At My Good Friend Puppy's request

[Hope4us]

Hope, Thank you very much for your input here...and for taking the time to look over some details of my situation to guide your advice. It is greatly appreciated.

And thanks again Puppy and Allen for your continued support.

I'll just plug away at the rest of my life right now...and focus on patience. I really see how time is my friend here...and will just have to keep that in mind when things look down.

=O)

Not a problem Mike. Thing is, you can't FORCE anyone to do anything. Once you get to the point where you truly understand that, it makes detaching yourself from the situation all that much easier.

Glad I could help.

[Hope4us]

Thanks, Hope! I appreciate the perspective and the advice. I am working hard on the GAL and I do know progress has been made. Patience is hard for me, lol, but I know it's necessary.

Patience is not one of my strong points either Sunny. In fact, between my impatience and my W being the Queen of Stubbornville (it's a small country that shares a border and their Monarch with Obstinateland) it's a miracle we made it.

But if any good can come out of a situation like this, I learned patience I never knew I had. And learning that patience has made me a better dad with my kids and a better boss with my subordinates and a LOT BETTER HUSBAND, now that we've patched things up.

Two things you could work on. I think I mentioned to you before, but LISTEN to him, really LISTEN. No one is perfect and I'm sure there are things you could work on. Heck, just a couple weeks ago W and I were talking about something and she made a comment about my patience and how it's changed. I told her that things that used to bug me just don't seem to have the same significance as they used to and she just smiled at me and said "I like it". Thing is, she'd given me hints about it bugging her before, but I wasn't really hearing her.

The other thing is as our recovery went along, I learned to really appreciate the little things about her that I did in the beginning of our lives together that got lost in raising the kids, work, etc. Look at those things and appreciate them for what they are. When you appreciate them, he'll pick up on that and that makes him feel good and then he can begin to see a future with you. Might take a long time, but it does have an affect.

I posted this to someone over in Piecing. I think it could help you understand what you're up against also. Just substitute this guys W with your H and see if it makes sense.

And trust me, these little things add up. When I was in the middle of our mess, I was talking to S Harley. He told me that my W's mind was so made up that OM was going to make her happy forever that once the A was over, it would take a long time and a lot of consistent actions for her to begin to believe we had a chance. Same with your W. It's going to take a long time. And SH gave me an analogy. If you came to a river and the water was too deep to cross, but you had to cross, what would you do? You'd start throwing stones into the river to build a bridge. Depending on how deep the river is, it could take a HUGE number of stones to pile up just to break the surface. But that surface wouldn't be broken the whole way across. At first you'd see little breaks here and there. Keep throwing rocks in the river in just the right place and you'll eventually see them peaking through in multiple places. With enough patience, you'll eventually have enough rocks in place to walk across.

That's where your W seems to be to me. You're seeing rocks peek out of the water in some places, but you still can't cross the river. Keep at it, and eventually, you'll have that bridge.

If things are improving with your H like you've said, keep it up. You'll get there.

[SunnyD]

GREAT analogy! Helps a lot! Thanks.