First time here part 2

[BluWave]

leah, go easy on yourself, it is still relatively early in your sitch. Not time to measure results. You are doing great. Try and take it day by day; focus on you and your happiness and allow yourself to imagine a life without him (because YOU deserve to be happy if he comes back or not). Right? Forgive yourself often. Learning to DB is not about being perfect and going as long as you can following every rule to a T. Not at all! That stress sets you up for failures and makes it harder. It does the opposite of the intended goal. Think about it.

I think I used to be too hard on myself when I messed up (when I was needy, lost my temper, broke down, didn't follow Sandi's rule, pursued or cried to him, stayed in my bed and didn't GAL, etc, etc, and way too many to list here!) What I can see now is that this program/philosophy is NOT about learning to be perfect. Following the rules and being perfect is NOT how we can "win" our spouse back. In fact it can have quite the opposite effects and causes them to run faster.

Here is my interpretation of DB and it's value. If you can learn to do it--make 180s in your thinking and behaviors, GAL and start doing things you enjoy for YOU alone, follow Sandi's rules and adopt healthier behaviors patterns, then (and only then) can you start to detach from this unhealthy relationship. As you begin to detach, you gain a better perspective overall. The secondary gain is that as you detach (become the distancer) and as you successfully make changes, you become more attractive to your S again. This is why we say that he is giving you the gift of time--all of this takes time. That is hard (especially when we are impatient) but it really is a GOOD thing.

I also wanted to add that I see similarities in yours and Sara's sitches too. If you read back in her threads, they were in different states for some time. He (as does your H) seems to respond a lot when you start distancing and showing signs of detachment. Her H too has come around several times and pursued her and even told her he was committed to the M. While this can feel more hopeful at times, it can also be confusing because it's harder to get off the up and down roller coaster.

Blu