DB'ing is soooo hard!

[25yearsmlc]

I'm having a DB crisis and looking for input:

I am really doubting that DB'ing works.

you are NOT DBing for long or consistently...the previous post was nearly all about how your expectations and hopes were dashed and how hurt you were by your perceptions of her (mind reading) and your hurt feelings.

NO detachment work done. Constantly expecting...that is NOT DBing

the things you let slide in front of the boys and his girlfriend were minor but that's all I saw.

So it's not that DBing isn't working (though there are no guarantees that it'll get your w back, it DOES get you back)

it's that you are not working the DB program. Sorry but that's it to me.

Plus your wife is so messed up, you keep making this about YOU and how SHE feels...ABOUT YOU...

GAL Rick...for real.

I mean, you examine yourself and see where you contributed to the M problems, you decide to learn from it and become a better person. You GAL and detach. You give the WAS time and quiet support. That's what the LBS does.


how have YOU done this^^^^ for more than 3 days in a row? What are your GAL activities meeting other people?



What does the WAS spouse do? It seems to me that they want time and understanding.


Don't know. ^^^Don't CARE!!!! WON'T MIND READ---NOT OUR PROBLEM!!!!


During this time, everything becomes about them, all conversation is one sided, you get no affection, no consideration for your daily life or how you might be feeling. You get to watch your WAS put all their efforts into a life without you, you get to be exposed to their EA and/or PA. You get discarded, shat on constantly,

you have a choice Rick. You can leave. You can see yourself totally as a victim, despite the feigned attempt at "owning" your part in this (what about that??)


Or you can man up and DO the work without so much self pity! It's YOUR work I am worried about b/c you are the one here.

She is on the fence. Where are YOU?


and you have to perfectly understand their needs and walk on eggshells but they can say and do anything without any sense of the selfishness of it.


what are YOU talking about Rick? Who told you this? It's NOT DBing...that is doormat.

Don't confuse the two. You can and should speak up when it helps your cause. Show self respect and some DISCIPLINE AND SELF CONTROL...


You try to understand where they are and help create an environment for them to heal and they could care less about yours.


(meaning, "could NOT care less"?)

Again with the mind reading. If you actually DO DETACH, you won't spend ANY time guessing what they feel or think. It won't matter.

You hear endless revisionistic versions of your life with them, that always paint you in a dark light.

WHICH YOU CAN/SHOULD RESPOND TO...

either say 1) "wow, I don't recall it that way at all, but I'm sorry if you were hurt"...

OR

2) if there is some truth to what they say and you want to show change, you say

"Yes w, I see that and if I had it to do all over again, there are a lot of things I'd do differently."

Neither response escalates, neither response is doormat silence and both show change or the potential for it, on YOUR end...

AND btw, she's not the only one revising your marital history by a long shot.


You support your family without their help and in fact in spite of it. You do your best to empathize, you provide encouragement where you can, and you get nothing in return. They refuse to work on the R at all, while you will do anything to better it.


Rick, enough. How long have you been at this?

As for your "support" of your family and HER revision of the marriage, you'd think you had no part in the problems?

To hear you tell it, You would think you never created any dissension IN the family?

You seem to believe that a month or two of you claiming to be different,

"entitles" you to a complete turn around from her, and I guess amnesia from your w about the past several years in which you treated her pretty roughly.

You are revising things in a self serving way b/c you first felt guilt, which you converted into defensive anger, and now you want, what? Pity? Some retribution?? What's your goal here?

If it is to vent...okay, you vented...but


Is this thinking pattern helping you or your cause?

I see a pattern in your past AND in your present. Do you? ( I do)


Yeah, I'm bitchin about this. I'm typing this at the dining room table while my wife is upstairs on the phone with the OM.

Somebody tell me, help me out. How can DB'ing work at all? I feel like I'm just enabling my W to be more self centered, more able to have her cake and eat it to.

I'll respond to THIS^^^ in a little while.


When you are tearing yourself apart in self evaluation, working so honestly to improve, and provising support and you have so much pain from your S, how does this work?


YOU BECOME A BETTER MAN;, THAT'S HOW...and why doesn't that count for much with you? If you were tearing yourself apart in self evaluation and rebuilding, you'd have plenty of work to do. You would be too busy to play these mind reading games and guess work about what SHE is or might be thinking or doing

or how unfair it is to YOU...you'd be working on YOU, not constantly checking for when you'll get your reward.

You mean if she does not come back to you, then becoming a better man won't have been worth it?

It's all about you getting what you want FAST, or it's all for nothing?? Really?


Really, can this work for people? Why would a spouse who has run away, and is so one sided reverse and see that their M is worth saving? It seems like the better person you become, the more supportive and understanding you become, the less the WAS cares.

it is the opposite of that.

You are missing the bigger picture here. Get beyond yourself and put your ego aside for 5 minutes.

I am NOT saying that's easy or a permanent solution

but to be objective for 5 minutes you will need to do that.


NOW, ask yourself the questions I asked of you....

is working on your character flaws so worthless a goal? Aren't you happy that you will finally push aside all the years of insecurities and resentments that you have built up and used as obstructions to real intimacy in your relationships?

Won't that be a beautiful thing?

Stop forgetting that you had a lot of flaws to work on, b/c you were very very critical of your w, for a long time, and you mistreated her, and you were very controlling. AND she has had huge deficits in her childhood...

remember how you described her past and how wounded she has been for so long?

How can a few weeks of your changes be enough for you to demand so much change in HER?

Give DBing a real chance.

Consistent changes + sufficient time = change she can believe in.


She still might not come back. But you will be the man you were meant oto become.