...perhaps about ways to manage the agonizing wait for this limbo period to end? It's a daily rollercoaster of emotions here, and it's getting less fun by the minute.
40free,
The one thing that I think most of the DB crowd seems to agree on is that GAL is hugely important. GAL helps refocus your mind which helps reduce the ruminating thoughts and it also shows your spouse that you can have a life without him/her. Of course, you already know all of that.
In my own case, I held on too long. I talked my wife into staying through the end of the school year so that my sons would have stability through the end of the school year. But, when I went to visit my wife at the hospital after she'd had neck surgery, the OM was in her room talking to her parents. (Granted, they were "just friends." Um yeah...) Finding the OM at the hospital was the last straw for me and I asked my wife to leave.
Once we'd separated, I was very surprised to find that my life actually seemed to improve. Although I hated the fact that I didn't get to see my sons every day (we had a rotating 2-3 schedule at the time). There was no more walking on eggshells. Honestly, it felt great.
Prior to the separation, I'd blamed myself for a lot the issues we'd had. I actually believed a lot of what my wife had been telling me. After separation, I was able to be much more objective. That's when my anger started ratcheting up; I felt like I'd been a doormat for a long time. After that, I had zero tolerance for my wife's crap, to the extent that I eventually banned her from coming in the house.
Looking back, I don't think the marriage could've been saved unless I was willing to tolerate the OM for as long as my wife wanted him to be around. I'm not interested in that kind of relationship, so the end result was divorce (she filed).
I'm not a huge proponent of "waiting it out" through a lot of bad behavior. My opinion, and it's just an opinion, is that DB seems to keep the LBS hanging on far too long. I think a decisive action early-on is probably best in most cases. Regardless, there aren't many successes, and I don't think that's due to technique, it's just the nature of the beast. But, I think DB gets a lot of stuff right, so I'm not trying to poo-poo the overall approach.
