Those are great points, things I had not considered. Delivering an ultimatum when your spouse has emotionally detached from you does seem like a futile gesture and gift wrapping them for the OP...
How do you communicate that you respect & love yourself when you continue to allow someone to disrespect you.
Grow a spine and start to stand up for yourself. It’s impossible to truly love yourself & draw self esteem from within if you are letting people walk all over you. Every time you let someone treat you badly your self esteem drops just a little bit and you communicate to them that will continue to put up with poor treatment because you don't believe you deserve any better.
Gift wrapping your spouse to the OP... no wrapping required, they are already with the OP, it's not a gift that you have to give.
Tolerating poor treatment of yourself by others will always communicate that you love them more than you love yourself and that it's ok to treat you badly. You also communicate that you can be controlled.
"..I love you very much, you are on a pedestal where I put you so that you are way above my level and I will always be looking up at you, worshipping you. I will continue to love you while you hurt me by being with the OP."
Sounds to me like that would work.... NOT!
You will never get respect from others when you allow them to continually treat you poorly. Setting boundaries is essential to any loving relationship, without boundaries people will continue to push there way over you to see how far they can push you, too see how much they can treat you poorly - I fail to see what good can be accomplished by allowing this to happen. If you have children, is this what you will communicate to them when they are in similar situations?
You can not get love from your spouse without respect from your spouse. Both are required for either to exist.
It's not my rule, that's just how it is.
If you are truly willing to do anything to get your marriages back on track, do what works. Your spouses need to trust you, part of rebuilding that trust means respecting yourself enough to let go of the people that hurt you and don't value you or the relationship they're in with you. If they respect you, they can trust you and it would allow them to love you.
It's not attractive to your spouse that you don't respect or love yourself, the OP's that they're with command more love & respect from your spouses than you do - once you can see that, you can see why they're with them and not with you.
