No affair, no feelings...is there hope?

[44tries]

While I wait for DR to come in the mail (sadly might take a while, they really need to make an ebook version!), I am reading a couple books by Andrew G Marshall I could get Kindle versions for. "I Love You But I'm Not In Love With You: Seven Steps to Saving Your Relationship" and "My Wife Doesn't Love Me Anymore". A few of the reviews compared them to DR and said they followed the same methods, and overall the philosophy is the same--working on changing yourself, building for both outcomes basically. The problem is I'm surprised to find a lot of differences from the "rules" here.

For example, AGM seems to think talking to friends and family about your problems is a good thing. At one point, he even states the second best person to be a sounding board about making sense of your wife's feelings is your own mother! (First best being your sister). I have to say I disagree. I am not tempted to do this anyway, but it was a striking difference.

The one common theme is not saying things like "I love you" anymore or trying to reach out in that way. Not surprising because this seems like the most obvious. Overall, it is just a bit confusing because most of his strategies are for changing yourself, but the focus is still a lot about the relationship and the wife. This is despite the fact that he is clearly writing to husbands whose wives have little to no hope for the marriage. I don't know how to implement many of the techniques if I am not even initiating basic conversation with W. They revolve around being more giving, loving, thoughtful, etc which are great things but don't seem appropriate until the next stage, if I even make it there. I'm still struggling to know how to show that these positive changes are possible while I'm totally focused on myself. Hopefully, DR is more clear. Any other book suggestions are welcome.

On the bright side, he did provide one line which I absolutely love. He says make your new personal motto "I'll never make it easy for myself again." When faced with two choices, always go with the most challenging. This is great for me because I think it can apply both in a relationship context and my own personal life. Self-discipline is not my greatest strength and while I am ambitious and successful in what I do, a lot of things have come easy for me in life and as a result I can be quick to put on cruise control. Adopting this motto can go a long way to make me better live up to my full potential in all areas of life.