Moving Forward - Continued

[Benito]

Hi All,

It must have been something in the air that made me randomly check the site today, and lo and behold my thread is on the first page! - coincidence I am sure - but bizarre all the same.

Anyway, down to business..

Davide - Your statement - I still struggle with detachment, with feeling that the W will never see these changes.

The bold bit for me is key. Your obviously still looking at this process as a mechanism to entice your partner back. Even though I 100 per cent understand this, and you shouldnt feel down for falling into this trap, in my opinion it is focusing your energies to change for something other than changing yourself.

When you met your wife, there would have been a point, where you were both attracted to each other purely by simply being the person that you are. That was enough.

Obviously as daily life takes its toll, and time passes by, we begin to see the person that we are with through the story in our mind of what they like, what they dont like, arguments and disagreements you have had etc etc.. And rather than just being true to yourself (which they were attracted to in the first place) you start to tailor your behaviour to suit what you have learned about them over the years.

The issue with this is that over time, it will lead to resentment from you or the other party, when you finally have that awakening that you/they are not happy anymore - because you are so far from your true self - you are not only different to the person they met, but now, you are being blamed for taking them away from the person that they were before they met you!

So in its simplest terms we are playing a mental game to maintain (or regain) the relationship rather than being true to ourselves and just letting the rest play out the way it needs to play out.

In no way shape or form an I religious, I have no real feelings either way, however I have learnt to have faith (in the universe more than anything) that if I am true to myself, and I am truly honest about my self worth, that if I stay positive, and focus on the things that I am grateful for, rather than the things I dont have - that things will work out in the end.

I dont want this next sentence to sound like partner is some sort of prize (I'm just trying to express my thoughts the best way I can) but getting my partner back was a relatively easy and low effort exercise.

She came back, bit by bit, over a 9 month period, on her own accord. I can honestly say this was because I focused on me rather than winning her back.

If I tried to win her back, I would be divorced now.

People dont need convincing to return. They want to return.

I had issues personally. Very co-dependant, parental issues and just a bit mopey.

I wrote down my name in the middle of a piece of paper, and from that just jotted down everything that came into my head about me. I was surprised to find that 80 percent of the things I wrote down where negative, or a bit of a sob story - i.e. poor me - why me? Sort of story.

Would ANY women want to be with a man like that?? - Im surprised she didnt leave sooner to be honest.

For me its like having a home built on sand. Yes you have a relationship - but you are constantly walking that fine line of not knowing if its all going to fall down or not. The best decision, is to knock the house down, dig anyway the sand, put in solid foundations, and build again. Yes, it will be awful destroying the house you built - but you know in your heart of hearts its the right decision in the long run for your own piece of mind and a stable.

It is EXACTLY the same with a marriage - you cant expect the have a solid genuine relationship, if your personal foundations are not solid before hand - not after or during.

There is absolutely no guarantee that if you turned into Mother Theresa your Wife would come back - however I will tell you from experience that if you do this right, you start to enjoy time on your own, understand you will be lonely for a while and cry for a bit, in the end when the dust has finally settled, you will start to question if you actually want them to come back at all!! - But that jump of faith into the unknown is the hardest part of all but you can do it.