@Kettricken: Something driving them that they probably don't even understand. Do we really have to find an acceptable label to assume good will on their part, that they're doing their best with the cards they were dealt, or that they dealt themselves? Assume that. What does it cost? Because all that really matters is their execution.
But you see my friend, I'm not "assum[ing] good will" or that STBXMRSSP is "doing [her] best." That's not what I -- and, I think, @hoosiermama -- am getting at.
For me it's about getting around the self-directed critique -- okay, old boy, hang on, it's not you... that sort of thing.
I've written extensively here about my concern that DB'ing, especially in the early stages, trends toward self-abnegation and -- though it's an extreme and not completely apt comparison -- a kind of ritualized self-abuse: Figure out what you did wrong; figure out where you were lacking; figure out why s/he left you; what's your problem; be the (wo)man only a fool would leave (because you're obviously not now); make changes to you (and what do those changes inevitably entail? Body image changes, self-image changes, attempted personality changes, etc. -- the cessation of the "you" being the "you." [Which begs the question how long those changes last post-D, but that's another forum on another website]).
