WAH with OW/EA - advice wanted! :)

[LisaB]

Hi cq1 and ganb8te! Thanks for checking in with me. I hope you are doing well cq1!

Sorry to hear that you are in a similar boat ganb8te. My H didn't really complain so much or tell me that he was unhappy. I might have actually noticed that. It was more that he was sometimes distant, distracted and grumpy. I thought he was just stressed out at work, which he was, but that was apparently not the only problem. He also talked a lot about the OW and how great she was, but she was a friend of mine too so I just thought we were talking about a mutual friend. I would agree with him about how great she was!

I have been feeling quite hopeless about my situation and wondering whether or not there is any way to reunite.

In my thinking about this I started to look back on previous relationships where I left the guy. Usually it was because I got bored and didn't see my future with them. And often I would become detached from the relationship and start noticing other guys and developing infatuations for them. Then I would finally leave the relationship. (I know, this isn't so nice but it was a long time ago)

I wondered whether there was anything those boyfriends could have done to make me reconsider leaving them. I realized probably not , which made me depressed about my current situation, but happy that I left those guys!

But what if those boyfriends had quickly seemed like they were happy, confident and doing fine without me. What if they had changed the things I didn't like about them. What if they had become more motivated, more interesting and changed their appearance in some way. What would I have thought?

Of course I can't say for sure, but I think I would be pleasantly surprised. Maybe I would have been curious and wanted to spend more time with them. Especially if they were friendly and polite but didn't seem to want to get back together. If they seemed to be fine without me and had changed quite a bit making them seem different, I think I would have reconsidered these guys I got bored with.

So what does this tell me? It tells me GAL and 180s are the way. It tells me that DB is the way. Because these techniques would have possibly worked on me if there was any hope for those old relationships.

Sometimes you can read all about something but until you internalize it, it just doesn't stick 100%. I think now I don't have to just blindly believe in the DB method, I can feel in my gut that it is the only way.

I hope my rambling helps someone today!
Hugs, Lisa