It's almost like that process Michelle describes of the WAS noticing the changes we make just took your xw a LONG time to complete.
It's that time is needed to demonstrate consistency and overcome the completely reasonable concern that such fast changes may be only to re-attract the WAS, but I also think more importantly, that genuine changes take time to become second nature. How many posts have you read where LBSs immediately declare their changes despite a lifetime of habit contrary to those changes? When the changes are genuine, they show themselves unknowingly in other things one says and does, and *that's* what the WAS picks up on, I think.
Over the past few months, it was that kind of feedback I got from K... that she felt she didn't know me anymore, that I had become this different guy, and I wasn't doing anything other than tell her a bit about what I was doing here and there. But the changes showed through somehow.
I put away backsliding and venting over a year ago. I adopted a zen like attitude. I turned the focus on myself and was fortunate to really get some things going in my life. All this has a part in it too.
There's also the much overlooked fact that it's NOT just changes in the LBS that may re-attract the WAS, it's the change in CIRCUMSTANCES that really does it. The circumstantial changes can be the LBS's having gotten a life, for example. And also, it has to do with the WAS... where are they at? What have they learned? What kind of person are they? Is the love still there or was it completely stomped out?
The important thing is do YOU want her back in your life beyond the friendship she seems to want to foster?
No, not really. There are some changes in her, but not enough.
Funny how she told me early on that she was recognizing her part in our breakup and realized her conflict avoidance was partly at fault and was learning to now finally speak her mind in her new relationship. Let's see, she must've told me that back in summer of '04. Someone back then advised me that K may only THINK she's doing so, that her new relationship has her believing she's moved forward simply because there were changes in her life from one partner and life to another. Then in our chats a couple of days ago, there she is telling me her conflict avoidance is a problem still. See? The OP/new relationship can really be a diversion from working on one's self, since not much self-work is needed to make infatuation or a panacea work.
