Dilly 2.1 part 5

[SteveLW]

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.

Dilly, you are right. I was messed up. But when I did things well from a DB standpoint, that was when progress was made. Even in our MC, it was more IC for Steve85 with W there. It wasn't until she was ready to recommit back to the marriage that the MC switched to true MC.

Having said all of that, every sitch is different. Personally, I would be extremely frustrated and impatient with having a friendship only with my W. What you describe above in paragraph three terrifies me. I couldn't do it. Alison said that if she goes dark, she's out. For me it would be her moving out and trying to be exactly what you describe in paragraph 3. So understand that is where my advice about going dark came from.

I am a firm believer in not doing the same thing over and over again HOPING the other person changes eventually. And maybe that is because now that I am 50, wasting much more than a couple of weeks terrifies me. I know there are no guarantees, but I have 20 years, 30-40 if I am lucky, left. I also have the perspective of, before being with my W, being in a friendship with an ex-gf where I put up with a similar arrangement to your paragraph 3....for years.....in a hope that she'd eventually give me another shot. It never came. And when I think of all the time I wasted, all of the girls I never gave a chance because I was clinging to a dream that was never going to come to fruition, it is something I will never tolerate in my life again for very long.

The LRT (some call it going dark), seems like a perfect fit for your sitch. Your H IS cake-eating. He is stringing you along. And you seem to give him exactly what he wants right when he wants it, to make sure he has you on a string. My suggestion is to cut that string.

I eventually cut the string in the situation above I mentioned. I knew it had two potential outcomes. Either she'd choose to be with me. Or she'd choose not to be with me. However, I cut the string because both of those were still better than her choosing to continue to string me along.

dilly, I see you being paralyzed.....by fear. Your greatest fear is to lose him. But the problem is you've already lost him. So you can set that fear aside. Now you want to get him back. Most of us here come here because that is our desire. But the problem you have to see is that your current course of action isn't really getting you any closer to that. Further, it continues to prolong your pain and anxiety.

The LRT does two things. It sends a strong message to your WAS saying "I'm fed up and I am not going to take it anymore." And it let's you have some time and space to get him out of your head and realize that there is a great big world out there that doesn't include your WAS, and that you will be just AOK with or without him.

Most LBSs are afraid to DB. Whether it is GAL and detaching, or LRT (going dark). But then most are not successful in saving their MR.

And the point about your being an atheist and looking to scientific evidence (not sure how those two go together but that is neither here nor there) is fine. However, you aren't dealing with science here. You are dealing with flakiness of the walkaway mindset. The minute you try to apply logic and reason to a WAS is the minute you come away with your head spinning in complete confusion. There is no such thing with a WAS.

"When he wants you back, you will know. When he doesn't, you will be confused."