Awkward Situation Got Much Worse (part 3)

[25yearsmlc]

Kicking my wife out seems a little extreme considering I am working to restore our marriage.


a lot of DBing is counter intuitive. We want them back "all in", so we figure that convincing them to care about us/the marriage, and pursuing them will show them our value. But it's the opposite of what works, usually.

Backing off and letting the WAS see our value by us detaching, is what's most likely to generate success here.

Not saying it'll all lead to a full on recon, but them noticing that they are losing a good catch almost always requires the LBSer backing off and at least acting as if they are DONE.

The LBS who sits around waiting, and being there "in case", (& calling it "working on the m") is the way the WAS can do anything they want, and not worry about losing their LBS.

That is the point of most of the advice you are getting.


That said, there seems no way to enforce anything with my wife.

but, You are not willing to enforce anything. So, see where we are going here?


She is completely satisfied living as roommates, and I cannot think of anything to use as a bargaining chip.

Yes she is completely satisfied with this.

Plan A for most affair spouses and for most "wanna be single" spouses, is to keep the stability of the family as their base, but without any responsibility or fidelity requirement
of them.


Only when they are forced to choose between Plan A and the unknown, might they make a choice the LBS wants.

The only thing I can think of is going dark. This would put her in a tremendous bind and a lot of stress as I run just about everything in the household. There are two problems with going dark that I can see...it also puts my kids in a bad situation of nobody there to care of them two evenings a week (W in school) and several of the things I do for me (working on car, exercise equipment) are at our house forcing me to give those things up for the duration as well.

I don't think you can go full on dark with kids and in the same house, if you mean "disappearing" (which is not going dark.)


You can act as if she does not exist apart from parenting matters and only in a skeletal way with no frills and no details. If you are presently caring for them 2 nights a week,

that's it. If you need to work on your car or exercise, find another place for those.

You cannot detach by hanging around the home she lives in. I'm just not sure what your living situation is going to be with you "going dark." What do you mean by that term?