Mark, I'm not from Pro from Dover here, so disregard everything I think, but since talk (type) is cheap, here it is -- don't give up.
That's what everyone tells me over at my place.
And the other thing it took a couple wacks across the skull to get visibility on -- DB'ing is not about reconciliation. It is about self-renewal. Self-renewal is a necessary pre-condition to reconciliation.
On the dark business, I asked my DB Coach about this, and she agreed that it is not a good strategy for those of us like you and me who were "dark" in the marriage. So forget about that lot.
The only way to give her unconditional love and respect is to do it. Not to DB-her into reconciliation. Because that's a condition, isn't it?
I was never one for self-help books, but there being no atheists in foxholes -- and on this I will cite no less an authority than the grouchiest old most Heathen-centric, CofE-hating, former Para I know who, when caught in a cross-fire in Londonderry in Days of Yore, found himself much to his surprise Lord's Praying his arse off -- I've been reading my fair share of them. Most I find pretty obvious, but I have to admit I'm rather keen on this Five Love Languages Men's Edition by Gary Chapman ....
.. sorry, I popped off a bit there. Just checked on Amazon UK and it's available at 7 pounds 99 -- http://tinyurl.com/cv9nxm ...
...anyway, I'm keen on this 5LL book. It was, to use a much-overused term, an eye-opener. I understood -- actually understood, as opposed to simply agreeing with the text -- how I'd gone wrong.
Have a look at it. And don't give up. How about we make a trans-Atlantic bargain? If you don't give up, I won't give up, and we'll be DB mates? What do you say?
