See, I contend that where most of us miss the boat is that we should be BOTH "more loving" AND "tougher/firmer boundaries" in our approach. That the best way to end an affair and get a wayward spouse to come back to us is to BOTH shine a light back toward the marriage, to "be the better choice," but ALSO to let them know that we won't wait forever, we won't tolerate them carrying on the affair right in front of our noses, etc.
I spend a lot of time advocating my own position, but I thought it would be best to ask everyone "Now that you know what you know, what might you have done differently?"
I think this board is a gift. I think we each bring different skillsets, different philosophies, and different gifts to the table. Some of us are Encouragers, some of us are Advisors, and some are Tough Lovers. And I think it's a shame that sometimes some of those voices get squelched, because everyone has so much to offer.
That's the macro view. The micro view is that I also have this hypothesis that if some of the "firm boundaries" things that I advocate are to work, they have to be done VERY EARLY. That the longer the affair gets entrenched, the harder it is to then enforce the boundaries.
So what I'm trying to explore here, is that while we all (me too!) spend a lot of time advocating either the "patient" approach or the "tough love" approach, that -- really -- BOTH are needed, simultaneously. Not an easy thing to pull off, especially when your entire world's been ripped apart, and maybe we're conflict-avoiders by nature. But I do think that's where I see people having the most success.
DBing is not a passive approach. I think sometimes it gets PORTRAYED that way on these boards, but it's really not. It's a patient approach, but not a passive one. It's all about working on yourself, making yourself the better choice, and then decided EACH OF US FOR OURSELVES what we can tolerate and for how long. With that in mind, we stake out our boundaries and we set about enforcing them, and we grow in the process.
That's really it. Pretty much common sense, and nothing real earth-shattering, but that's what I was trying to explore.
