One more thing that I wanted to add as I thought of it out loud during a prayer with the Big Guy:
Basically, it seems to me that everybody on this board starts this process as a "one-down" (i.e. the one who has less power in the M and puts much more emotional investment in it). We all come to this board declaring, "I want to do everything possible to get my S back because I NEED him/her!" So we research and try to put into practice all of the "tricks" and "manuevers" designed to draw them back to us. "Oh, okay, so I won't call her, and when she calls me, I won't call until the next day. Also, I'll try to act really distant from her and not try to engage in conversation when we do call. And then..." The list goes on. Perhaps these things DO work, but in blindly engaging in them without the right mindset, we lose the point of this process.
It seems to me that wise veteran DB-ers understand the TRUTH of the process and try to beat it into the newbies' heads without much success at first. Eventually, with time and practice, it does sink in. The goal of DB-ing is not "winning your S back"; it's winning YOURSELF back. You back off from your S and start living your own life, and in doing so, you begin to realize that you're a much more complete person without your S than you had previously thought possible. It is at that point that our S' begin to realize the totality of the person that they might just lose -- this person now free of the manacles that dependency and overcompliance ultimately serve to constrict and enslave. They begin to see the wholeness of the person that they were attracted to so many years ago, and they then realize just what they'll be missing if they keep walking away...
