I believe love works best when it is freely given. She feels suffocated which proves she doesn't feel she is free to give it...
Sandi2, This was my quote to RZR, not his quote.....
Quote:
Well there is a big difference!! You can't put a boundary on what runs through her head! What do you think the withdrawal is? That is what she is thinking and wanting.
Maybe to the Wayward there is a big difference, but I certainly don't see a big difference in the pain the betrayed spouse feels. Either way they feel rejection, pain, hurt, sadness, etc....
My point is that a betrayed can't force her to love them back. Here is what some well known professionals say about an addiction... Please note the parts in bold... lasting recovery, when it begins, quite often begins in the context of a crisis of sufficient magnitude to overwhelm the addict’s natural and well-entrenched aversion to recovery by an even greater fear such as the loss of an important relationship
So RZR's wife fear of losing him can OVERWHELM her to an even greater fear than the loss of OM, which it says is when LASTING RECOVERY begins....
I have seen this work again and again on this site.. People who came on here saying they were "addicted" to porn, video games, work and many other things that didn't change their ways until the loss of their spouse... Suddenly they would do ANYTHING to get a handle on the addiction... The motivator that made it stick is the fear of loss.
That's my point to RZR... Suddenly her "wanting" the OM wouldn't be in her vocabulary... He is just scared to let her go. What he is doing is working great for her, but he seems to be at the end of his rope. Many experts agree that there needs to be a MAJOR CRISIS for recovery to stick...
Quote:
Such considerations help to explain the fact, well-known to professionals who deal with individuals suffering from serious addictions, that lasting recovery, when it begins, quite often begins in the context of a crisis of sufficient magnitude to overwhelm the addict’s natural and well-entrenched aversion to recovery by an even greater fear such as the loss of an important relationship, a job, health or freedom(the threat of jail for addiction-related offenses).
It is therefore not at all the case that alcoholics and addicts "have to want to get better" before recovery can commence, much less that they must "want to get better for themselves and not for someone else." For the addict’s double-mindedness makes such "pure" motivation all but impossible for the vast majority of addicts. Luckily for the addict, recovery is just as likely, perhaps even more likely if he is in effect marched at bayonet point in the direction of behaviors that are good for him and which he would therefore, owing to his addictive hedonic disorientation, normally avoid like the plague if only he were not afraid that by so doing he would incur an even more unpleasant consequence. For it is one of the many curious paradoxes of addiction and recovery that genuine and sincere motivation for recovery is a result of and not a prerequisite for recovery.
