Riding the Wave

[SteveLW]

He is doing what he feels like doing, but a lot of his behavior is to goad me into being the person he's presented me as to OW. There have been a lot of "you always" " you never" accusations pointed at me. If I question literally anything it's me being controlling. I'd love to say this is solely him just doing whatever he wants to do, but it's not. He's been trying to bait me in fights, bait me into kicking him out, and the behavior he thinks he has me pegged for, so he can prove I'm the bad guy here. As unkind as this is he's a coward by nature, even before all this, he never wanted to deal with looking like the problem. At this point anything I do that will make him look justified and not like the bad guy here is exactly what he wants.

This paragraph is troubling because none of it matters. He is going to tell OW awful stuff about you, whether or not you give into his goading! You could be Mother Teresa.....but to her he will present you as Jezebel. You can't worry about that, or what he tells OW.

However, you are right in that any bad behavior on your part is going to justify, in his mind, that he is right in wanting to leave. That is why DBing is about NOT doing that. You mention GAL and 180s. Those are great. But the real money is in detachment. Because then you will not react emotionally to what he says or does.

I've put it this way to other posters: The goal with detachment is that he could come to you and tell you "Please stop what you are doing, I need to tell you something. Last night I had an orgy with 10 women." and your reaction would be "Oh...ok." And then to go back to what you are doing. As Deja said, NOT reacting the way you normally do is what will really get him to wonder what is going on. That is why detachment is brilliant. You don't react. He starts to question things. And you get peace of mind no matter what he says or does!

Now GAL and 180ing can help with that. Be busy! Be improving! Be working on yourself! Think about it this way. #1 rule in DBing: do not start R talks....if he does, listen and validate and end it as soon as you can.

He comes to you and says: "We need to discuss what to do with the dogs. I feel I should get them after the D."
You: "So you feel the dogs should go with you?"
Him: "Correct."
You: "Ok, I need some time to consider that. In the meantime, I have some where to be, I'll have to get back to you on this later." Then go be busy!!

See? You listened. You validated. You didn't give him a definite answer, then you went and GAL.DBING!