Is the cake eating 6

[Accuray]

Hi NLW,

I'm sorry you're feeling so badly. It is our expectations that often lead to our worst feelings of angst. Of course on Mother's Day you had some expectations of something from H. When H didn't meet those expectations, it triggers you to feel awful. Just recognize that H didn't set those expectations, you did. If you expect nothing, you won't be disappointed.

If I detach any more from this, I'm sure he'll just walk away and forget we ever existed.

If you were truly detached, you wouldn't care, you'd feel bad for him for missing out on what you have to offer.

This dynamic above is the greatest fear of the LBS -- that if I go in the other direction, go dark, detach, etc., that our WAS will not come looking for us once they've realized they've gotten the space they wanted.

Unfortunately there is no way to know without putting it to the test. Sometimes they'll come back and sometimes they won't, and that final knowledge can be terrible if you're not prepared for it.

Rather than face that, we're tempted to pursue, to try to keep things warm, to believe that if we cultivate the relationship it will re-grow due to our efforts. Unfortunately, that just keeps us in a state of limbo -- we keep pursuing, the WAS keeps distancing. They enjoy your pursuit, it's comforting. It's nice knowing they can return and if things go really badly there is a place to go, it's an insurance policy. Therefore, they're not motivated to end the limbo. Because we see the slightest bit of return for our pursuit, which is really just the WAS trying to keep the insurance policy in place, we continue to pursue, once again perpetuating the cycle indefinitely.

So in my words based on my interpretation of all that I've read, here's the best thing you can do:

Work on you -- 180 your issues, be the best, most attractive, most confident and fun loving person you can be.

If you look and act differently than your H has been programmed to expect, then it forces him to call into question what he thinks he knows about you. This cracks open the door to allowing him to believe that a future with you may look differently than your past.

At the same time, you give him space, you GAL, you act as if, you detach. You build your own life that satisfies YOU, which helps to make you a happy person and reinforces breaking H's expectations.

You need to do both of them. If you detach but don't 180, then H doesn't see how the future is any different than what he knows. If you 180 without detaching, then H hasn't gotten the space he feels he so desperately wants, and that tension will continue to drive him away regardless of how well you've done your 180's. He needs to reset and collect himself.

Now unfortunately, even if you do both of these things perfectly, there are no guarantees. Some people are stubborn -- once they make up their minds, that's it. Some people are irrational in the extreme. Some people refuse the believe that anything could be different in the future. Some people think that you're just trying to trick them and lure them back with your 180's, but once they return everything will go back to how it was.

The tricky thing is that last one -- because nothing fixes that but time. The only thing that makes your changes credible is prolonged repetition of consistent behavior without backsliding. How long is needed to make it credible and believable? There is no rule.

Therefore, if you're not seeing the results you're looking for, either it's not working, or you haven't waited long enough, and there's really no reason to know which one it is.

That's why it keeps coming back to you. If you define your success according to factors you can control, and not what H does or doesn't do, then you can begin to rebuild on your own. If you rebuild on your own, then you feel good about yourself. If you feel good about yourself, then H's reaction to you matters less.

I hope you feel better NLW

Accuray