I'm loving all the advice. Here's where I'm stuck before I implement going dark. Literally ever person I've talked to in person says to kill her with kindness.
Believe me, EVERY LAST ONE OF US tried this initially! It doesn't work!
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Be the best husband and dad possible.
You've been BD'd, she fired you as H. But yes, do be the best dad possible.
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Give gifts and repent.
Do not give gifts. Do not apologize over and over again, it just looks weak and pathetic and resolves in her mind that you really are to blame for everything. If you've already apologized for your shortcomings, then let that be it. No need to keep repeating yourself.
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I hear this from my counselor as well as someone who was on the brink of divorce themselves.
Your counselor and friends are probably knowledgeable on fixing problems in a struggling marriage, but they are not experts on a broken, post-BD marriage. We are. You've been BD'd, that puts you in a completely different category. Your W is DONE. She does not want you to "fix things", she wants out. All of the above behavior works in a relationship that is on the rocks but still salvageable, but it does not work when it's broken. Steve has a great analogy- if your car is running bad you can do maintenance on it to get it back in tip-top shape. But if you've blown the engine, then all the maintenance in the world isn't going to do squat. Your marriage has a blown engine.
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Do we have success stories around people whom did the opposite of some DB rules and pursued, etc?
Only if it happened before BD. I don't know of a case where pursuit brought a WAS back after BD.
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One of the reasons I think she went wayward was the lack of attention, no spontaneity, kids came first. Shouldn't these be my 180s?
Again, is your car (marriage) in need of routine maintenance? Or is the motor already blown? 180's like those do not work on the latter. Do you read Sandi's posts much? One of the things she talks about a lot is the utter lack of respect a WW has for her H. Once BD happens, the WW hates her H, and may even find him repulsive. Like she can hardly stand to talk to him or even be in the same room. Every attempt at appeasing her actually disgusts her, she looks at him as weak and pathetic. Zero value, zero respect. How do you get respect back from a WW? You leave her alone, you stand up for yourself, you don't take her sh**. You get out and GAL and that shows her you have value to yourself and to others.
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If she is having an EA, I have the home court advantage. I see her in person daily, she can see I'm a great dad and I can beat the guy at his own game.
You can't compete with an EA. With you comes all of the daily problems and challenges of life. An EA can be whatever she imagines it to be- riding into the sunset on a white stallion with a bare-chested he-man. If you think showing her how awesome you are at cleaning house, taking out the trash, doing laundry and caring for the kids can compete with that, well you're wrong. It's a classic LBS mistake though, doubling down on beta behavior when you should be finding your alpha self.
