Living with a WAS/MLC husband...who does not care

[SteveLW]

Bluesea, I just posted this in Pommy's thread, but I think it has application to your sitch too:

Pommy, you bring up a really good point.

So when I was in my knowledge gathering phase in the initial months of my sitch, I found a lot of different theories about how to handle As. Some of the 'experts' said to ignore the A, and to just do things that rekindled your connection to your S. Then there was the hardline of "there can be no R while there is a third party involved." And lots of in between.

One of the experts used to repeat a lot that "the problem in the MR is not THE problem". The point being that the A was usually the symptom of deeper issues in the MR. And rather than focus on the A, you focus on the deeper issues and then A will then just go away.

I tend towards the "there can be no R with a third party involved" mindset, because otherwise the LBS trying to work on the underlying issues results in a lot of pressure and pursuit. And by time BD rolls around the time for pressure and pursuit are long passed.

I would guess that there are some folks that are successful in Ring by focusing on the underlying issues, but I think that % is probably a lot lower than the DB approach. I've often stated that if you DB perfectly after BD, from the get-go, then you have about a 50/50 chance of moving to Ring and piecing. Every mistake, setback, and poor DBing move you make lowers that %. The problem is not that DBing doesn't work, the problem is that very few LBSs DB very well.Then we get newcomers that look at all of the active sitches here and go "so few end in R!". Well that is because the people that tend to post here are the ones that tend to struggle with DBing the most.

Lots of good DBers that are able to turn their sitches around by backing off and removing all pressure and pursuit, GAL like crazy, 180ing on their poor behavior (including getting into IC!), and detaching really well usually get what they need to learn from the forum and we do not hear from them again. Kitcat is an example of this. She came here a few years ago, was able to DB her way out of her sitch, only to revert back (180s need to be PERMANENT! which is why IC is mandatory) and find herself back in the same situation.

While KC unfortunately didn't save her MR long-term, if you go look at her original threads you see that once she moved to R and piecing, she left the board. I think this happens A LOT. A few of us that moved to Ring and piecing stick around afterward, but I think we are in the vast minority.

So, DBing, including sticking to your core values, is a must if you are to have any chance at Ring and piecing. Some of the vets here hate when I start talking percentages, but I do it to highlight the importance of DB. If you DB well, you can get yourself close to a 50% chance of Ring and piecing. If you don't and apply a lot of pursuit and pressure then that % drops precipitously to less than 1%.

Note, the 50% thing is the number of sitches that can potentially get a chance at Ring and piecing. In a lot of sitches, by time that happens the LBS no longer wants it and have moved on themselves.