Thank you AnotherStander! Your advice is well taken! I will try again, but this time with more love and compassion. I think I'm getting confused by all of the advice I've been getting from my friends and I really need to concentrate on my core feelings.
You're quite welcome It's great that you have a network of friends you can fall back on and you should absolutely do so, it's part of GAL. But as MrBond said, their advice often doesn't align with DB and frequently doesn't align with saving the M either. What I do is concentrate on DB'ing and when friends give me contradictory advice I listen to them and show appreciation, but I dismiss it. I think I'm on my 4th read through DR, if you keep reading it over and over it's a lot easier to discern good advice from bad.
Also as MrBond said, try not to let your feelings get in the way of things. This is hard to do, but you need to look at DBing from a more logical/ pragmatic view. IE, when a situation comes up with your W you need to set your emotions aside and logically process the appropriate response. An example might be this:
Quote:
Also, it's Very challenging to be compassionate with a waw who consistently undermines you by telling you she wants a D or S.
The emotional side of you no doubt wants to beg/ plead/ negotiate. Our natural reaction is to say "but that's not what I want!!! Can't you see it'll wreck our family, our finances, everything we've worked so hard for???" But through DB'ing we know this is the opposite of what we should do and will just drive the spouse farther away. So we have to set emotions aside, put the brain into gear and think through the proper DB response, which would be something like "you sound frustrated, is that how you feel? I can understand why you would feel that way. I want you to be happy and if you feel separation will bring you happiness then I support your decision." This indicates to her that you're on her side. You remove the conflict from the situation. Most WAS's feel caged in and if you throw the cage door open then suddenly they're not so sure they want to leave after all. Often they still do, but sometimes separation is what they need to truly get the space and time they want to process their emotions. It's much better to separate on amicable terms like this then it is to constantly argue about it and come home to find her gone one day.
It's great that you have a network of friends you can fall back on and you should absolutely do so, it's part of GAL. But as MrBond said, their advice often doesn't align with DB and frequently doesn't align with saving the M either. What I do is concentrate on DB'ing and when friends give me contradictory advice I listen to them and show appreciation, but I dismiss it. I think I'm on my 4th read through DR, if you keep reading it over and over it's a lot easier to discern good advice from bad.