Boston Dad in need of Help

[Accuray]

Thanks Coconut!

Teppo it's never too late to ask her to leave the MBR, you can change things up in your life whenever you need to.

Secondly you're getting great advice here about the letter. You feel it will give you some closure. I promise you it won't, it will be just another step in the journey.

When you read her the letter you *will* have an expectation of the impact it's going to have on her. You will not get that result, and then you'll feel worse and you still won't have any kind of closure. She knows what she's doing, she's spent a ton of time thinking about it.

The key thing you can do is give her more space than she wants. Asking her to leave the MBR is part of that -- it's you heading the other direction, its not you trying to pacify her or walk on eggshells around her.

Relationships start as a meeting of equals. In order for your relationship to "restart" it needs to get back onto equal footing. When she leaves and you pursue her, you are "one down" in the relationship, you are less than. She knows that you're there for the taking. She would have to exert zero effort to get you back. Do people value that which they do not have to work for?

Here's what the typical walkaway wife sees in their husband:

Here's this guy who had these shortcomings in our marriage. I told him to make things better and he didn't, and it got so bad, I had to leave. Now that he's put me through all this pain, he's desperately trying to convince me that he can change and everything will be different. He's sad all the time, he's passive aggressive, he shames me and tries to make me feel guilty. He tries to make me the bad guy in all this when he's the one who drove me to it. He won't accept that I want to move on and is basically clinging onto my leg and holding me back. That's not who I want to be with.

Here's the vision for Teppo:

She sees that you're just fine without her. She sees that you're happy, you're going out and living your life. You're an amazing father and truly enjoy your parenting time. You're exercising, you're eating right, you've upgraded your wardrobe. There's a new swagger in your step. She suspects, and then fears, that you are NOT there for the taking. That if she wants you back, that's not a very certain proposal at all.

Which picture is she more intrigued by? Which picture has any chance of succeeding?

In the first case, she's going to give you platitudes and try to do the minimum she can to feel the least guilty, but her whole focus is on getting away, and getting you to accept that she's going. In that mindframe, she's not going to hear anything you read from a letter. She's not interested in seeing changes. She's interested in getting away.

In the second case, there's nothing to get away from because there's no pursuit. Suddenly the safety net is gone and she has space to evaluate what she's doing. Things are not at all certain anymore. There is no longer a singular focus.

I had a friend who discovered that his wife had cheated on him. He confronted her and she unloaded on him, anger, all the things he had done wrong, etc. He said "I may not have always been the best husband, but I was committed to you. If I hurt you along the way I'm sorry. You cheated on me, good luck with that." Then he completely shut her out, went dark, and went on with his life.

To her, that was like smelling salts, he didn't buy into the revisionist history, or the "he's the bad guy" or any of it, and suddenly she had nothing to go back to. The affair quickly ran its course and she came back remorseful and apologetic, and he was able to dictate the terms by which he may be interested in trying again.

In short, he was not "one down" when they came back together, if anything things were tipped in his favor. She understood his boundaries, what he would and would not accept, and had seen that he would stand up for himself, and was perfectly capable of living his own life without her. She wasn't on the hook for anything.

In that context, they're both in the relationship because they want to be, not because they feel like they have to be, and that's an important distinction.

Give her space Teppo, no more emotional appeals. Focus on you and who you want to be and the rest will take care of itself. If you want her back, the shortest path is a straight line in the other direction. Anything else is just prolonging the inevitable.

Acc