Most men are "fixers." It's how we are wired for the most part I think. That's why, when confronted with a wife who suddenly wants out of the marriage, our first thoughts are to FIX the marriage.
And boy, can we be relentless.
How many roads will a man go down before finally admitting defeat and asking someone for directions? Ok, maybe not all of us (and isn't in great that we now have mapquest and garmins), but most of us will go through every conceivable approach to FIX something before ever giving up and trying another approach.
And that's often the kiss of death in these critical marriage issues.
Pursue, pursue, pursue, change, plead, promise, pursue some more, go dark but in a mean spirited punishing kind of way, then pursue a little more. Add a dash more of promises and pleading, along with a large dollop of trying to "teach" our wandering spouse the error of her ways...well, let's just say that the final result is rarely what any of us were looking for.
DB'ing IS in fact based upon saving marriages. But it's absolutely true that the premise behind the DB'ing strategies is to become once again the man that your wife once found sexy and attractive. DB'ing sends US on a journey to find the true MAN that we once were, but chose to sacrifice along the way to married life.
There are no guarantees in this stuff. Some of these marriages CAN be healed, and to be honest, some cannot. If your DB'ing skill was all that was required, I can think of some good friends on this board who would currently be reconciling instead of going through the final stages of divorce.
You can't DB with a fixers mindset. You have to DB with a mindset of a man who acknowledges that there are things in his life that have slipped. That he has become LESS than he always dreamed he would be. That kind of mindset is the one that leads to effective DB'ing - that is, in the sense that you will DB with results that empower and strengthen who YOU are.
How odd that often our wandering spouse is in the same boat that we find ourselves to be in post-bomb. Maybe there is a sliver of truth to their statement that things have been bad for some time and THEY knew it. Unfortunately, rather than look within, as DB'ing calls US to do, they looked AROUND themselves and tried to finger just what it was that made them unhappy. Somehow WE always seem to be on the other end of that finger.
Do it for you. Do it because it helps restore to YOU a purpose and pride in self that is empowering. And maybe, just maybe, the wheels will turn in such a way that your spouse notices and starts to wonder just what in the hell is going on.
Blessings,
Bill
"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
