How do you DB when you love your WAS?

[SteveLW]

Steve,

I logged in to say thank you for your post. I was having a particularly tough day today and I needed this.

I agree with you that letting go is the healthiest and wisest thing to do for a LBS. I believe once you truly let go, only then other possibilities can happen. I believe letting go precedes forgiveness and forgiveness precedes reconciliation. The LBS has to let go and give the WAS time and space that he/she needs. More importantly so that the LBS can find his or her own peace. Then it’s up to the WAS to find forgiveness. Someone mentioned that the WAS is full of resentment and the WAS has to forgive before the LBS has a chance of R. Also important to know that, you can’t force the WAS to forgive you, it’s a process for the WAS to undergo. The LBS has a different journey to make.

I might be oversimplifying it here but I hope I am making my point clear. Note that, I believe this only applies to WAS. Maybe it’s different if there is an A involved.

I want to add that letting go is a step-by-step process. It’s difficult to let go everything entirely. So you let go of your attachments one at a time. At your own pace. That would mean letting go of seeing each other, letting go of getting goodnight kisses, letting go of seeing her smiling with someone else, and so on. One at a time. Accept and let go. I am talking from experience and this way of thinking has helped me a lot.

funbun, thanks. And good insights. The process of getting to Ring and piecing is complex. But I totally agree with you that the first thing the LBS has to do is to let go. I think there is almost no chance of Ring until this occurs. The LBSs that we see here struggling the most are the ones that fight letting go the hardest. I think LBWs struggle the most with this. They have a mentality that love means never giving up.

But letting go is not giving up. You don't have to give up to let go. Letting go means that you become the picnic. The lighthouse. You are no longer moving TOWARDS them, but they knwo where you are and can move towards you if they ever decide to. The analogies of the picnic and the lighthouse are perfect metaphors for letting go (stop moving towards them!), but not giving up.

I also think that LBWs struggle more with the idea of whether or not spouses deserve unconditional love or not. I believe that in romantic relationships there is no such thing as unconditional love. There are always conditions. Conditions like you won't try to murder me. You won't abuse me. You won't have sex with other people. Etc. We SHOULD have conditions on our love. And I think LBWs that struggle the most think that no matter what I have to show him that I love him. Even though I said abuse was a deal-breaker. Though he beat me, I can overcome that deal-breaker with love.

I'd argue, back to my OP in this thread, that when you give up on your deal-breakers after your spouse breaks them, then that is another sign that you love being married to that person, not necessarily that you love that person unconditionally. It is kind of like a parent of a child that commits a crime. Love doesn't say "you committed a crime but I will help you escape the consequences of your crime". True love says "I love you and therefore I want to make sure that you face the consequences for your crime!" A parent that turns their child into the authorities, in my opinion, is showing more love than one that tries to harbor that child and shield them from the law.

I am off on a bit of a tangent, but your post funbun sparked in me a reminder of the behaviors I am seeing in current sitches. This board ebbs and flows. We tend to get a lot of LBHs posting here all at once, then at some point it will flow the other way and we get a myriad of LBWs. Recently we've seen more LBWs, and due to gender differences, the dynamics are always slightly different. But it amazes me to see women that are willing to put up with so much garbage from a man in the name of love. If I pulled half of the garbage that some of these WAHs in these sitches pull, my W would hire a lawyer and file for D so fast my head would spin. Why? Because she has a healthy love for herself! I often wonder if LBWs being willing to put up with so much is rooted in a lack of self-esteem.

Thanks for your words on forgiveness, funbun. Forgiveness is similar to love, in that you can forgive someone, and still require things from them. Take the example I used of the parent above. If a child comes to you and confesses a crime, and asks for forgiveness. The parent can forgive them AND at the same time expect them to turn themselves in to face the consequences of that crime. We as LBSs can move on from a WAS or WS and still love and forgive them.