Great post Maika!! I just wanted to add something, not to you so much because clearly you "get it" but to newer people here who may read some of the negative comments about DB'ing and get discouraged:
Originally Posted By: Maika
I am coming out of the woodwork a bit based on a comment by PsySara on NicoleR’s thread – “I also feel let down by DBing, let’s face it, I could read any self help book to work on myself but I wanted to save my marriage. That didn’t happen and I feel disappointed my children will be from a divorced household.”
Yeah, I get that. The biggest problem with ANY marriage saving approach is typically the LBS doesn't begin applying it until it is very, very late in the game. If we knew about DB'ing before then many of us could have turned things around before we ever got close to being BD'd. But once a WAS is to the point of BD, it is a monumental task to turn them around. But if the point is that DB'ing is a failure if you don't save your M, then I would say this- what about your next R or M? Do you really think this is your last one? I've been dating my GF for 3 years and got a mini BD not too long ago. We started talking and I was shocked to hear a lot of the same things my ex said after BD (she didn't feel good enough for me, felt I was too critical, did not give her reassurances about the R, etc.) Seems I got a little complacent and fell into old habits. But here is the difference this time- I SAW THE WARNING SIGNS RIGHT AWAY. As soon as I heard her say these things my attitude wasn't to tune it out and write it off as "nagging" like I would have before. I swung into full-blown DB'ing mode. I listened, I validated, I gave her time and space. The result was it brought us closer than ever before. We opened up to each other and really shared our thoughts and feelings. We reconned without ever really breaking up.
And besides that, you never know what the future holds. There's my friend I mention now and then that remarried his ex 10 years after their divorce. So when someone here says DB'ing "failed" them, I say come back in 10 years when you are remarried to your ex or saving your next R and tell me if you still think DB'ing is a failure
