Newby here, desperate for some advice (thread 6)

[JRuss]

Gump --

With mine, and yours it sounds like, they seem to view "love" or "attraction" as what the other does TO them. The focus is not inward, as mine has always been. There are and always have been any number of qualities inherent to my W that, were I to have let them gain traction in my mind, would have led to me losing my attraction for her. But I just got up every day and kept the focus on what I do love about her, and put those other things "over there", safely distanced from the R, because I'd promised I'd love her, and this is how you do it, it seems to me. She just has a completely different approach. I need to affirmatively do something to her with my aura or personality or some such. I don't know that one is right or wrong, morally. I do know one approach is one that works if your goal is to stay married, and the other is pretty much always going to lead to doubt, struggle and, eventually, a trapped feeling, because there's nothing sexy about sharing a bathroom, grappling with finances, divvying up chores and carpool duties, or any of that. It takes work to set all of these mundane, non-sexy aspects of life together -- and the odd negative qualities we all possess aside -- and mine just never has grasped that, I don't think.

The road back, were it to ever come, would mainly involve our spouses getting healthier emotionally and realizing that personal happiness and contentment isn't found without or even in another person but can only be found inside themselves. That's their spiritual journey, and they're both years away, and that's only if they get going and commit to working hard to getting there. Life being short, and those odds being long, it just became increasingly clear to me that it is time to move on, time to find the the courage and self-belief to do it, and start making it happen.

I loved your mantra in your thread, btw -- just perfect.