Minkerman: Soothing the skittish spouse!

[houndfan]

Since I was brought into this sitch through my defense lesson I will share the logic for you Mink:

Me hopes you are a football fan....

When playing offense you always know where you are going right? The play is designed to work a certain way based on some accepted conditions. If those conditions are different you still know what you are doing and where you are going because you have practiced the contingencies. So for our spouses they "know" what they are doing they are leaving us for whatever reason. Me thinks that the reasons in all of these sitches are very similar which I think is scary!

Anyhow, they "know" what they are doing and act accordingly. In your case W "knows" she wants out but you are slowly changing the conditions and she is trying to audible out of the primary and work on secondary contingencies. Problem is she has not contingencies to fall back on so she jumps back and forth on the plan. She's with you - then against you - she's close then distant she has no game plan.

You however, can have a gameplan that offers piece of mind and "control" regardless of her actions. Defense is the name of the game... she can only respond a limited number of ways to any given stimuli. Some will tell you that the responses are infinite, but I have really strong feelings about the fact that there are limited responses and I have gone so far as to suggest that there are only 3 types of responses with multiple sub-catagories (that is another lesson).

So here is how it is done...

1) Determine the down and distance: in every interaction what could be the forseeable goal for each party?

2) What can you do to prepare yourself for every possible decision that she will make based on D&D? In the example above you have played it perfectly by knowing the D&D is her chameleon effect and knowing that she will likely pull back afer an intimate evening.

3) Act upon the probable outcomes of her decision. Again, I am certain that there are really only three main responses to any stimuli:
A) Acceptance and concurrence
B) Anger and rejection
C) Ambivilence

So for each offensive move plan for your reponse based on the knowledge that one of the above will occur. If you have a plan for each you will be less stressed and more able to make sound decisions that will not prohibit your DB progress or direction.

I know where you are right now! I was so there and it is confusing, but if you eliminate the stressors for yourself and help lessen those for your W you will be better in the long run!

Good luck!