1. Don't give her reassurance as in "I've changed. I won’t be controlling, I won't do this/that, etc." The very effort of saying these things gives her reassurance that you haven't changed. 2. Don't tell her that you love her 3. Let go of wishful thinking, if you need to pray to God to make yourself feel better, go ahead but he isn't making a personal house call just for you, he'll let you figure this out on your own. Instead of assuming how she feels and trying to guess what's in her head, stop, just observe reality, that will be your guide, reality doesn't lie, it is what it is, don't fight it, just accept it. 4. No more arguing, reasoning, trying to talk her into feeling different. Just agree with her feelings and her decision to leave (that's where the packing came in) 5. Don't recruit others (family/friends) to side with you and make her feel guilty, never works, usually achieves the opposite. 6. Don't act depressed - you sound like you have this one figured out already, appear happy, awesome, excellent. Acting depressed, angry, sad would actually increase her motivation to get away from you. You actually have to be happy that she is going, I know it sounds weird but that's the mindset you have to have. 7. Don't use kids to guilt her, this is the same as #5 above, you guys don't have kids but others reading this thread will benefit from some of this info so I included it anyway. 8. Don't blame her for leaving or pressure her to say with you, those are negatively charged actions, they achieve the opposite of what you're trying to achieve. 9. Don't be pessimistic, be OPTIMISTIC about your life, life is great, life is precious, life is short, don't waste it, just be awesome. Read #6, it's related and worth a repeat. Just remember you can become addicted to your own pessimism, in a weird sadistic way you can be addicted to self-pity. We can get addicted to negative feelings and thoughts like this, "I can't win in this situation, you don't know my spouse, they're very stubborn and will never change their mind, nothing I've tried works and I've tried everything."... when I read this on these forums I feel like asking "Monsieur would you like some cheese to go with your WHINE!" 10. Stop exaggerating the importance of what's happening here, human beings tend to exaggerate everything, it's human nature, we want to inflate the value of any given topic, good or bad. ex. "This situation is horrible, I don't know how I'm going to live without my spouse, I feel like I'm dying!"
So we've covered the basics of what you won't be doing from now on. Like I said before you seem to have a good handle on this thus far, you have a good positive attitude and you need to maintain that.
