Husband left me...feel hopeless

[Accuray]

I DO NOT understand it at all how people do not have the decency to at least say something before everything goes down the drain. I asked my H why he didn't just end it with me when he started sleeping with OW. Why didn't he just tell me he was doing that? It baffles my mind!! All he could say is, I don't know.

It's fear and procrastination. Fear that when they confess you will throw all their clothes out the window like in the movies and lock them out. Fear that they are not really done with their relationship with you, but you will reject them (ironic I know). Fear of losing a "safety net" by being able to return to your relationship if their other one doesn't work out. Procrastination because they know having the conversation is going to be painful, so there's always a reason to put it off until "later". It's a very human thing to do unfortunately.

People are afraid of being alone. They take great comfort in the fact that you are "there for them" even if they are not there for you. Therefore, they will avoid confrontation because there is a risk that you will reject them and they will end up alone.

The other thing that often happens is that they convince themselves that what they are doing is OK. They will construct elaborate justifications, about how you once said X to them, and that meant Y, and so it's ok if they went out and found someone else. It's all B.S.

That's why they tell you not to believe anything they say. The WAS feels very guilty for what they have done, and that's a terrible feeling, so they cope by constructing crazy rationalizations and convince themselves of their truth and that it makes everything OK. Eventually they begin to believe their own story and that lets the guilt diminish or disappear and is replaced by anger -- they are angry at YOU for putting them in this situation. If only you had been better, they wouldn't have had to stray, and now they feel badly about it, so it's your fault! It's crazy talk.

The key thing for you is to own the problems you brought to the marriage and work on them, but do NOT believe what the WAS is telling you and do not accept those guilty feelings for driving them away. They could have refused temptation, they could have worked on the R with you, but they did not. That is not your fault.

The other thing is to respect the power of that "safety net" for the WAS. As long as they believe you will take them back at a moment's notice, there is not much reason for them to face themselves. It is by changing up your act, and making them wonder what you're doing and thinking, that you motivate them to wonder what's going on, and to examine their own role in this.

Detach pays two benefits -- for one, it allows you to rebuild yourself without relying upon your spouse's reaction to determine your worth, and for another, it leads the spouse to begin to *think* which they really try to avoid doing.

If you can visualize it, the more successful you are at detaching and rebuilding independently, the more reason the WAS really *should* wonder and start to reconsider, because your paths are clearly diverging -- you need them less. When you need them less, they will want you more, and that's the cruel irony of it.

Accuray