Okay, totally random musing and general over-all snarkiness lest @hoosiermama and I degenerate into an epistemological debate.
Oh, wait, we've already done that!
This is all just mental exercise, calisthenics, a way of teasing and playing with ideas that is not specific to anyone's situation. The purpose of theorizing is simply to elucidate general patterns -- not "explain" a specific case.
So well and good. I still think the basic theoretical insights are on-target:
1) There exists some tipping point beyond which further DB'ing is increasingly pointless (diminishing marginal returns); the emotional-psychological investment is simply good money after bad and delays the inevitable (as BMCFriend's divorced elderly mother said to me, "Don't wait too long, SP, the way I did; the only person who winds up suffering is yourself").
Where is that tipping point? Situationally specific, but a dollar will get you a donut that, if you look yourself dead in the eyes in the mirror and willingly and honestly abandon all the airy-fairy PeachesandHerbdom, and confront the Brutal Reality, you already know you're there when you're there. So the question is: Can you sack-up and pull the trigger?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick
2a) The fundamental attribution error is not controlled for in DB'ing -- cannot be controlled for.
Walkaway updates her/his beliefs constantly in reaction to Left-Behind's DB'ing, so what "worked" today has, all else being equal, a lower probability of "working" tomorrow.
Thus Left-Behind is always strictly behind the curve. This is why MWD's invocation for avoiding "status-checking" is so brilliant -- it's all "posterior probability" (in other words, the only status you're able to observe is that which worked yesterday -- means nothing for today).
2b) DB'ing is in some sense predicated upon Left-Behind accepting a disproportionate share of the blame ("what did you do to make your marriage hit the rocks?" asked @JonF).
There is some non-zero probability that, in fact, Left-Behind did little or nothing empirically, but that Walkaway's perceptions were otherwise. But it's not fair to blame Left-Behind for Walkaway's perceptions -- maybe Walkaway is just an a**hole.
Given the fundamental attribution error, those perceptions point fingers at Left-Behind rather than some unknown set of other factors that might explain the behavior to which Walkaway objects (dispositional rather than situational explanations [i.e., we tut-tut when we see a parent scolding a child in public though we know nothing about what preceded our observation]). "Nuts, I feel unhappy. I'm doing okay at work. The roof isn't leaking. I'm caught up on all my Oprahs on TiVo. I just got a new pair of Tory Burch shoes. It must be him!"
3) There is no "one" Reality in a divorce situation; there are multiple and overlapping realities, just as there are multiple and overlapping marriages within the Marriage.
There's the newlywed marriage and the oldywed marriage; the "gosh-it-used-be-so-easy" marriage and the "where-did-we-go-wrong" marriage and the "I-love-you-but-I'm-not-in-love-with-you" marriage and the "please-don't-go" marriage and the Limboland-holding-pattern-waiting-for-the-paperwork-to-clear marriage.....
And those marriages wax and wane with perception and situation; when the intra-divorce relations are good (WAW and I are getting along, say), we look back fondly-if-ruefully ("gosh, wasn't it swell when we were young?").
But when the intra-divorce relations are bad (WAW brings the Batsh*t-Crazy, for example), we look back far less fondly ("what the hell happened to that crazy b*tch? Jeez I can't get out of here fast enough!").
Which is true? Both. Neither. All of the above. So whaddayado? Pick one and hold on for the ride, knowing that there is a non-zero (and probably quite high) probability that you've picked the wrong one.
Maddening, isn't it?
----------------------------- So the bottom line is, as @Greek and @PearlHarbor and @Gypsy and so many others have pointed out here there 'n' ever-where, there is no "trick"! There's no recipe, no instruction manual, no magic bullet.
Every day into the divorce process, Left-Behind changes her/his beliefs about the marriage; in many cases (I'm surely guilty of this), for a long time in Left-Behind's process the marriage magically gets better and better the sadder and sadder Left-Behind gets.
You see it around page 3 or 4 of the newbie threads -- "Oh, Lordy, She Was the Greatest Thing Evah -- Not Even Pre-Sliced Velveeta Could Compete! I'd Drink Her Daddy's Bathwater Just To Have Her Come Home!"
But Newbie knows, in his heart of hearts, it just ain't so, and 2 or 3 weeks after she came home, and the bloom was off the rose, he'd be right back where he began.
Why? Because he's trying to determine the "facts" of his situation -- "what did you do to f*ck up?" -- but there are no facts, merely fleeting impressions, processed in another person's brain. As Nietzsche said, there are no facts -- only interpretations.
Sure, there are behavioral patterns that can be more-or-less successful within the context of the M, but if we believe that people are basically people, Dumb-Ass Man Syndrome can't possibly be a new phenomenon.
Yet divorce is on the rise (or so we are told)!
So why didn't DAMS produce more divorce in the past?
Either there are more Dumb-Asses than ever or....Walkaway Herself [with all due respect to @aliveandkicking's occasional bursts of gender-based indignity] no longer has to put up with DAMS. Because she can get a divorce.
So maybe DAMS isn't the problem, after all -- maybe it's just a constant. Maybe men are just dumb-asses, full-stop. As the early 20th-century journalist Helen Rowland once said, "A woman need only know one man well in order to understand all men; a man might know all women but not understand one of them."
So "fixing" it is really sort of beside the point. Maybe what's in play here is that, In Days Of Yore, divorce had Opportunity Costs and today it doesn't.
Wellllll, you can't beat City Hall. Thus the clarion call -- "focus on yourself." But focusing on the self is so scary -- what if s/he goes away while I'm looking at me?
And what if the Earth spins off of its axis and flies into the sun or the Cubs win the World Series (which would more-or-less be the same thing)?
Nuttin' you can do about it! So quit worrying!
Perhaps a better question -- or at least a more honest one -- for S/He Who Would Embark Upon The Grail Quest that is divorce-busting -- is this:
"What did Walkaway do in the marriage to make you do what you did to make Walkaway walk-away -- and do you want more of it?"
Are we really expected to believe that Mr. or Mrs. Left-Behind simply became...cold, unavailable, irresponsible, unsupportive, granted-taking, etc. etc. etc. for no reason? Out of spite or malice? Or worse -- out of indifference?
Isn't it possible that Left-Behind's behavioral choices / "failures" are causally related to Walkaway's Marital Self? That the problem IS IN FACT Walkaway?
I mean, if we're looking for root causes here, why are we blaming the person who's getting screwed? That's Leibniz, right? Nothing happens without a reason.
Self-improvement is a noble ambition, but it ought really to be undertaken for its benefits for the self, not out of some sense that it will ameliorate for past, presumptive "wrongs."
It's Marital Jeopardy. "Divorce-Busting for $400, please, Alex." Answer: You didn't tidy up the house. "Umm, why did Walkaway walk, Alex?" *Ding*!
So the DB Rx is: "Do a 180, dude, and clean the house."
But we've GOT to be honest with ourselves and go on to the Double-Jeopardy round. "Divorce-Busting for $800." Answer: Every time you picked up a feather duster she said you were doing it wrong. "Umm, why did I stop tidying up the house?" *Ding*!
--------------------- So I say, Blame the Walkaway! Don't exonerate yourself, but don't do what I did and create Limited Edition Highly Collectible DB Walkaway, so kind and sweet and loving and special and blecchhhhhhh, that you make yourself feel rotten at having "lost" a person who in fact never really existed.
At least be honest with yourself about your own lack of satisfaction and your own hurts and your own grievances -- give yourself a break, because you have a right to own that, just as you have an obligation to own your responsibility, your HALF. But while you're owning, don't re-torture yourself and say, "I wish s/he'd only, I wish that..." Hey -- if wishes were horses, even beggars would ride.
She didn't. He didn't. And you tolerated it -- I TOLERATED IT -- for umpty-ump days/weeks/months/years. So if you want to point fingers at yourself, point them for that. You put up with it. And now the chickens have come home to roost and I/you/we feel....what? At the end of the day, maybe we feel guilty for having done what we thought we were supposed to do -- go along to get along.
Look at the recent posts in my Main Man @Thinker's house -- Mrs. Thinker seems to think that marriage and marital love are "supposed" to be synonymous with the first tingly flush of infatuation. Mrs. SP Herself whipped out a similar notion just last night: "I always thought that if people were meant to be together, they'd be together."
Gaak! Aaak! Maybe that's the problem! At least some Walkaways expect marriage to mean that their problems are gone.
I know WAW did -- she said as much with Fabulous MC#2 -- "I'm shocked to learn that SP was dissatisfied in our marriage. I guess he's just angry that I pulled the divorce trigger first, since he thought there were problems."
Aaak! Gaak! Maybe that's the problem! Life is full of problems! Get out of Fantasy Land!
As the psychiatrist "Ted" Rubin put it, "The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem."
Be a grown-up -- work the problem.
But instead, Fantasy collides with Reality -- and because we are oh-so-fallible, we humans, we work desperately hard to preserve our perception, our dearly held belief, that THE FANTASY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE "TRUE REALITY": Aaagh! There are problems in our marriage! I'm unhappy! Walkaway! Walkaway!
Well bullsh*t! I can't help it that you had stupid preconceived notions about marriage, and that you've been evaluating everything that's happened in light of them!
So if I were feeling unsympathetic for the devil, for example, I might say, "Hey WAW -- maybe if you'd boned me more than once or twice a year I wouldn't have become emotionally unavailable, and then we wouldn't have had a 'problem.'"
But I wouldn't do that, now, would I?
It wouldn't be Friendy-like.
------------------- Well. That was fun -- but exhausting. I do like these mental calisthenics from time-to-time, masturbatory/masochistic as they are.
Basically I just like to look at things from every possible side until I'm paralyzed by indecision. And then let the mojo make the decisions. And torture you guys along the way. But hopefully you get some entertainment value-for-dollar, even if it's only the head-shaking-that's-one-weird-mo-fo-of-a-Smiley's-Person kind.
Calvin: I'm a genius, but I'm a misunderstood genius. Hobbes: What's misunderstood about you? Calvin: Nobody thinks I'm a genius. (Apologies to Bill Watterson)
