Unsure what's next, what to do.....

[SteveLW]

That brings this question up that I am going to ask my IC next week but will also pose to you all: How much of feeling as though your thoughts and feelings are being controlled and manipulated by your S falls on you vs. the spouse that's doing the 'controlling'? She VERY rarely would say 'well I don't see it that way' or 'this is how I feel about xxx'. How can I know that her thoughts and feelings are different than mine when they aren't expressed? The more I think about it, some of that needs to fall on her for not expressing those to me to make me aware that she thought differently about something. Now, I empathize with her presumed response that she felt scared or anxious to share her thoughts but at some point she probably needed to be true to herself and standup for what she thought or felt. Which, ironically, is what I've wanted from her for a long time. That's the past though. Neither of us can change that and I think she's working through how to 'be herself' right now which is what gives her great pause it trying to work through all of this and work on our M.

I love that you realize you can't change the past. The problem is that you spend most of this paragraph concerned about something you can't control. Her and her thoughts. So forget that. Double-down on controlling yourself. Worrying about what she thinks and feels is a cheeseless tunnel. Don't spend energy on that. Allowing someone to control you is on YOU. Because again you can't control the other person. Ironically, we sometimes forget that they can't control us....unless we allow it. So don't.

Stop obsessing about how to fix her....fix yourself.

So, in the end, I think everyone sees their situation as 'different' and I guess everyone's is different. Lots of similarities, obviously, but just as much different as they are similar too. Maybe I'm wrong, and somebody can give give it to me straight if I'm not thinking logically about this, but since she really hasn't given me a BD yet, I'm not sure if DBing is effective, at this stage of my situation, since my W hasn't told me point blank 'I want out.' When the techniques associated with DBing are in direct contrast to what my 180s should be, I'm not sure if I'm at a point where I should be implementing them yet. Not all of them at least. After the conversation yesterday, I haven't brought up the R and don't plan to. I'm going to go with the old adage 'actions speak louder than words,' especially if I take her at her word that she hasn't made up her mind definitively. I will say it "appears" as though she's reaching out to me more just in the past 24 hours since the conversation. Maybe that's me over analyzing, which very well could me. Sort of wishful thinking. That could definitely be the case. I will say, after reading what she said, it's helped my positive attitude immensely and before I feel I was implementing the positive attitude whenever she is around pretty well. I have my first DB coach phone call today so I'm anxious to see what he has to say on it all.

Yes, most people think their sitch is unique. What is similar about all of them is they think that also means DBing can't work. But here is the question for you: what is the alternative?

See you really only have two choices. Pursue and pressure. Or DB: Let her go, GAL,180 where you know you made mistakes, detach, and be the H only a fool would leave.

Do you know how many sitches pursuit and pressure works in? It is a curve approaching 0. DBing is no guarantee, but you have exponentially better odds DBing over pursuit and pressure.

And please provide an example the illustrates the bolded text above. I've heard so many posters here say "I ignored her, so I should 180 on that, but DBing says I need to detach". This show a blatant lack of understanding of detachment. NO WHERE ANYWHERE IN THE BOOKS OR ON THIS SITE DOES IT SAY THAT DETACHMENT MEANS IGNORING!!!! Sorry, but having to repeat that over and over again get frustrating.