Interpretation of MWD and DR regarding infidelity

[Denver_2010]

I get this Zig, but I do believe that detachment is a big part of being successful here. I struggled with it a lot though. But I can tell you that my most significant progress was done when I was detached from my W and what she was doing.

Hi Denver,

Can you expand on this? I'm still trying to catch up with your thread (about halfway now) and I'd like to hear at which point and how you managed to detach and what the significant progress was.

Thx

Sure Arsene.

There was the 4-6 weeks right after the initial S (end of Nov 2010-middle of Jan 2011). I don't think that I was detached, but I did manage to have some self control and back way off, went dark, and waited for her to initiate contact me.

End of July/begining of August 2011... First time I considered walking away and being done. I did manage to detach to a degree. Again was able to manage to back way off, went dark, and waited for her to initiate contact with me.

End of January 2012... Again considered walking away and being done. Again managed to back way off, go dark and wait for her to initiate contact with me. I was able to detach a bit more than before.

May 7, 2012 - middle of June 2012... I told W that I wanted D. Again backed way off, went dark. This time though, I was done. Really did work on detachment. And was not waiting for anything from W. This was the first time that I really started to see that there could be a happy life without my W and M. I actually started to get excited about the future. The middle of June is when she started lighting my cell phone up ... and, well, here we are.

So, in each and everyone of those periods that I talk about above, there was more progress than any time when I was actually spending time with my W.

I believe that those periods of time allowed her to learn to miss me. They allowed her the time to reflect on what she wanted for her life. They allowed her the time to grow as a person. They allowed her to see that the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence.

I can tell you that each and every time that we would go through a period of no contact, where I was working on detaching from her, she would always, without fail, end up contacting me. It would usually come in the form of a text about basically nothing. Then the texts would begin to come more frequent. And then she'd be telling me that she missed me, that she loved me, and that she just didn't know what to do.

It was the distance that caused this IMO Arsene.

Now, the times when we were spending a lot of time together was when she had the opportunity to see the new me, the changes that I was making, and how I was growing as a person.

So it all served a purpose. But as far as bringing my W closer to me, it was the times that I was working on detaching, going dark, and waiting for her to initiate contact with me that worked best.

Those periods of time were also when I think that I learned the most about myself. Where I learned what being patient really means. Where I learned about unconditional love. Where I learned what it means to be committed to your spouse in good times AND BAD. Where I learned to persevere through the toughest times of my life.