Victorious III

[SteveLW]

Do you want to be her friend? We find that most LBS do not want to settle for friendship.

As far as WHAT you should be doing. When in doubt doing NOTHING is doing something.

When it comes to acting, be decisive. Once you make up your mind to act, then act. The worst thing you can do is to act timidly, and assuredly. WASs will detect your weaknesses. And they certainly will sniff out any attempt at manipulation.

This is why when people say "Should I file for divorce?" our answer is "Do you want to get divorced?" Because most LBSs ask that in a way to shake their WAS out of their fog. To give them a dose of reality. This almost always backfires.

In my sitch, early on it, I embraced letting her go and getting a D as a way to try to shake her up. This had no effect on her. Afrer all, she was insistent that she want to get job, get her own place, and get a D. So me "embracing" that half-heartedly (and she could tell) was part of what she expected. Kind of like dealing with a teenager. "Go to your room!" "Fine, I wanted to go to my room!" This the part where words are meaningless. No matter how much I said I was embracing it, she thought "yeah yeah, telling me what I want to hear."

(Note: we often tell newcomers to "let them go to get them back". This is less about getting them back because of the above dynamic. and more about getting the LBS in the right mindset. Eventually the emphasis changes from "getting them back" to "letting them go". I think you've seen this in your own sitch.)

When I contacted a lawyer, well the ballgame changed! Suddenly my actions were backing up what I was saying. I'll never forget the look on her face when she found out I had contacted a lawyer. Her face dropped and she looked at me in disbelief that I had actually taken a step towards getting a D. For the first time she saw me taking a step towards making her dream a reality. And that made her question if she really wanted it or not.

Notice: Words made her feel support towards her dream. Actions made her feel like "Uh oh, my dream is becoming a reality!"

The train was leaving the station but she wasn't sure she really wanted to be on the train.

WASs fall into two camps. Those that really want what they say they want. And those that think they want what they want but aren't sure once they start getting it.

I believe the majority of WASs fall into that later camp. This is why DBing works in those cases, because it feels like on BD they let the genie out of the bottle......and as the LBS DBs suddenly the WAS is trying to get the genie back into the bottle. This is also why most of the time once a D is well on its way, the WAS will start showing signs of regret and even talk about trying again. And that even goes for many of the ones in the first camp!

So do nothing until you are sure what YOU want. And then go get it. The worst thing a human can do is sit back and wait for another human to take action. Which is why I was trying to get you to see that your sitch before and after the discussion is the same. You are still sitting back waiting for her to decide.

(bro hugs)