Hi, keep_going. In spite of my insight from the WAS perspective, I actually have a real empathy for the LBS. Not all LBS's were given a fair chance. There are always two sides to each story, and if you listen carefully, I believe you can learn something from both sides.
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At least for me, my vows were a promise to always keep trying no matter what.
What was the visible evidence of this in your daily life? Hopefully more than just not D'ing. Was there actual effort or just the effort of trying? This is hard for me to reconcile since you said that neither of you really knew what to do.
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but I cannot ultimately fix this R on my own.
This is absolutely right, for both the LBS and the WAS. It only takes one to destroy a M and requires two for it to be successful.
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I have to approach the R pretty much as the one I have with my children. I love them, regardless of if they succeed or not. I love them for their effort and I will love them no matter what.
Loving them is one thing, of course you'll love them unconditionally. But hopefully, they won't still be living in your house being supported by you when they're 35. Likewise, I can feel love for my H but still expect him to be a contributing ADULT. If I have to relate to my H as a child, then I will have absolutely no sexual attraction to him at all.
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I do now see the silver lining in my situation. Without this bomb, I probably would have never looked at myself.
That is awesome! I think that's the primary focus of DB. It's definitely a lesson that no one should want to have to learn twice, and whether you salvage this M or not, it will help you in your next one.
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I also was extremely naive and believed that we could keep the feelings of the honeymoon period alive indefinitely without any hard work.
I don't know if this is naive or just wishful. I think we all thought that when we first M'd and we were on top of the world. You were very young when you got together, which I'm sure contributed to that.
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On the other hand, I am not completely pesimistic. I do believe that love is a choice and that we can bring back loving feelings when they have subsided. Unfortunately my H doesn't believe this at all. He thinks love just happens to you and you are powerless to change your feelings, hence why he will not give up his R with OW even if he saw the changes he wanted in me.
This is interesting. I've seen this debated both ways. For me, I don't know how to "create" feelings of love for someone. Imagine the least attractive person you know, someone that has bad hygiene habits, rude behavior and an abbrassive personality. Could you imagine yourself "creating loving feelings for them" if you were arranged a M to them? I don't think I can.
I will say I believe you can squash feelings of love, or perhaps they just fade on their own and you think you squashed them. I confess to once having very strong feelings for the H of a friend of ours. It was so bad that I would get all flustered when he walked in the room and could barely hold a conversation with him. I certainly didn't choose to feel this way in the first place. But I knew it was completely inappropriate and it would never go anywhere! He never knew anything about it, of course. Eventually I just got over it. Now whether that was my doing or just time, I couldn't really say.
