Question on Family and Friends' Influnce on W

[sandi2]

Glad to hear you received the book. Stick with it.

Good job on not leaving the house or bedroom.

What do I do about the influence her friends and family have on her wanting to leave? I am 100% confident that they are only hearing her narrative about how unhappy she is, how I made her feel that way and feel they are telling her to leave me to be happy.

You can't "make" her feel a certain way about you or anyone else. There really isn't anything you can do about other people and their influences on her. That goes under the category entitled "Things I Cannot Control". Don't try to talk to any of those friends or family, b/c it just makes you look desperate and controlling. They will tell her everything you say. She'll take it as you going behind her back and even "interfering".

It is natural for you to want to offset their influence by trying to reason with her. A WW is not logical and you can't reason with crazy.

In my two meltdowns, which were started as attempts to get her to talk and open up to me, I let her know that I thought divorce would make more conflict, upset the children's lives, our lives, and would result in no one being truly happy. I believe she has her mind made up to leave me as she can only say she doesn't want to work on our R, "is done", doesn't love me, is not attracted to me, doesn't feel intimate towards me. She can only bring up negatives when we talk about our marital history I realize trying to bring up happy moments is breaking one of the 37 rules, but I went ahead and made the mistake in both meltdowns).

Are you convinced now, that it doesn't work?

Any advice on dealing with the friends and family issue? Before finding this forum, I was talking to her sister. Her sister was being supportive for the first week - telling me to tell her to love her (even if she doesn't say it back...keep telling her), tell her I am here for her, tell her it is something we can work on, be supportive, give her time and space, etc. Her sister will not talk to me now. Won't answer texts or calls. I know it is recommended to not contact her friends and family now. But still, I would like to tell her sister (her biggest influence) my side of what is going on.

Notice that everything her sister has advised is totally opposite of what MWD advises. Which ones are the experts? Even if her sister is on your side, at the end of the day......this her sister. There is a reason for the old saying about blood being thicker than water.

In my thread, it was suggested that I just stop talking altogether about any issues. I know I am supposed to wait for her to talk, but I am feeling her get farther away.

In most of these quotes, you are saying that you "know" you shouldn't but you "feel" you want to do it anyway. So, you are allowing your feelings to dictate and guide your actions. You have not accepted the fact you can't change a darn thing by talking your way out of it. You think you can still use your mouth to fix her, fix her sister, fix her friends, and fix your M. You are basically asking us how you can make them listen to your mouth. It won't work. Many, many people before you have tried to prove DBing wrong, by doing it their own way. They did not succeed, and then would come back and ask for help......after royally making things much worse. I hope you are not going to join those ranks.

In all fairness, your reactions are very common. The sooner you make up your mind that it's your actions and not your words that have the influence, the sooner you will see positive results in your life.