Too Little, Too late 3

[25yearsmlc]

here are some posts to get you started...on detachment and if I can find it, a post by MrBond on how he dealt with OM (he was above OM and knew OM was a symptom of the marital crisis, and that's extra true in your sitch b/c your h is doing the minimal amount of work needed to "date" by grabbing literally the first single woman he knows and does not have to "get to know" b/c it has been done for him....)

so yes she is a symptom and that makes your personal work all the more important to do. No matter what you want to hold your head high and behave with dignity so that when your wakes up or snaps out of it

or sees her for who she is, and then realizes YOU have made CHANGES and since you are the mother is his only kids,

he's going to prefer working it out with you...so make sure when he looks your way, that you will be the better choice.

consistent change + sufficient time = change they can believe in...

This was originally posted by Peanut.
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II. Detachment
Detachment is critical to the process of altering and repairing a relationship. Attached, we take personally all that is said, not said, done and not done. Our ego gets wounded and we are more inclined to those actions that will undermine our very best chances of accomplishing our goals. We can not control the actions of another. We are, however, responsible for our own actions. We are responsible for our own happiness. If we are detached from the actions of another, we can meet anger or indifference with love. Met with love we are in a position to diffuse the situation and transform it in a way that will be in alignment with our goals. On the flipside, detachment allows us to play it cool when we do get a positive reaction from our spouse. It is a way to break the distance/pursuer cycle.

Detachment is not withdrawal. It is not the mind saying, ‘I am not getting what I want so I must pull back.’ It is the natural acceptance that I am alone responsible for how I act. I can not control another person, but I can control how I respond to them."

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the next post has some applicable parts but it's from a WAW to her LBSer h...so reverse the roles and see which parts apply...
as hurt as you are right now, I think your h may have felt the way this wife felt, for some time...give it some thought.

FROM A WAW TO A LBS HUSBAND WHO HAS CHANGED AND WONDERS WHY HIS WAW HAS NOT COME HOME YET, & HOW SHE CAN BE AT ALL INTERESTED IN OM…

When I read your interactions with your wife, I could so easily identify with your wife's feelings/words/sentiments. I have been in her position in my M. I was the ignored, the devalued, the one who was treated as less than. I even got chills when she talked about the FB issues, because I've been there and done that, bought the t-shirt Of course, my H went a step further and cheated, then left, adding an extra crunchy layer of goodness to my sitch.

One of the things that I have tried my hardest not to do, is not to engage with another man. Not just because of my marriage vows, but because I knew that when I truly engaged in any type of R with another man, it would make it that much harder to ever reconcile with my H. Because being treated differently (better) than the way he treated me would lessen him so much in my eyes.

So, I can see where your W is coming from. When you've been mistreated to the point where you actually let go of your R enough to let another person into your heart or bed or whatever, it takes a boatload of work to get back on a page where you're recommitted to being with your Spouse - and those uncertainties that she's expressed to you, I don't know if you truly, truly fathom how deep they run.

Six months of getting back on a page where you treat her the way that any wife should be treated does not even scratch the surface of the years, the intrinsic devaluing that occurs when you're systematically mistreated for such a stretch of time.

And I promise you that while you have recommitted and worked for 6 months, your W has simply been trying to get to a point where she can even buy into the changes, where she can even think that you might have changed and not scoff at the thought.

Because when you build up hope again and again and again in your H and he crushes it again and again and again, you develop a thick skin, a protective doubt, a conditioned response to even the slightest, grainiest seed of hope. You are taught that when you hope, you will be disappointed. When you try, you will fail. You are taught that you will never be what he wants and it is hard to shake what you have come to believe is reality.

And for the changes that you've made to have come only when she walked away and OM became competition, I can definitely see how she can doubly doubt that you truly want to be in a M with her, and not just to win.

Even you today say that you are not sure that you don't just want to win.

Step 1 - figure that sh!t out ASAP. Because if you actually do manage to convince her that you really do want her and really have recommitted to her and you actually just want to win, you'll put her through hell.
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