My Confusing MLC Navy W

[SteveLW]

reason,

I read your original post over the weekend but didn't get a chance to post. I have also read through the responses and your responses.

We all as LBSs come here the same way. We want the secret sauce. The one thing we can say or do that will fix our MR, save it, and turn it around. The problem is......that secret sauce DOES NOT EXIST. There is nothing you can do. There is nothing you can say, to fix this. LBHs especially want to FIX it. They spend all kinds of time and mental energy trying to diagnosis, dissect, and troubleshoot their situation. The thinking is that if we can get to the root cause, we can fix it. This is fool's gold when it comes to marital problems. In fact, all that time and mental energy focused on your sitch will actually set you back.

The one simple truth I found early in my situation that really helped me, and helped me more as I embraced it more, was that pressure and pursuit DO NOT WORK. And will push her out of the door faster than anything else. The more you pursue her, the more pressure she feels from you stay, to work on the marriage, to discuss things etc, the more you are just pushing her right out of the door.

Another thing I learned early on in my sitch was that there were only two things I could really do. That was to back off (IE remove all pressure and pursuit) and give it time. If you read my threads you will see I came to this forum convinced that my W's use of anti-depressants was the root of our problems and that if I could get her off of those meds then everything would be solved. That was a facade. I was barking up the wrong tree. Luckily I remembered DBing early in my sitch, and though I struggled for a few weeks, as I got better at it so to did my sitch. It didn't mean I was saving my MR......but I was saving myself!

So this is why we say to remove all the focus off of her. Guess what, snooping on OM IS focusing on her. It is focusing on your sitch. And it will not get you to where you want to be. This is why you take the focus off of her, and off of your sitch, and put it on to yourself. GAL. No excuses. Get busy and be busy. 180s, find out what you can improve about yourself and and do it. Become a man only a fool would leave! And detach. Stop spending so much mental energy on her and the sitch. Do not let her actions and words affect you emotionally. Certainly stop reacting to it!

And yes, I know your sitch feels different because of the time apart. We had a guy here a couple of years ago whose STBXW had filed a TRO against him and he could not reach out to her at all. I actually tried to get him to see that it was actually a positive! Most of us LBSs struggle with not reaching out, not smothering, not pressuring and pursuing our WAS. But in his situation he had a built in "no contact" provision! Now, if he had worked harder at GAL and detachment than he did, he would have been better off. He did a terrible job at those and suffered despite the no contact. I think you have the same opportunity here, to focus on yourself and just work on yourself. GAL, 180s, detachment. Simple plan, but difficult to follow unless you commit to it!

Now, I know this is all scary. "If I back off and leave her alone then she will think I don't care. She'll forget about me. She'll move on." This is typical LBS thinking when it comes to DBing. DBing is counter-intuitive. It feels wrong. What I can tell you is that the alternative to DBing is pressure and pursuit. Pressure and pursuit almost NEVER works. Like less than 1%.....probably a fraction of a percentage. DBing improves your odds of saving your MR, but it is not a guarantee. What it does guarantee that no matter what she ends up deciding, you will be fine. Better than fine, you will go on to an awesome life!

I know you do not think this now, but even if you end up D'd, you're going to be ok moving forward, as long as you do the work and realize that life isn't about what happens to you, it is how you react to it. You cannot control your W. She is going to do what she is going to do. You get control of one person. One exercise I encourage LBSs to do is to step back from their sitch and try to look at it objectively, as an outside observer. Take out the fear, anxiety, feelings, and desperation. What would you as that observer tell yourself to do? Spy on OM? Deluge your W with whatever contact options are available to you? Or would you tell yourself to back off, give her time and space to figure out herself, and to start to move on with your life. She'll either decide what you are doing with your life is exciting and want to be part of it, or she won't, but the advice should never to be stand pat!

Finally, one last thing. Remember, absence makes the heart grow fonder. I once went out of town for training for 3 weeks. When I came back home, despite our MR not being great (this was pre-BD) my W was the most attentive, loving and caring she had been since we were newlyweds. So try to take things you see as a negative in your sitch and look at them as a positive, at how they can help.