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

[SteveLW]

Remember, the move towards R, if that is where you both are headed, is a process for her too. Just as you have ups and downs, so does she. I saw this with my W. She would cycle between being excited and leaving the MR, to being scared of leaving it. To being excited about our future together, to being sad that she was giving up her dream of a new life. She would be close some days, far away others. Attentive and affectionate one day. Sad and withdrawn the next.

I can't tell you the exact moment her demeanor switched from wrestling with staying and going and deciding that staying was what she wanted. It was a lot of little baby steps along the way. Steps that in an of themselves didn't mean much, but as time went on and they mounted up, began to show a direction. And a lot of it had to do with me. Was I pressuring and pursuing? Or being the lighthouse! Was I thinking about how my changes were affecting her, or was I just implementing them to be the best I could be? Was I mulling over in my head whether she'd stay or go, or was I at peace internally with whatever she ultimately would decide?

As the former in those morphed into the latter, so to did her re-commitment to the MR. As she saw me in MC owning my part in the problems of MR, without taking the responsibility off of her for the choices she had made that had us there, she started to trust the changes she had been seeing for weeks. The rebelling against the MR became further and farther between, and with shorter duration. She slowed down and eventually stopped reminding me that doing MC, spending time together, and even physical affection didn't mean she had decided to stay.

You mention "Lately, the blaming has been worse". My W did that too. I am not sure if this textbook DBing or not but I would remind her, when she'd say something like "yeah you always complained about the floors not being swept!", I'd say, "Yeah I used to be that way, but I am not anymore." She couldn't argue. That is the beauty of 180s. You can take ownership of your past bad behavior, and then point out that you aren't like that anymore. If it is true at a minimum then they can't say anything to the contrary. Many times my W would follow with "that is true, you haven't done that in a long time".

Reread the validation thread again too, 44. Listen to her blaming. Validate her feelings. Do not disagree or agree with what she is saying. Disagreeing leads to conflict. Agreeing leads to her thinking her rewritten history is the truth. My method was a combination of all three! I would validate her feelings on it. "Yeah, I used to be that way but I know it made you feel bad. But I am not like that anymore." See what I did? I admitted the past behavior. Validated her feelings. And had the opportunity to point out that I had stopped the behavior (which then caused her to take note of the fact "Hey, yeah, he hasn't complained about the floors in a long time!".

Okay, this got lengthy. The point 44 is that you are an exciting phase. There are many signs that your W is moving in the right direction. Just keep controlling yourself to keep the 180s, continue to GAL, and remain healthily and lovingly detached. She will cycle through ups and downs. It is kind of like the stock market. It doesn't matter what the stock did yesterday, or today, or what it will do tomorrow. The overall trend is the key! So try not to look at her behavior myopically focused on now....step back and look at whether the trend over time is in the right or wrong direction.