dilly, just some observations: Imagine the impact it would have on him if you changed the locks again. Cancelled all future "appointments" with him. Went dark on him (meaning you didn't initiate ANY contact, and only responded to his direct questions with short, to the point answers, (yes or no questions getting yes or no answers). If the thought of this makes your pulse quicken, causes you to breath hard, and you break out in a sweat, then you are selliing yourself short. Dillydaf will survive and thrive with or without this flake (and yes he is acting like a total flake) in her life!
Steve: I suppose I just have a lot of problems believing that going dark will work. I went back and read your sitch from the start (man, you were messed up!) and you had no separation, you spent time together in the same house, you had sex pretty soon after BD, so many factors which meant you were closer to your W than I am to my H. I get the psychology of wanting what you can't have, I get that just going dark and moving on might prompt my H to realise what he risks losing (he even said that when he left, he said he 'risked' me finding someone else and moving on, then he corrected himself and said that risk was the wrong word, but it wasn't). But equally it might just signal to him that he was right to think that I would abandon him all along. Over the years we lost our connection, we ignored each other and treated each other poorly.
Since BD we have generally been nicer to each other. We text each other a couple of times a day and talk on the phone every few days, he asks about my work and knows what I'm doing with my time which might be him being controlling or might be him wanting to know more about me. We go out and have dinner and some fun activity once a week and usually enjoy ourselves. Most weekends we go for a long walk and have lunch or dinner with the kids. Maybe that's cake eating, but for the most part he is nice to me and respectful (apart from the cat spraying incident last weekend). He doesn't seem to be having an A, but he is clearly hiding part of himself by burying himself in work, in wine, in socialising with colleagues and with his flat which is his fortress. When he feels criticised he starts talking about D, when he feels pressure (even if its his own perception not me pressuring) he talks about D, yet he's taken no action that I know of. I have been GAL, I work hard, see friends, have been doing new things and meeting new people, keeping the house much better than I ever did before, and I am thinking about what my future will look like whether or not he's in it.
Obviously the separation isn't sustainable in the long term, but I would be ok with a gradual reconnection. In fact, if he said he was coming back tomorrow I would refuse, I really would. But going dark and playing hard to get seems so risky, it seems quite juvenile, and it might seem to him that I was abandoning him and distancing like I did for a lot of our M. I don't think it would give him a sudden epiphany, but maybe I'm completely wrong. But then again I don't really understand what's going on in his head that he would feel like I'm his friend but he doesn't want to touch me or share a bed with me or want to spend more than a few hours a week with me. It's like he sees me as an enemy not a friend, or a stranger not his W.
So given I don't understand what he's thinking, maybe going dark would work, but it feels like it would be putting my M on the line on the basis of advice from people who don't have any evidence other than anecdotes. I know full well there are no guarantees, that H might choose to walk away for good no matter what I do and that I have zero control over him, only myself. But going dark, it just feels like a huge risk with no evidence. I sometimes feel like DBing is talked about a bit like religion: trust the process, follow the rules, have faith. But I'm an atheist and a believer in scientific evidence: what has been shown to work? What are the things most likely to rebuild connection between people? There is a lot of sense in DBing: understanding that you only have control over yourself, validating your S, making yourself a better person, not pursuing. But then there is contradictory advice in there too I think, and I don't understand how you can reconnect with your spouse if you're going dark on them.
