Quoting KAW: Think of her ideas of your M no longer working over the years as a growing mass that began to move with increasing momentum until the point where she began to run/act with those ideas. By the time it gets to "I want a divorce", that mass is chugging along like a oceanliner full of steam. Make your changes ... change your course ... spin that steering wheel ... but the momentum still seems to carry that ship forward in the water ... but you have put into effect the changes that will cause the momentum to shift ... in time that ship will begin to steer into the turn taking off the course it is currently heading.
Her ideas are that ship. In time the changes you have made will have the effect of shifting the momentum they have and eventually transforming her actions. A just as equally important part of the equation as the changes are, is the time it takes for them to make their effect.
Steph the same holds true about how they believe they feel. As to what sparks the change, I truely believe ...
Quoting KAW: How could she turn so quickly? I remembered how she once told me when she first knew she I was the guy for her. We first met by working on the same shift at work. We were part of the same group that would go out for coffee at a Dunkin Donuts every night after work. After several months, one night I set up a telescope in the parking lot to show them the planets and such. She told me it was that night she decided I was the kind of man she would like to live with for the rest of her life.
Then it hit me ... the reoccurring statement through out this board - "Love is a decision." A decision based on what it is about us that they are attracted to and then they are fully committed to that decision.
What altered that commitment? The subtle shift in our behavior until we are no longer the person they were attracted to. Then they begin to doubt their decision to love us. The more we continue our unattractive behavior the more they waiver. Eventually, they change their decision. Unfortunately, for some of us that may mean an EA or PA.
What brings them back? Changes we make in our behavior as we consciously attempt to improve ourselves. This may reminds them of the old us they were attracted to or even better perhaps as the "New & Improved" us. Once they believe that changes are for real, then it is not such a large step for them to decide they can love us again and commit to it again. For my W it took a little longer than a week for her to process this on her own before she came to me to talk.
