If my understanding is correct, a 180 is just doing basically the opposite of what you normally do. It doesn't have to even be an "improvement". Though I would stay away from doing negative things, of course. It can just be reacting differently to your spouse. It throws off your spouse and helps to break the two of you out of ruts of patterns/habits of negative behavior. Divorce Remedy explains this.
About being careful about no contact: If your spouse complained all the time, like mine did, about feeling unloved, undesired, lonely, neglected, and so forth, you need to be very careful with how much you stand back with no contact. Michelle says this herself in the Q/A section of the Last Resort Technique video series, available on this website. As giftd said, no contact in my situation could be seen as "more of the same". Michelle says in these sorts of situations, you have to go lightly on no contact. The most important thing, in my opinion, is this one rule above all others: Do whatever seems to work, whether it goes against any rules or not. If your spouse is responding positively to something, that is what you need to be doing. If your spouse is responding negatively to something, then you either need to stop it entirely, or do it less, depending on the circumstances. So, pursuing might be annoying to your spouse, but in some situations, like with my wife, you shouldn't stop it entirely, though. However, letting my wife get mad and riled up in a tirade armegeddon of hate was very bad. It would multiply the coldness and distance in her, and her anger fueled her in the mean things she was doing. Defending myself would assist her into that rage. I learned this the hard way -- that contributing to her anger was the worst thing I could do. So, instead of defending myself, I needed to just say things like, "I'm so sorry you have felt this way", etc.
It's also important that when you are trying to figure out what's helping your situation and what isn't, that you don't look for just big changes. You need to notice the baby steps. The way people often improve their situations is through baby steps. One positive baby step tends to lead to another and another and another, and so on, with each step bringing you closer to your goal. This is partly why people often say that this is a marathon -- not a sprint.
M: 33, W: 30 @BD M 7, T 10 BD: Early Dec W left: Late Dec W got stuff: Late Jan W sent S papers: Mid Feb OM cnfrmd: Late Feb
Pain can yield tremendous growth OR everlasting sadness and bitterness.
