Everyone who goes through one of these situations and recovers their lives, either with or without their WAS, is a success story.
The blessing for all of us is that the pain and stress provide motivation for real change.
Its a rare opportunity in life to find motivation really evaluate who you are and who you want to be.
From my perspective, someone who saves their marriage but goes back to their old habits and resolves themselves to a life of unhappiness is not a success story.
Someone who ends up with a divorce but moves on to healthier and happier relationships has succeeded.
One trap we LBS's can fall into is that there is
(1) the person we wish our spouse to be, and
(2) the person our spouse really is.
It's great to love (2), it can be dangerous to ourselves to love (1), because that person is not real.
Your W may be miserable and have lots of adversity in her life, but it is not your job to save her, nor do you have the power to do so.
Just as you are working on healing yourself, your W needs to do the work.
Your job is to create an amazing life for yourself that anyone would want to be a part of. At that point, W will be lucky if you let her come along for the journey.
If you want her (or anyone else) to feel safe in this regard, then you need to have a wonderful life on your own. If you have provided for your own emotional needs and are living a life that makes you happy, then you don't need to hang anything over her head, because you really don't need her for anything.
She's in your life because you want her to be, not because you need her to be. You're her partner, not her dependent.
The nice thing about that scenario is that she knows if she doesn't hold up her end of the bargain as your partner, that you don't need her and are able to leave her behind while maintaining your wonderful life.
What kind of behavior do you think that will motivate?
Your STBXW is walking down the street at night and stops between two houses. From one house comes the sound of crying, wailing, and breaking glass. The other house seems to have a party going on and she can hear music and laughter and sounds of friendship. Which house does she want to enter?
If your life is full of warmth, laughter and friendship she won't be able to stay away, and even if he does you won't miss her.
When you pursue someone, their response is to run. The more you pursue, the more they run. Think of it this way, pretend W wants 4 feet of space between the two of you. You move in a foot to three feet and it makes her uncomfortable, so she moves another foot away.
Do that for long enough and she will want 5 feet between you instead of 4, and then 6 instead of 5.
If, on the other hand, you go the other direction and give her 8 feet instead of the 4 feet she wants, then you make it "safe" for her to move 4 feet back toward you without feeling uncomfortable.
If you allow her to maintain her 4 feet and she gets comfortable, she may only need 3 feet, etc.
That's the point about pursuing and temp checking and why it makes everyone's situation worse.
