Harvey - I agree. Holding on to hope or feeling hope makes it harder for me. I've always been optimistic and a hard worker - figuring I work something until I get the result I want. That has made me successful in most things.
I once had a coach say "Live with hope, and be willing to deal with disappointment; that's better than living a lonely life with a protected heart."
I thought at the time that was good advice. Of course we are past that now. But early on I thought that was fitting.
We've now reached the place where LH's perspective is the better take.
After BD, we want to feel hope. However, the odds of saving your marriage after BD are not great--no matter what you do. This site is called "divorce busting". The last thing people associated with this site want is to give the feeling that there is no hope. The crux is that the best way to save your marriage is to detach. The best way to detach is to feel there is no hope. I absolutely feel that DB principles are the best way to save your marriage. However, you cannot follow the principles primarily to save your marriage. How do you balance that? It's a tough question. For me losing hope helped immensely with detaching. Others can balance detaching and keeping hope better than me. If you can detach yet keep hope, then you are ahead of the game. If you can't detach without losing hope, then it's probably best to lose hope. As long as you stay detached, your odds of turning the situation around are tiny.
