Ok Muddle, I'll indite you along with me, Frank and some of the other "good" DBers around here. One thing that I think makes us "good" is the fact that we express ourselves pretty well in our posts...maybe too well sometimes.
My point is that MOST of the time, what I have in my posts is pretty much exactly what I want to say, the way I want to say it. It's honest, well as honest as it can be when I revise it 5 times before hitting the final continue button. It's honest, but to say that I don't craft my words VERY carefully would be a lie. I do craft my words and thus, to a certain extent, the image people have of my sitch, more importantly, ME.
SO, what does this all have to do with you? Well, I think you too express yourself VERY well in your posts here, and to others on their threads. That said, and sorry for all the preface, reading your last post, if it was anywhere close to being an honest representation of the events you describe then I think you are wrong in your assessment that you did a poor DBing job. Like I said, you are good at crafting your posts so if this was an edit job to make yourself look good (don't think so) then fine, but if not...
I think I said a similar thing about another recent post where you thought you did badly. I think you are doing a WONDERFUL job of DBing. You (and RB for that matter) are dealing with VERY tough things with strength and honor...and TRUE unconditional love. You are to be commended for that.
In each of the sitches you describe, and in each conversation, you were direct, open and honest. When you felt like you could not be, you removed yourself from the equation. You acted out of self-interest first, love second and in each case, without "attachment" to the outcome.
I think you COULD be seen as catering to your W's whims, but I think you said something a few posts ago that was REALLY important about how you discovered yourself actually seeing this trip and all the "OM" stuff as somehow important to W in terms of her establishing her own identity and self-esteem, however f-ed up the means she was using to do it.
Nobody can ever say that they condone an affair and be anything other than either a liar or an idiot but that's not what you're doing here. You are practicing the ultimate DB mandate of letting them go and releasing all notion of control over your W. You are giving her all the rope she needs to either hang herself, tie on to OM's boat or throw a line back to you so you can pull each other back from a painful potential outcome.
I see you as one of the few who seem to truly embrace the individual reality DB presents us with, one of self diagnosis, self control and NOT trying to control those around us, ESPECIALLY our WAS.
As we see here every so often, there IS a debate to be had about whether or not this method is the "right" one versus more heavy handed tactics but I think there is no doubt (at least in my mind) that IF DB works to the extent that the WAS returns on their own volition to a fundamentally more centered LBS, then the resulting reconciliation has a MUCH better chance for success then if the LBS somehow forces a decision and return.
You are taking the path less traveled for sure and I think you are doing it to the best of your ability. Please, keep it up.
Quote: It’s so frustrating to me, because she seems to want to see me doing whatever it takes to appease her and make her feel better (and it looks to me like utter manipulation on her part), and yet thinks less of me when I do appease her. Yet, she escalates her childish behavior when I stand my ground. I don’t want to contribute to her feeling badly about me, but somewhere she has learned that feeling badly about me entitles her to have me change my actions.
I understand this ALL too well. My W does the same exact thing, as I poste the other day. If I appeas her, I think she sees that as weakness but if I don't, she acts out against that as well. It's a no-win sitch unless WE figure out how to just BE and let her reaction to it be a non-factor. MUCH easier said than done, especially when we are at least somewhat in the business of caring what they think...
Quote: I’m not sure if my actions are really improving things – because the difficulty here is that for the sake of this issue at hand I want to make her feel safe and secure in our relationship – to some degree coddling her and bending to her every whim, but through my self examination and my examination of the issues in our relationship, I’m very aware that playing into this codependency is very bad in the long run because it removes her choice from the equation – by guilting and obligating her to stay in the M.
I'm not sure I totally get what you are saying here (maybe you're not as good as I thought, lol). I THINK you are saying that by still catering to her whims, it is making her feel guilty for leaving, whereas if you were a complete a$$ it would make leaving easier, thus somehow more "her" decision.
Quote: The choice to stay is very important to her – and I feel that she can’t make that choice as long as she feels dependent and we are so intertwined. I have taken a lot of steps towards detaching, but she remains in the same sort of place in the function of the relationship to her. It’s frustrating, but I think that what change is occurring is for the best, even if it makes W somewhat uncomfortable.
I get this a bit more. I have the same issues with my R and W. To me, this is where we have to depend on our OWN changes to carry us and the R to a new place, a less dependent place.
I KNOW that my changes are for good and for real and I THINK my W won't be able to help changing herself if she is in an R with "this" me. The trick is both in the maintaining of the "new" me AND having her trust in that change long enough for her to accept her own need for change in the R.
