Still here. Still not detached... (Part 2)

[Chris73]

Am I the only one who struggles to reconcile these strategies?

Painful, I have a lot of threads on here and if you take the time to read through them all...

not that I would blame you if you didn't

...you'll see that I have been having problems reconciling all of this too.

The advice from the vets on this forum will be a little different from the advice that comes from the DB coaches. But since the DB coaches don't post here, their advice is communicated here by their clients, which understandably, is sometimes obscured or skewed.

One of the problems with my sitch is that I haven't been consistent.

First, I made the rookie mistakes of begging, pleading, crying, bargaining, etc. That turned her off.

Then I tried a tough love approach but I didn't like the way it made me feel and my W, who's major criticism was that I was self-centered and controlling, really only saw it as more of the same.

So then I went in the other direction and tried to reconnect with her by putting the problems aside, being extra nice, and inviting her to do things with me. But this didn't work either. My W viewed this behavior as underhanded and (again) controlling.

Then things got worse between us and I started to become very angry. The frequency of our arguments increased and although she's way more hot-headed than I am, I said my fair share of mean and nasty things.

Now it seems like things have settled down. And this is mainly because I'm not doing much of anything to win her back. Yes, I did say something to her about calling off the divorce yesterday (see a few posts back), but for the most part, we just treat each other as business partners.

In the beginning, I think I failed to understand that whatever course of action I chose to follow after the bomb drop was really supposed to be for me to help myself overcome the situation. I spent a lot of time trying to fix/save the marriage and not enough time GAL'ing. So when things got worse in the relationship I wasn't any stronger than when it started.

Looking back now, I think my W made up her mind a long time ago. I can pinpoint this to sometime around Nov/Dec of 2015 when she initiated contact with an old BF and started an EA/PA with him in the beginning of 2016 that lasted for 5 months. After that I think she was just going through the motions of working on the marriage while at the same time trying to become more and more comfortable with leaving for good.

What most of us LBS don't understand is that when the BD comes, the WS has had a LOT of time to think about the situation. Meanwhile, we're dealing with it fresh. I think the people who succeed in DB'ing are the ones who go into self-preservation immediately after BD. This isn't to say that they have more success in saving their marriage. But they are in a better place regardless of whether the marriage recovers or if things get worse.

I'm rambling...