My understanding of this process -and it's taken me a LONG time - is that our spouses will do what they are going to do, on their own timeframe, and there is nothing we can do to make them speed up, slow down, go in a particular direction, etc.
They will navigate through whatever it is that they are experiencing alone.
We are bystanders to this process, patient, kind, civil observers, if you like. But nothing we do to change them has an effect. The crisis or hurt that they are experiencing is too intense for us to have an impact.
If we change our actions towards them, it has to be because we want to be different, for ourselves. It is pointless trying to change in order to 'show' them.
In other words, we can't 'win' them back.
They have to 'save' themselves; that seems to be the nature of the process. It's taken me a long time to realise this - and a lot of false starts, whining pleas, sorrowful letters - none of which had the slightest positive effect.
My XH will do what he's going to do, and NOTHING I do to try and influence him is effective. On the other hand, things I do to make me a better person seem to be working, slowly, quite well for ME.
I realise that none of this is 'news' but sometimes we need to keep hearing the same thing in different words and from those with recent battle-scars, for it to gel.
