Affair, no feelings...is there hope? V

[44tries]

You seemed confused after reading Stosny's book. You come back talking about compassion, resentment, etc. Do you see yourself being in an emotional abusive MR?I'm just trying to see where your head is, after coming back home.

Ah, I understand. The confusion is in my perspective of my W. I am stuck between feeling compassion for her as an inherently good human being vs. feeling negatively toward her and thinking she isn't good enough for me (or however you want to phrase it). A huge part of Stonsy's book is an explanation of the selfish, resentful behavior of your spouse, but he is still painting them as if their "core self" is "good". His whole goal is basically to develop compassion, which he claims is the only antidote to resentment. The problem is for nice guys like me, this is already sort of our default mindset and does not help make us less "soft".

Let's get one thing straight. Replacing compassion with resentment is not advised. Resentment is never healthy!

Right. Logically I completely know this.

I often talk tough and straight to a H that wants to remain in his state of passivity. The nice guy will be drawn to the type of books that talk about showing loving tenderness, compassion, understanding, cooperation, etc. There is nothing "wrong" with any of those things.......when implemented in the right time & place. The problem here is that you have a wife with a wayward mindset. She abuses your tenderness, goodness, compassion, etc.

I understand exactly what you're saying.

You want to make excuses for her. Partly, b/c you love her, and partly b/c you think you can work around the controlling, manipulative relationship.......if you show her how much you are committed; how deeply you care about her; show her the attention she craves; manage to have time to GAL while she's at work; and hope to God she'll change......maybe a miracle will come.

(I have to move from the IPad to my computer, so I'll be right back).

You describe PERFECTLY the default NGS "plan"...and hoping for that miracle. I don't know why it's so darn hard to let go of those ideas. Especially when living together, you get forced to make this choice 100x per day.