flowmom | shifting from devastated to rebuilding

[flowmom]

IMO, DBing becomes effective and successful when you STOP acting thinking how your H will react to you.

Isn't part of DBing based on making changes and carefully monitoring the spouse's behaviour to see if the changes are working? That's what I'm understanding from the book and from the DB coach's advice.

Ironically, the minute you stop shaping your life around him and his reactions, is usually the minute he takes steps to you. I cant stress this enough and I wish you and others could take my word for it.

I am not shaping my life around H, except for working around his schedule to facilitate sharing child care. It's more my thoughts that I'm struggling with. And I know that I need to GAL and control my thoughts...I totally get that. I think I'm actually doing OK with GAL...that's the feedback that I'm getting from my IRL support network.

The same goes for dating, if you do it "for" him, it wont work.

I wouldn't do that. I think I'm actually unintentionally reverting back to the first stage of our R, where we spent 2 years in a long-distance non-monogamous R before committing. At that time, dating and having flings was part of how I protected myself and maintained my dignity while H dealt with grieving and needing to get his yayas out. It wasn't about revenge or "tit for tat", but more about deciding to make lemonade about the lemon that life had handed me. And I guess I'm in the mood to make lemonade again. But there's a lot more at stake now, and I realize that I just can't afford any messiness in my sitch. Making lemonade might not be a good choice for me right now.

Thanks for taking the time to help me. Believe me when I say that I take everyone's input to heart, whether or not it's obvious.