

One has to love all of the "experts" that come out of the woodwork to praise or bash a story. Unfortunately it is usually more of the latter. As long as I have been on this site, I have never figured out why people bash the very thing that they can't do, which is write a story themselves! I accept the story at face value and I rate it according to if I enjoyed it and not because it isn't what I thought it should be. That all being said, a 5 star story is my vote!

I liked the story and most of the time the way it flowed. I was ready to give it 5 stars right up to the end. The vagueness of the ending and the abruptness didn’t sit well. 4 stars.

I have to agree with others here. It was a fine tale and very enjoyable until the end. The end was very vague and left both Suzanna’s stance and the FBI hanging in the breeze. Solid four. Thanks!

Original story.

Both parents are selfish.

In the end, it turns out to be one of the worst BTBs imaginable.

The disappearance of the children is a real ordeal for one parent.

Thoroughly enjoyed the story. I found myself reading it hearing a Spanish accent. Yes, like others said, there was repetition. BUT that was necessary. Susanna was stuck in her idea she did nothing wrong and was just scratching an itch. They had to try to continually point out their stance.

Little editing errors happen. I am guilty of many. No matter how many times you go over a story, you miss them. Congratulations on a well written story.

Confusing ending, what a witch she was…

Shrink this for me. A CASE COULD BE MADE THAT HE WAS NOT FULLY COMMITTED TO THE RELATIONSHIP, That been a caralyst for part of the difficulty.

This story reminds me of ‘Separate Vacations’; this guy has had a foot halfway out the door for far more than a year. One does not sock away ‘Plan Money’ and ‘Villa Money’ in a mere year of suspicion unless one is Jeff Bezos.

.

Sure he says that Plan A is for Suzanne (if she earns it) but wasn’t the time, the effort and hidden money ‘just a little something on the side for himself’?

.

This is not equivalent betrayals but his hands are not so pure white either.

.

Luckily, Suzanne is so darned dislikable so it is easy to overlook his ‘ready to leap out of the marriage in an instant’ stance.

.And yet in his ‘get out of Dodge’ kit, planned for ‘any’ disaster, his wife didn’t have a passport made for her? Perhaps a writing oversight or based on the last year.

.

Not a bad story. A nuanced one. The lack of closure on the FBI was telling. The last section raised more questions than it answered, except the mandatory ‘newer, younger, hotter’ girl for the MC.

Thanks for sharing...

Entertaining read, with a lot of repatriation.

Fantastic story BUT still the stupid Susanna believes she did no wrong Just like my three cheating ex wives No wonder I stay single (jaybee186)

Enjoyed it.

5 stars

Thanks for putting the ending where you did, saved me from reading the rest of a poorly written tedious story.

I agree with NegateGivity.

And all the Spanish?? What BS!

How about I write you a story chock full of some other language.

Спасибо ни за что! Enjoy ))

Someone should have explained to the traitor slut that the nuclear option would have been her death. Frankly, that would have been easier than running away and starting over. A man with his knowledge, resources, and contacts could have made it look like the lovers ran away together.

/

Or he could have kept them alive, and sold them into slavery. Or torture them in a warehouse for years. Use their social media and financial accounts to make it appear that they are traveling the world.

/

The slut is so arrogant, egotistical, and unimaginative. She also grossly misunderstands and underestimates her husband and his abilities. If she had the slightest clue what he could have done, she’d be on her knees, sobbing in gratitude for his mercy!

/

ZK

Ending lacked greatly. Very anticlimactic.

I think this story could have been a 5 for me, but you tanked the ending. I don't see how someone who went to therapy and lived with such guilt for 10 years could be so unrepentant about their actions to not even apologize once and still act like entirely the wronged party. If she was to be unrepentant, then her children should have scorned her and we'd have a true BTB ending. As it was, the fact that she's unrepentant and still allowed into their lives makes this a confusing sort of pseudo-reconciliation, the kind that is really unsatisfying to read at the end. I still rated it a 4, because everything but the ending was fine. I mean this, I truly would have been happy with either a remorseless BTB ending, or even an out of left field total reconciliation ending, or even a standard "everyone is sorry and moves on" type of ending. But it seems to me that you took pretty much the worst aspects of all of the standard fare, mixed them up together and shat it upon the final few paragraphs of your story.

And at the end he forgive and allow her to dance with strange mans .

That ruins story for me .

After the third page I was really bored. I liked the story line.

I must have missed some paragraphs but will someone please tell who is that mysterious, elegant woman dancing with Stephano/Allan at the end?

A two-page story that dragged on for five. Too long, repetitive, and boring.

Great story. Missing a major burn on "tennis guy". Initially I thought the burn on the wife was sufficient, but after her total lack of remorse and refusal to accept any responsibility, I think she deserved and major upgrade to the original burn.

Liberia is in Africa. You can’t drive from Liberia to Costa Rica, it is over 8000 miles away across the Atlantic.

👎

Liberia is in Africa. You can’t drive from Liberia to Costa Rica, it is over 8000 miles away across the Atlantic.

I loved it. I'm fascinated by languages so I especially enjoyed how the Spanish language was woven into the story as well as the obligatory delusional cheating wife, still in denial, still insisting that an affair which resulted in her losing all contact with her children for ten years was a 'harmless fling'. Comedy gold right there! Five shiners.

was good until the end then it just fell apart.....

I love this story. Susanna was and is completely self-centered. I’d like to see this picked as the best “Loving Wives” of the year. I know that won’t happen because so many readers are tied to one of two formulaic story lines. Either the cheating wife and her paramour(s) get burned and lose everything (sometimes ever their lives) or the husband loses everything in the divorce ending up in or near poverty or committing suicide. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sheer stupidity.

The record got stuck, repeat, rinse, repeat.

Good that he still had his dancing skills aged 88, or is saying he was 58 at the start of the story an error?

A 4 from me for a good effort.

Gave up 3/4 down page 1. Good fiction should flirt with the edge of reality, this thing flew right past that into the fantasy land of Mission Impossible

If I was the wife I would have told the kids to fuck of

I liked it but I think Suzanna was inconsistent as a character. She seemed entirely remorseful until she got to see them again then it was back to the old cheater thing of "it was just a little something on the side!"

Jesus Fucking Christ, this is definitely a cure for insomnia. I fell asleep a handful of times before page 3.

Less is more. If you don't have an editor, I suggest you find one. This, while a decent story, was 3 pages at the most. Too many unnecessary filler and details.

Long really well done story, staying as possible within the realm of fiction

Too much samey samey, was bored half way through, not good 1* at best

There's the foundation of a good story here, especially once the reader gets past some of the more extreme details. For example, he has a getaway bag that he apparently updates on a annual basis, including fairly fresh passports for the kids - he must spend a fair amount of time and effort keeping those running shoes under the bed clean and polished! The writing is fairly good, though as some have already mentioned it does get repetitious.

.

And as someone in the Bay Area who actually has and does work with C-Level execs at multi-billion dollar tech companies, as well as lots of graduates from the "local universities", your characterizations are cartoonish and highly inaccurate, and added nothing to the story. Your brush is so broad that they don't even carry it at Costco.

This was an interesting blending of high-tech contemporary mores with traditional lifestyles and principles.

Somehow, the best of both of these worlds was retained, which makes the eventual outcome, while refreshing and entertaining, somewhat doubtful in terms of its "realistic likelihood".

Changes in POV were not well communicated, causing momentary confusion until I realized (from the passage content not "fitting" the previous POV) that the narrative was now coming from a different character -- could have been better signaled in the text, possibly by including headings.

Still, quite unique -- and despite a rather abrupt ending into which an undeveloped new character was inserted, the story was well worth the reading!

Keep working at it, and please continue to bring us the good stories!

Great story

I wanted to like it. Sorry. MC is a POS for taking the kids away from mom. Cheating slut is a POS for obvious reasons. brother is a POS.

Did not score as I see the effort put forth and won't knock this down.

2 stars - I agree with the bullshit comments below, plus it was just a rather boring commentary.

Use some tags.

Good story. Ex wife learned nothing though. She felt entitled at the very end, but nobody cared or validated it. The law was no longer on her side. So she just sucked it. Everyone in the story said she had a weak character, and that plays out to the very end. She didn't date for those 10 years because she's sad, not because she's guilty. Was too bitter to say sorry to anyone. At least she's consistent, if nothing else.

One sentence ruined the entire story. Why would he call her "a silly woman" for dancing at a party? It made no sense. A statement about how she never apologised, was still blind to her actions against him, or never fit in at all with her family, yes, but silly. Especially since his wife/ lover pulled him to the dance floor immediately thereafter.

Good story with a terrible ending. The wife bemoans what she went through, never apologizes or seems to recognize she did anything wrong. Why would they want her around?

"She did the crime, she did the time." This is basically the author insulting readers' intelligence. Cheating is cheating, it's certainly very bad, but not a crime in any sane mindset outside the world of some delusional people in LW.

The only crime that happened in the story was the kidnapping, and the lawyer (!) brother not reporting to the police, once he knew of it. From my point of view as a father of three (now grown up) children, kidnapping of children is on par with child abuse, at least ethically. The MC should rot in prison for a long time.

I normally give 5 stars for any decent writing and just don't rate, if anything is not to my liking, but this has me offended so much I give it 1*.

"She did the crime, she did the time." - This is basically the author insulting the intelligence of the readers. Cheating is still cheating, certainly very bad, but not a crime in any sane mind outside the world of some delusional people in LW, be it readers or writers.

The only crime that happened in the story was the kidnapping, and maybe the lawyer (!) brother not reporting to the police, once he knew the facts. From my point of view as a father of 3 (now grown up) children, child abduction is on par with child abuse, at least ethically. The MC should rot in prison for a long time.

I usually either rate any decent writing with 5 stars or just don't rate at all, if I don't like the writing or the plot. While the writing is quite OK, the story offended me so much, I gave it 1*.

Fly into Liberia and drive to Costa Rica?? The writing is so-so, but this level of error renders it not worth digging through.

It was great.

Dear Chorizero, you might want to think again about the MC's personality. He trusts his wife completely, or so you tell us, but has plan B ready at virtually no notice. He immediately becomes a controlling monster dad, commiting a seious crime (child abduction) and shutting the children off from communication with their mother, aunts, uncle, other relatives, and friends. Since MC seems to be mentally stable, otherwise, I find this hard to swallow. 3*

Loved it. Absolutely loved it. Nice work. Thank you. Maybe I should have typed this in all caps...;)

I would hate to think I should be as suspicious as Alan was, but then I’ve been badly hurt by people I should have been better prepared for. Interesting tale. Susanna’s relentless narcissism and blame shifting, I’m sure, are all too common.

Whew... Susanna! What a narcissist twat.

A good fictional story. It cracks me up that people want to dissect it rather than just enjoy it. Guess that comes with the territory.

A little long but still good. But it missed the knock out punch line we were all wanting. The line from Diane or another TELLING Suzy loud and direct - 'she F'up, she was a CHEAT, she cannot be TRUSTED ever again' - and if she cannot see it then get out and do another 10yrs in time. She never did pull the kidnapping charges off the FBI books. Where was Suzy's olive branch?

/

One unforgivable LW MISS is 'her tennis-jock paramour paid no penalty for ruining a family'.

\

4.75***** Hooyah, Salutes...

I really found this story entertaining. Some of the time placement was a bit off-putting, but the base storyline was fresh and welcomed. Only "miss" was when the hidden family revealed themselves, there was a mention of contacting the FBI. yet nothing happened. I would have inserted a couple sentences where his brother talked Susanna into not contacting the FBI. I'm a softie at heart, and she did suffer significantly, so I would have preferred a more "heart warming" reunion. 4.4*

I enjoyed it. It would be nice if the woman at the end were identified

A nice attempt with some inconsistencies that hurt the flow. Please write another.

Hooked

porterr.....

Si yo fuera la esposa, les habría dicho a los niños que se jodieran.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

That you smoke?

Oh, the opportunities for a rich, talented, secretive fellow when he discovers he's a cuckold. As for the rest of us, time to get a gun, that's what I'm thinking. I did like this. After all, for all we know there may be many such fellows. D

Great story!!! 👏👏👏

Great story!

5

Sorry, but this story fell apart early and never recovered. With his job and the way you described him, having suspicions for a year without getting confirmation one way or the other is just not believable. The Plan B planning clearly took longer than he's been suspicious without suspecting anything, which doesn't make any sense either. You also didn't do yourself any favors with the timeline bouncing nor the 4th wall breaking.

OK, this was an interesting story. I could never write such characters as the hubs and his three kids. They are despicable characters. BTB or burn things to the ground, whatever, but stealing a woman's children like that ? No, it's a sick man who does those things...

Lighten up, that's just me. I would have dropped a "dime" to the Feds on 'Don Stefano' and been there when they brought him back in handcuffs. Also, none of them forgave the mother. Ha!

Enjoyed the story. Made me feel part of the action. Well developed characters.

Good story. A bit OTT. I’m not sure if they were divorced by the time she visited him. He just ran off. He called her his ex-wife. Did either initiate divorce proceedings?

I really enjoy the unusual framework you used to tell the story. It worked very well.

.

Gotta say I was surprised by how completely selfish Susanna turned out to be. Damn…even after 10 years…therapy….her sister trying hard…and then the confrontation with her family in Costa Rica…this utter narcissist still didn’t get it! Dios mio!

.

5 *****

Ridiculous. He would get tracked down quickly. They would get a search warrant for his lawyers office and find plan B, then go from there. She was a horrible person, but he was evil for what he did to his kids. They would not have just accepted it and adjusted like that. To think they would shows that you have no clue about the trauma that arises from separation from parents even as teens. Then when they find out where Alan was, they would arrest him. The statute of limitations wouldn’t apply because they charged him in absentia so that time period would be tolled

"She didn't just cheat on me, she cheated on all of us." - Yes! I hate stories where the father tries to protect the cheater's relationship with the kids.

\

Cliches! Cyber-security expert, off shore accounts, shell companies. Anybody can pull shit off with these resources, what would an ordinary guy do? And how can this go five pages?

\

Mexico to Liberia then a taxi to Costa Rica? Liberia is a country in Africa!

\

"metric dollars?"

\

"Why couldn't you just get a divorce like a normal man" -Julia told her why.

\

Costa Rica has an extradition treaty with the US, why didn't she turn him in to the Feds?

\

Was that woman at the end his "partner?"

\

There should have been translations for all the Spanish.

\

@beatman, I'm not usually in the beat down of Lover Boy. He never vowed fidelity. Unless he drugged or forced her her in some way, she could always say no.

\

Even her sister, who was on her side, was fed up with her.

\

@Rybaru, "crime" was used metaphorically.

You wrote, “Thanks to all who have commented on my previous work. I hope this one passes muster.”

If you are writing ‘BTB’ stories simply to collect ‘stars’ from the women haters and incels that infest this site, then you are pandering to the worst audience here. How well or poorly you write has no bearing on their judgment or rating of your work. All that matters to them is crushing women’s spirits, and for the worst of them, their bodies and lives as well.

You could carelessly scribble nonsense, and so long as a woman is ruined, they will approve, and do. Try to inject kindness and understanding, and they will hate you.

There’s your choice: to suck up to the mob or write with humanity.

The overcorrection by Alan is equivalent to healing a sprained ankle with amputation. It's a strange trend in LW that a wronged partner can do no wrong and it's way too obvious here when the author expects the readers to cheer for a father who kidnaps his children and buys their affection by moving them to Costa Rica. Sure the cheating is bad but after 10 years of no contact, the mother becomes a stranger at best or a world-class villain at worst. How can one explain the escape when so many marriages end in divorce because of cheating, she must have done something way worse and without contact, there is no way to confirm that so boys would grow up stewing in this hate. In their mind, she was the reason for their uprooting from home and lack of any extended family, not the cowardly father who escapes at first sight and spins the kidnapping as an adventure. And I don't buy that slippery slope fallacy of "You used that trust to hide your bad actions, who knows where that would have escalated to". I couldn't wait for Alan to lie or fail any of his promises just once so the children could abandon him for a few years.

And the reason for the lack of divorce is weird as well. The boys are 13 so within a year they could decide where they want to live and by the context, they would choose their father so again how does the wife win here?

The point that other commenters mention is that she never apologised. I believe that the equivalent of her understanding is that she was caught smoking weed but was sentenced as if she was Pablo Escobar. Why would she beg for forgiveness from Judge Alan - judge, jury and executioner?

I don't like Susanna but I was cheering for her more than for her self-proclaimed saint husband.

By the end, I hated every single character involved, the husband most of all.

Que buena chinga le arrimaron a la puta. Good story, Estrella is a real pistol.

This was nicely done. Sad that the wife showed so little evidence of personal growth upon reunion with her children after a decade apart. Would suspect the children had little interest in growing closer as long as she remained lost in her denial and anger. The author chose to leave the evolution of their relationships up to the imagination of the reader. It was good to see the husband had found love again. At first, it seemed possible that husband and wife had reconciled, but the husband's discussion with his long time friend negated that possibility.

Good story about a truly extreme response to betrayal. Well-written. But why would you leave out the name of Don Stefano’s second wife?

Probably should have been written entirely in your native language. At least one culture might understand your story. The whore wife was completely unrepentant, and why should she be? You have to possess some ethics and self respect to experience guilt and embarrassment for your failings. The whore is a sociopathic narcissist, and played her role without flaw. She should have been sent back to the states and left there to rot in her own hubris. The supposed forgiveness and reconciliation made no sense at all. Maybe so in Spanish?

A very enjoyable story, well done!

It was just a bit disappointing that even after a decade where Susanna basically turned into a recluse, she still refused to accept any responsibility for her affair destroying the marriage.

A stronger ending would have been Don Stefano finally having the confrontation with her, and Susanna trying to claim that the affair didn't mean anything. Her husband should have made it very clear that after she cheated, he never would've forgiven her.

Susanna had been hiding behind those delusions for years. It would have been satisfying to have them smashed, so the self-centred slut could was finally forced to take some accountability for her actions.

Several gaffes here, but you lost me when you wanted to take a taxi from Liberia to Costa Rica. A trans-Atlantic taxi?

The story is a bit redundant, it could be trimmed a bit. You also tend to shift between the third and first person narrative and it can be awkward.

One thing not explained in the story, the MC is still a fugitive and with the ex being such a bitch the FBI could get him extradited, the statute of limitations wouldn't have run out.

One issue, at the start of the story he is 58, by the end of the story he is 58+10+18, which is 86. If he had been in his early 40s, it might have worked, but an 86 year old is not gonna be dancing with some hot woman.

Another quibble is the idea that Allen would have ended up in a crappy apartment never seeing the kids, that is a tired old trope along with seeing the kids every other weekend. With her income level there would be no alimony, and child support given her income would not be that huge given his salary. They world have shared custody and he easily could buy a house nearby.

For those complaining about Liberia, the story is talking about a city in Costa Rica, not the African country.

Overall an ok yarn. I don't quite understand why they maintain a relationship with the ex wife,when she is still saying cheating was something for her, despite all her babbling she can't recognize how selfish that was and how much she ignored her kids.

Liberia is a city in Costa Rica, 100 air miles northwest of San Jose (also a city in Costa Rica). You can fly to either city on Alaska Airlines. Advice to ranting commentators: engage Google before putting mouth in gear.

And all this time, I was wondering how you could fly to Liberia and then take a taxi to Costa Rica. Excellent story, even though the tennis pro may still be walking around upright. I'll let that slide. 8 stars, because I can. I'm old, I can't count, and I pay extra for the privilege. The Bear liked it. She didn't get near enough grief for her self-centered, narcissistic actions and attitude. Tough shit, lady. And I use the term loosely. Thanks for the geography lesson, A...Bierce.

The BEAR

Lots of words with no real story. How many times do we have to hear about plan B. Just explain and move the story

What the Bear said Can only go 5 stars!

An interesting premise, once you get past some of the more absurd premises and assumptions (none of the kids ever tried to reach out to mom? the money couldn't be tracked? etc.?) and the writing was . . . generally okay, I guess.

.

The author got it wrong it who he portrayed as the villain, though. It's not the wife. The husband never committed to the marriage, as evidenced by his having a Plan B in the first place, especially one which took a great deal of time, effort and expense. And his gross, nuclear over-reaction was simply monstrous. Despite the author's efforts to paint him as a good guy, he's just that - a monster.

.

Yeah, she's a cheater and deeply flawed but she's better off without him. Once he and the kids deign to reach out to her, she should burn him to the ground - bring in the FBI for spousal kidnapping, and doubtless they will find much more (false documents, money laundering, on and on). IANAL but I suspect that the kidnapping, at least, doesn't have a statute of limitations (don't know about the others, or when the clock would start) and the US and Costa Rica have an extradition treaty. Speaking of lawyers, the Bar Association would certainly be very interested in an officer of the court (i.e. the brother) having knowledge of an FBI target's location for years, and never disclosing it. Burn them all.

Everything right about this kind of story ... everything wrong about this kind of story ... plan A-B-C take your pick. Life doesn't care it just moves along. Interesting choices for an interesting story.

Costa Rica airport is still referred to by some as Liberia, although it has a new name. The way you wrote though gave the impression you were referring to the country which, as someone else already commented is in Africa. Long, wet cab ride.

Nice story. Escaping with the kids to Costa Rica .Liberia has a main airport a 2 hr drive to the west coast. It’s hot all year round .90+degress . Good food some beautiful home s along the coast. The people are dirt poor. The cost of living is less for Americans. Nice parrots and monkeys and other native animals. Now a fugitive and I do not know if Costa Rica extradites Americans. But being a cyber tech he could have handled a divorce at home. Hidden his assets and worked under a different name. She mad a decent living so he still would be liable for some child support.. he still would have been better off at home with the kids and their friends here.

.

To all the posters minimizing adultery, I can only presume that you are cheating whores.

/

The only thing worse than adultery is murder. A cheating wife may not be a Cartel Kingpin, but she’s not just Billy smoking dope in the basement, either!

/

As for the people upset about the “kidnapping”, that’s the number one thing that the MC did right. The traitor slut was corrupt, and unrepentant. He had a responsibility as a father to protect his children from anyone who would influence them negatively. The main thing he did wrong was to allow her to connect with them, even if it was after they were adults.

/

10 years later, she’s still unrepentant. They should’ve fed her to the sharks or the jungle animals!

/

ZK

Great Story. Couldn't stop reading. Thank You for your work.

What a hateful person the husband was. Entitled beyond belief.

Four stars. The story dragged too much, and there were inconsistencies. Also, I didn't agree with the death of a thousand cuts he laid on his wife. Not to mention that there was no way he was going to live in a shoe ox apartment if they had divorced, also no alimony because of her big bucks earnings. The writing was competent, but again the story dragged. Just not enough to go three stars.

JPB NOT BOB

Hmmm you left out the part where Alan became President of Costa Rica and won the Nobel prize best escape plan. This story to me was just the author telling us how smart he is repetitively. Not interesting no action. Most of Alan’s part of the story is him sitting telling how smart his plan is. Zzzzzzzzzzzz