How long to try when it was (mostly) your fault?

[SteveLW]

Thank you for that Rushton. However, I have to disagree with you, I am not seeing a lot here that was anti-DBing! It seems you DB'd pretty darn well. The whole point of DBing is to get the LBS to move on without their WAS. SOMETIMES (as in both of our cases) it has the side-effect of making the WAS reconsider. That you had given up and were ready to move forward with the D is the EPITOME of DBing. We caution people not to use it as a ploy, because that usually backfires. But when you do really move on, accept the divorce and that your MR is over, and your actions are consistent with that, then it can make the WAS go "what the heck am I doing here."

There are no hard and fast rules. Talk to friends and family if you need to, as I did in my case. In my own personal view, I don't like the idea of a married couple trying to deal with all of this on their own, and keeping it all "private" ... that's unnatural, and it's not how we evolved as people or how our human societies evolved. Sometimes, we do need the wisdom and love and advice of family and friends. Our extended family, specifically my parents, did, in the end, help us reconcile. And I'm thankful for that.

You seem to think this is a huge part of DBing. It is not. Many DBers here let their friends and family in on what is going on and still DB very well. I advise against telling others, at least until you are ready to truly move on with D, because it can be difficult for a WAS to face all of the people that now know in order to reconcile. Your story and tale of reconciliation is very similar to mine, except NOBODY around us knew anything, and still do not to this day. But I knew in my situation, that once my friends and family knew about our problems, and knew that my W wasn't innocent in everything, that it would have been a bridge to far for her to come back at that point. So as you say, everyone's situation is different. No question about it. I too had hurt my W deeply. Over and over again. But she had gone about dealing with that all wrong by looking to other men, even just emotionally, to deal with it. If I had outed her to our congregation, my family, her family, and our friends, I do not think we'd be together today.

Overall, I love your story. The fact that your W saw Retrouville as a last chance is not surprising. She was flirting with D before you pushed D. When you pushed D it made her have to come to a decision: do I really want D or do I want to give this MR one last chance? She saw the latter as the better of the two paths, but still wasn't quite all in. One of the things my W said to me once we had fully reconciled (and had eluded to it during our sitch) was she never really knew what she wanted the whole time. One minute she thought she wanted A but then a few minutes later she wanted B. Your W was probably dealing with the same struggle.

Thanks for posting this! So many LBSs here get discouraged about the number of sitches that end in D. I've said in the past that many of the posters that come and go could have saved their MR but until they come back and post it we never know that. Thanks for sharing your story!