Newcomer's sad story

[Azzork]

I think what we are all getting at is that "letting her go" and "moving on" are NOT the same thing.

The way that I understand DB is that you take the following steps:
1) identify the areas that you need to make improvements/changes based on your feelings about yourself and the things your spouse did not like about you. How you treat people, how you interact with people, your habits, your tendencies, your thought processes, etc.
2) change the things you identified in part 1. A big part of this is the buzzwords: PMA, GAL, detachment. This allows you the space, time, and attitude to make these changes. This step takes a lot of time for the changes to become ingrained behaviors and not just showpieces. I'm talking months. Not days/weeks but months/years.
3) now you will be ready for your next relationship, be it with your W or another woman. Time will tell after you finish step 2 who that lucky lady will be; there's no way to tell now.

The way you change the dynamic is by changing YOU, not changing HER. If you skip right to step 3 ("moving on") what have you done? You've just shortcut the whole process. Sure, you may get your W to change her mind (unlikely, but possible), but you haven't actually changed anything about YOU, so the things you're doing now, the "wake up call", it won't LAST. The only way for this to work is for you to put in the work on yourself.

Become the Gabs only a fool would leave! By the time you become him, you will care much less whether she stays or goes, because you will know you will be OK either way!


To my original point, nowhere in steps 1 or 2 did I mention what your W is up to. That's because it's not about HER. It's about YOU. So let her go. She's going to do what she's going to do anyway. What she does isn't really your concern right now. She wants to buy a house, she wants to date, she wants to learn voodoo.....it doesn't really matter right now, because you can't control her. It will matter when you reach step 3....but it doesn't matter NOW.

For now I'm going to be someone that only a fool would leave. It's not really clear what that is though, because this site seems to say I should be aloof, mysterious, almost playing hard to get.... but to me someone who only a fool would leave is a person who is caring, interested, and present.

YES. only a fool would leave a person that is those things.

But your wife does not want that from YOU right now. But your kids, your friends, your colleagues, your family. They want those things. So be that to THEM.

The changes are for YOU. Not for your wife. Not to convince her of your sincerity. If you try to be caring or interested in your wife, it comes off as "too little too late" and drives her away!