The reason the advice is to focus on self, focus on kids, and start looking forward to moving your life forward, with or without her is because........what choice do you have?
I know you know this, but it is important to rehear these things: it takes two committed spouses to make a marriage. It only takes 1 uncommitted spouse to make a divorce. And sense you have no control over her, you have no control over whether or not you end up divorced. It is not what we want to hear or even acknowledge, but it is a cold, hard truth. It is immutable. The fact is that if the WAS wants to continue to divorce there is nothing the LBS can do to stop it.
The only choice the LBS has left is to focus on themselves (and their kids if they are a parent), remove all pressure and pursuit, and look to moving their life forward. This is why the advice keeps coming back to this. Yes, it is difficult to do. Yes, it is at times frustrating that there isn't more the LBS can do. Yes, it is scary to face the lack of control you have over this aspect of your life.
But when it is all said and done, is there really any other option for the LBS? They can continue to bash their head against a brickwall, and hope it results in something positive. Or they can assume that their WAS is telling them the truth, that it is really over, and start moving their life forward with that assumption.
The good news is that by doing that, sometimes....NOT ALWAYS BUT SOMETIMES, this makes the LBS look attractive again to the WAS. After all, the WAS expects the LBS to hold on for dear life, to try to change their mind, to continue to win them back. And when the LBS flips that script and suddenly seems onboard with ending things, seems almost excited to move on with a new chapter in their life, and begins to embrace the change even though it isn't what they want, the WAS started to wonder why. They get interested in what the LBS is doing. They see the LBS in IC, they see the LBS out getting a life, they feel a loss of control over the LBS and their emotions, and they start to second guess what they are doing. Again, lots of WASs are dead set on leaving their marriage and nothing will deter that. But in some of them, the LBS following this path will cause the WAS to become interested again.
Tough, you seem to struggle a bit with the advice coming back to "Focus on self, focus on kids, move on." What are your thoughts on alternatives to this approach?
