Muddle's Muddy Waters

[MuddleThrough]

I think that blaming the decision to have and continue an A on the M is a way of having at least 50% control over the motivation. I don't think you have any.

Ok - I shouldn't have said that I don't think you have any control over motivation. There is, of course, a fair amount of impact on the state of the M, and therefore, the existance of something to escape. As for an attractive draw - I truly think that has more to do with how much the WAS contributes to the M. You get what you put in, and if you don't give much love, you don't feel any.

I totally disagree. I think I had a LOT of control over her MOTIVATION to have an affair but no control over her choice to do it once that motivation was in place, or the motivation to stay was diminished.

So I take it from this that your W has thoroughly examined her motivation and placed responsibility for the A squarely on your M? I don't mean to challenge you here really, but rather to get information, because my W has talked with her therapist, and they agree that the two are not necessarily intrinsically linked. I couldn't believe it that her therapist would say this, but she did. I think the thinking here is that there are problems in the M and there is someone that my W was/is attracted to and is having a R with. Yes, she wants to escape her life, but she is being attracted by something else. It certainly doesn't make it any easier for her to come to terms with this when she has someone validating her and helping her compartmentalize her experience.

I think that's actually what this fictitious "marriage" thing IS. It is our attempt to motivate another person to be with us. You can substitute court or attract or entice or seduce or whatever word you want but to me, that is the essence of marriage, something I knew LITTLE about before DB. Then, after reading DB, I finally "got" it.

I have had the same realization. I never understood that M is a process. I guess I always thought of it as a state or an end. I never really thought that either of us would consider leaving - naive, I know, considering the high divorce rate.

Marriage and especially a healthy marriage is NOT about two "joined" people living in a rigid, predetermined box of "vows" but rather two "whole" people NOT taking things for granted and out of love and desire for one another, willingly and enthusiastically doing for one another.

Ah, vows. This to me now is all about a perspective we agree to live by. I think that the limited "box" of vows when looked at this way are not, in fact, limited. I think the fact that they are so universally used, they've become a sort of cliche and we don't truly understand the way they should impact our outlook in the present.

So, I DO think I play a part, through my actions/words in the marriage, in my W's motivation to stay or go. As I said, without that belief, DB does not work, IMHO.

I absolutely agree that we impact our S's experience in the M. We influence our S's sense of safety and security. We influence whether they want to stay or go. I do not, however, believe that this dynamic is as strong when there is a third party involved in the M. In one of my first posts on this board I expressed my concern that the feedback loop being utilized in the DB method wasn't geared towards a R with 3 people in it. I have seen more clearly the ways in which it works, and I see the huge potential for it without this particular symptom bringing the M to crisis point.

I guess what I really struggle with is whether an A is truly a symptom of a S wanting to leave the M, or whether it is something that happens and can make it likely that someone who's not operating at 100%, and therefore being fulfilled in the M, will see the M as something worth walking away from. It's the chicken and the egg argument.

P.S. Yes, this IS living to me. I love nothing more than a friendly debate. Thank you!

Thank you!