MLC spouse projecting their negativity onto the BS

[TimeHeals]

So, I go back to my original question. Could something like this really wake her up?

I don't like the terms "fog", "wake her/him up", and so on.

It sort of invalidates everything they are thinking and feeling.

Now, I do understand what we LBSs sometimes do this: we've done our own cost-benefit/risk assesment analysis, and we've come to the conclusion that starting over with somebody new poses its own problems, and that no matter who we wind up with, things are going to get to a point where it takes real work to make the marriage work sometimes. To us, this is REAL.

To the WAS, what they are feeling, thinking, and so on is very real too. Sometimes it's as simple as thinking "life is too short to spend it with somebody you don't love and may never love again".

Does that make them "wrong"? Would you be happy living with them if they openly resented living with you because they wanted to feel like they loved you? I doubt it.

If you think about it as a different kind of cost-benefit analysis--one where they think the cost is living a life they don't want with somebody who they don't feel they love with little chance that anything they do or try will change that--one that focuses very much on past negatives and present happiness, then I think it is more clear where the WAS is coming from.

They aren't asleep, they aren't in a fog. At some point, they looked at the marriage, saw no joy in it, looked back with a negative view on a past of resentment, and they felt real regret about it all, so they are dealing regret, resentment, and misery the best way they know how. The ARE trying to be strong too.

What they think is REAL. What they feel is REAL. It's as REAL as what you think and feel.