Gabs .... I see you are still in that quicksand pit and as predeicted other members have given you some pretty solid advice.
The "Dating" topic has been tossed around here often. There are times when in the situation it is actually something that should be thought about/discussed however ..... you just had BD ... there is a time and place for things ... and again ... dating this quick to BD will only tell your wife everything she needs be gone.
The reason she has told you to find someone else .... is to ease her own guilt ... she very well might have an OP on the side ... or maybe its just so she can share that 'bad guy' plate with you.
Its very hard not to be all up in thier head ... its also tough when you first arrive here to know what you should and should not do ... this is why one of the first things thrown at the newbies is sandi's 37 as its a very good operators manual when you are swimming in a sea of emotions.
Reading your posts I get you are really confused as to detaching, appearing you are moving on, all that stuff. You arrived here fresh after BD, thats a good thing for you .. I actually did not find this place till about 9 months after. In a way it was better for me .. I imagine I would be doing just as you are now ... I did it alone, you have the gift of a sounding board, comprised of people who are Pro M and Pro Human development .. very strong thing to have in your corner my friend.
IF ... IF you can take a step back and see this for what it is. Lets look at the start of your relationship. Obviously she was attracted to you, not running ... so you pursued her. This is what you are trying to recreate .... thing is she knows your tactics, she can smell your bait like a shark from miles away .. all that is repulsive to her. At the moment she is wayward.
I had an epiphany during my DB process as I seriously struggled with the detachment process (I was easily sucked in, with her actions .. and what I thought I was seeing) I started approaching my W and the interations we had as a science project. I am very analytical, I used what some consider a weakness DB wise into a strenghth .... I emotionally detached and just marked progress. The trick is .. and the challange you are faced with at this pivotal moment is not to fix and save your M .... you can not do that alone without your W .. the trick is damage control, stop making things worse. Look at BE on this forum ... he smothered his W though we begged him not to .. drove by OM's house several times ... became obsessed and it drove his W into running faster and further ... I still have hope in his sitch and I have the same for yours ..... why? Because I saved mine, Currently I am 3 months away from saying I have been separated for 2 YEARS .... through this time my W had an OM, said she has not loved me in 10 years, filed for D 3 times and we were just signatures away from it becoming final. But now ... after alot of hard work on myself...We attended Retrouvaille, have been actively working on our M and our issues. We have been staying together for 6 weeks and we plan on moving back in with each other in about 2 months (When my lease is up). There is hope in all this .. regardless of the M or not .... I can tell you I am happy with the large changes I made in my life, I am at a point I would love to be M to my W, but I also would be just dandy alone... the M does not define me nor who I am as a man.
How did I do it? What is the magic Bullet?
Well ... no magic bullet ... I did it by realizing that I MATTERED. I had little to offer when I was a lap dog running around praying for scraps of attention, begging for W to come back. I, like most here had to crawl before I could walk, then figured out how to run.
I started by making small changes (as small as simply making the bed every morning), some based on legit gripes my W had. Some were more about who I felt I WANTED to be. Concept Cali 2.0 was born. I made a list about myself, things I liked ... along with a parallel list of things I didn't. Then a 3rd list of traits I admired in others. Line by line I took the bad traits and replaced them with traits I admired in others ... hence becoming a man only a fool would leave.
^^^^ Rebuilds your confidence ... drowning in quicksand does not. Making knee jerk reactions (Writing letters out of panic, Joining a dating site solely for reactions) does not.
Gabs, get out of bed and start to learn how to crawl again. Get your GAL list started. Look/read around here for ideas
For me I began to: Eat healthier, got rid of fast food, sodas ... all that. I started to take pride in my appearance even if I was not going to leave the house. I began to run ... used an app to track progress. I joined a Softball Team Joined a Football team Bought a Harley I went to church ... converted to Catholicism (Met every Wed for 6 months) I coached my S's baseball/soccer team.
This ^^^ Increased my self esteem, my PMA, .... this also showed my W that I was not going to 'break' without her .. infact it showed I could thrive. While she was in fantasy land with her A, I was making a true man out of myself and not allowing her actions to control me. I not only became a man a fool would leave ... I became a man others admired and respected. I got my mojo back. You have to crawl before you can run the marathon.
You can do this ... but you have to start slow. I get your hesitancy on detaching but this list I shared... how could doing these things hurt? I will tell you this ... if you focus on this stuff, it takes your focus off your W .... do not tell her what you are doing ... and if you have not read it .. MAKE SURE you hide this site ... we had a member whose W found him here so all these things appeared to be tricks to manipulate her back into the M ... but honestly its more about rebuilding YOU and creating an attractive person again.
