Newby here, desperate for some advice (thread 6)

[ForGump]

Just a quick note: I take a position somewhat between you and Sandi2. I don't think of it as purely mind-over-matter. You can simply and directly control what you think. On the other hand, I think you can steer the general direction of your thoughts through counseling, meditation (and I'm not talking just about some Eastern religious type of meditation), and by setting up your situation to encourage/discourage certain trains of thoughts. The image of a leaf blower blowing a yard full of leaves comes to mind. You can blow them in one direction and many eventually go that way, but you can't control individual leaves.

Anyway, my impression of you, JR, is that you've done hell of a lot of self improvement but your emotional character is just such that your heart strings are always pulled when your W is present. Probably not a whole lot you can do about that -- that's just how your built. More importantly, it sounds to me that no matter what you did, your W is going on her own journey. You could be <fill in some paragon of macho male figure>, and she's going to need to leave you -- that's because what she wants isn't real. It's in her head. So nothing you can do in real life will change what she wants in her fantasized life.