I'm going to go out on a limb here. I have to admit, sometimes I question how everything has to be so absolute here.
I understand the principles and I agree with them. But there is not only one narrow path getting your wife back. Sometimes people change their mind, without the left-behind spouse ever reading the DB book or knowing or following any of the rules here. And the truth is, for many who do follow the rules, their spouse does not come back. there is no guarantee of your wife changing her mind at any point of this. You could DB perfectly and fail at reconciling your marriage and you could DB for [censored] and succeed. There's no way to know.
But let's say you're playing blackjack and you get dealt a 16 to the dealer's face up 7. It's a losing hand. That's where you are today. You could hit and win, you could hit and lose, you could stay and win,and you could stay and lose. regardless of the outcome! there is still a CORRECT play. Hitting in this spot still wins more than staying, even if you win either one less than 50% of the time.
That's one thing that we are doing here: Playing the odds in the face of a losing hand. The side effect to doing this is that YOU always come out a winner either way. Whether or not your wife comes back, you will find yourself in a position to be ready to succeed in your next relationship. You will be able to HEAL from the damage here. Sounds like a win-win to me.
I'm just not going to be able to follow all the rules here perfectly after she moves out. We have kids. For their sake, I have to communicate with my wife. I can't play games and not answer her text messages. We have agreed that maintaining a friendship is in the best interests of the kids. And we both want to be friends. Does that destroy my chances of getting back together in a relationship? I don't think so. If we are not relating and I'm trying to have "no contact" I don't think this serves the kids well. She has said she wants to have dinner together as a family once a week. I'm not going to say no to this. I will not go out of my way to follow her around and initiate contact daily, but I have to maintain contact and communicate about the kids, and we will be at kids' soccer games together and so forth. AND I also believe, in spite of what I have read here sometimes, that a friendship is one way to rekindle our appreciation of each other. I believe a friendship is a way for her to observe my 180s. Yes. Friendship can be one path back to R. There are certainly stories out there of succeeding in this manner. And it's not like you're going to go 2 years without speaking, and then she's going to come running back to you.
And yes, you will need to communicate about kid related stuff. You just cannot go completely dark when you have kids. It's just not possible. And I agree that you need to maintain a cordial relationship for the children.
With that said, are you kidding me with the rest of this? You're going to have "family dinners" once a week? What are you going to do when she starts dating? Have a "family dinner" and then she's going to go off for dessert while you take the kids back to your place? The more you show her you can't live without her, the more she is going to take advantage of you.
As an example, some friends of ours went through a break up a few years ago. The wife decided it was time to go. She got another place to live. But they remained friends and their daughter kept them interacting... After a few months of living separately, the wife changed her mind and wanted to get back together. By this time the husband wasn't sure if he wanted her back. They spent a lot of time going back and forth, deciding what to do. But the wife had definitely changed. During this time I saw them together a lot, at the ski slopes with their child, at parties even dancing together. They are still living separately now but they are friends. I think if the husband decides he wants her back she would still consider it.
The reason I give this story is, it shows that there is no prescription that applies to every situation. The husband didn't know about DB and he didn't follow all the rules, and he maintained a friendship, and she turned around after a few months.
So, forgive me if I don't follow all the rules to the letter here once my W moves out. I have an example close to me where the Wayward Wife change her mind, while the two of them maintained a friendship and they were not aware of the DB rules you can read what I said above. I believe this is playing a hand based on the outcome and not the process. But that's your call.
I DO agree with the LRT principles. And I do think they are good to follow in general and I have learned a lot here. If I hadn't found this place I probably would still be overtly pursuing her and begging her and she would have pushed me away much further than I am now. I'm sure that with my friends, the husband did stop pursuing the wife before she came back and I understand that principle. and I understand my wife is not going to change her mind while I'm pursuing and chasing her, so I have stopped doing this overtly. The decision has to come from inside her, not from my pressure. But I don't think we can say that the only path to reconciliation is by playing a "no contact" game and not maintaining a friendship, and I don't think that is in the interests of the kids. I think it's possible to be friends and not pursue, which is the important thing. I think in some cases, some contact can be good, depending on the situation, especially if there are kids. If I maintain a friendship with my wife after she moves out and have dinner with her and the kids once a week and I'm displaying my 180s during that time, but not overtly pursuing her, does that destroy my chance of getting her back? I don't think so. i believe nothing "destroys" your chances of getting her back. But if it were me (and it kinda is...), I would want to do what would give me the best chance. I think you are over-simplifying by saying its "games". The no-contact is not really just for her. It's also for YOU. How are you going to be able to move forward with your life if you are constantly in contact, having family dinners and such?
For now I just have to get through the physical act of her moving out and accepting life without her. That is going to be extremely difficult. these last 3 months have already been the hardest of my life, and this is going to be even worse. The thought of having no contact at all after that is just a bit more than I can handle. yes. It is going to be hard. It's going to be even harder if you're spending your week counting down the days until you see your W again.
