Never thought I'd be here........

[Accuray]

I do tend to see her words as final.

W: "We are done and there is nothing you can say or do to make me reconsider -- I've moved on"

Me: "So there is no chance of reconciliation?"

W: "No, don't even try"

...another conversation

Me: "I want you to be happy"

W: "I don't give a f%#@ what you want!"

Now we're back together and doing very well overall. At the time, I heard all that as final.

Regarding giving strategies time - here is a question. So right now I am LRT/dim. Let's say I keep that up for 3-4 weeks and see nothing back? What then? They don't call it last resort for nothing - I would figure there is no place to go after that. And since I am thinking that it is going to take MONTHS to melt some of the ice that is engulfing my W right now I think if I set a 3 week timer for results right now I am kidding myself.

The point is not to see results in 3 weeks, you will likely see no change. The point is to allow time to pass, and to give yourself a break without feeling like you're giving up or doing nothing. Instead of wrestling with pursuit, deconstructing what she's doing etc., what you are "doing" is waiting 3 weeks before you change anything.

It's like a form of self-hypnosis -- what I'm doing is waiting and working on me. I don't expect to assess where I stand with my W hourly or daily, I'm going to do it in 3 weeks.

Then, when 3 weeks comes, you decide what to do again. You may set another 3 week check-in goal. You may decide that was too long and go 2 weeks, it may be too short and you're going to go a month. You may set a timeline where if the LRT isn't working, you're going to do something else.

The point is to help with your anxiety -- space out the periods when you concentrate on your situation with intensity. Give yourself a break in between.

One of the many, many books I read was "Mindful Loving". If you can make it through that and absorb it I applaud you, it's a stretch. One of the things I DID take from it is the value of "surrender". The idea is to surrender to things that are outside of your control, realize they are out of your control, and therefore stop worrying about them because there is nothing you can do. It's an attitude about things that takes practice, but once you can figure it out, it really helps.

Accuray