3) Move On -- Decide you're done. I was thinking about detachment the other day, and detachment is really a campaign to snuff out the romantic love that remains for your partner. As long as you have romantic feelings for them, you are not detached. Once those feelings are snuffed, you can truly move on. Once again, going back to Marriage Builders philosophy, eventually your spouse will completely run down your accumulated "love bank balance" and you will simply not be interested in persisting. I don't believe you can will yourself to get there faster, I think it just happens. That's when you "drop the rope" as Denver, LITB, and Starsky all eventually did. It seems this is *sometimes* a wake up call to the WAS who finally realizes that you really are gone, and are likely not coming back. It seems like that's the first time many of them really think about what they're doing. There are certainly many other cases, however, where the wakeup call never comes and the WAS does NOT come back -- unfortunately that's probably the majority of the time. The other issue is that if you've dropped the rope and your love bank is empty, you may not WANT them back. You're certainly susceptible to them for the same reasons you were initially, but now you've got scar tissue.
That's well said, Acc.
And absolutely about the scar tissue. I think THAT is what we can also work on and through, prior to exiting the M/R for good.
I think THAT again, is part of the question of how to approach and "work oneself up to" finally moving on. Doing it with anger and fear, or doing it with compassion and forgiveness. I believe the choices we make that lead up to moving on, really do determine the scars we may take away into future Rs and life...
