I think the biggest issue is that the LBS actually believes that they have to find that magic secret to bring them back. When in reality, that does nothing but tell the WAS that they are being controlled and smothered again.
Benito,
I agree.
I had a professor that told us about an experiment that was conducted to with dogs. The researchers setup a two-sided fence (half a of a square enclosed fence). To get "inside" of the fence, all you had to do is walk down one of the sides of the fence and then it was entirely open; you could walk to the apex (the inside corner) of the fence.
The researchers put a bowl of food inside the fence at the apex. Then, they place a dog outside the fence. If the dog was merely hungry, it would just go down one the sides of the fence and go to the apex and eat the food. However, if the dog was starving, the starvation was so agonizing that the dog couldn't figure out how to get to the food. The dog would just stand outside of the fence looking at the food; starvation would override the dog's cognitive capacity so it would continue starving while it was pining for the food.
I think many left behind spouses are like the starving dogs.
