I agree with you 100%, Z. I was just being a bit flippant.
I agree with your take on the difficulties that the WS has in changing their mindsets. In my case, my W never seriously considered walking away. It just wasn’t practical. Instead, she chose to walk away emotionally. She decided that I dominated OR so she’d just live her own life under the same roof as me. Sort of a parallel living arrangement. It still takes a leap of faith for her to backtrack on that. It still takes time.
I have a theory about your theory (i.e.: the longer a couple hold on to the marriage the more likely they will reunite). I believe that we all go through phases in our lives. Sometimes we’re out of phase with our SO. If you stick it out long enough, you’ll eventually get back in phase. The biggest barrier to this is – as you’ve stated – the ego issues, and the trust issues.
But, when you do get back in phase, I believe that you’ll have a better R than you ever imagined. You’ve worked out some issues that would have stained your R for the rest of your lives if you hadn’t reached this sort of crisis.
