The sooner they see they can't continue going down their wayward path and have all the benefits the way it use to be, the sooner they will start to wake up. That's why I harp about the LBH's enabling the WW. If she treats him like cr@p and acts like a girl gone wild......and knows he is home crying over her, doing all the work at home, and will give her anything she wants......do you think she's going to wake up and see the destruction she's done? The only thing that wakes up the WW is something that emotionally jars her into seeing herself for what she's become, and what she has done to the ones who loved her the most. Depending on what it is will determine how long it may take her to repent. And, depending on the individual woman, of course.
That's why having R talks don't work. That's why catering to her doesn't work. That's why you can't convince her by talking. It just doesn't work. Most LBH's have a problem accepting that they can't get her to hear them.
The cases that I've observed that really shook the WW to her soul, were when the H's had the courage to either kick her to the curb, or he left the day he found out about an A, and she would know she had lost him. It would set her on a course to try and win him back, which meant she had to fix herself. Funny how it seemed to completely kill her affair desire.
But when he waits, hoping she will come around ......then she's not worried about losing him, or losing anything else. He's in for a very long time of her abuse. His nice-guy ways are not going to have a lot of impact on how short a period of time it takes her to come out of the waywardness. She is rebelling and she will devour his nice-guy behavior.
If my H would have packed a bag and told me he was leaving and that I could get by the best way I could......I would not have been carrying on as long as I did. It would have yanked me around to see how I was losing him forever. But instead, he waited around....hoping I would stop doing what I was doing. He would look so sad and lonely, but all I thought about was myself.....and how "I" was the one who was leaving him. It never entered my mind that he would tell me to get out and that he didn't want me! Neither did I consider he might walk away. Why? B/c he had that nice-guy syndrome.
Btw, I even told him that if I left him that I hoped we would still be friends! Sickening, isn't it? Well, he managed to shock me. He looked at me and slowly shook his head, no. While never taking his eyes off mine, he said, "There will be no buddy-buddy system". He also told me that if I ever left, there would be no coming back. That is about the most he said (not a big talker), but it got my attention. Managed to cause me to do a little more thinking before I finished packing. Tended to knock a little wind out of my pseudo self-confidence.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
