Drew, I know what you're saying but aren't we changing in order to make our W's change? And isn't that change a response?
It appears that we are in deinial of the goal and that goal IS to ultimately get a response. maybe I'm fighting the system here. Not trying to fight but also want to be realistic.
I understand the concept of GAL and 180. That to me prepares you in the event your S leaves or has left. It helps make YOU feel better. But we are all looking for a response. I positive one.
M: 42 - W: 41 - M: 18 - T: 23 - D:16 S:14 EA - July 2010 NC w/EA - Nov 2010 Piecing - Jan 2011 I ask for div - Jan 2012 Div papers filed - Mar 2012 I move out - July 2012 Divorce final - Nov 7, 2012
I think there's a subtle difference that is the key to all of DB.
If we change to get a response from our spouse, subconsciously it comes off as insincere and the WAS can smell it a mile away. Also, if it does get a positive response the LBS is more likely to go back to old bad habits. It becomes a tactic, not a true change.
Only when we truly look inside ourselves, wrestle our demons to the ground, and change FOR US, does any of this have a chance of working, and working long term.
Just my opinion.
Everybody hurts. It's part of life. Don't miss the good stuff.
Your logic seems so right on. It's what just about any person would be thinking in the face of a marital crisis.
The approach talked about on this site and in the MWD books is therefore MAJOR counterintuitive. And yet, even MWD admits that we are all hoping to save our marriages. Just turns out that the way to save our marriages is to truly save and recover the men that our wives once fell in love with.
How many people make a new years resolution to lose weight each year? And what percentage of those people fail? And why do they fail?
Permanent changes in our life is motivated by something we finally recognize needs changed in us. Not because someone says so. Not because we want to catch the eye of someone. But because deep inside of us we have looked in the mirror and been dissatisfied with what we found there.
No one is suggesting the two motivations cannot coincide. In fact I would suggest that the DB approach for the most part is based upon the belief that our spouse loved who we were once, and that they could fall in love with us again if we could just get some of the crap out of our lives.
But do you want to be here again in another ten years?
I sure don't.
I realized all the junk with my ex was nothing that I could control. I realized that I was a fundamentally good man, husband, and father, but that I had become lazy, selfish, and unloving as the years went by and life got complicated.
Wether I got her back or not, I had to refind the man that I once was. I had to reclaim the passions that had defined me once in the past. I had to begin finding joy in situations insted of inconvenience.
My changes did not win my ex back. But they did win ME back. And my life is damned happy right now.
Don't get shortsighted on your goals here. If you do, you are missing a golden opportunity.
Blessings,
Bill
"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
