Interpretation of MWD and DR regarding infidelity

[zig]

In my opinion, it's far from too early to employ the tougher stance. from starsky to busting

denver - i believe you read that wrong. from what i understand of this sentence starsky is saying that it is not too early to take the tougher stand to busting


Like I said before, 1) spend a period of time showing WAS that your changes are real, that you are a person only a fool would leave, and that he/she does not have to fear the past; and 2) then take that option away.


and of course the crucial question - when is it time to take that option away? and how do you know it's time?

from where i am presently, my own experience is showing me something new in my feelings toward my sitch. for the longest time - that second part did not exist - it was inconceivable to me.

now i see the first real glimpses of feeling where i know that i could take that option away, eventually. but i also sense that i am not fully there yet.

it is a process to get there, and for the life of me, from where i'm standing ,one has to be one tough cookie to do it any other way.

[~ kd ~]

The bottom line is that you will not be able to reconcile your M until your WAS's feelings for OP have been resolved. You have no control over this part. You cannot expedite it or force it.

This is my opinion as well. I'll note below.

Starsky did it in 2 months, I did it in 18 months.

I personally think that Starsky is an over achiever...

~~~

My take on what occurred for Starsky, and with no disrespect at all to how he handled his sitch and his belief that this really does work. It did work for him.

What I still say is VERY important is, two months into Starsky DBing... I believe that his W MADE THE CHOICE to R with Starsky. Which may just as likely had nothing to do with what Starsky did and truly was just the moment when his W did her own introspection and decided she would rather be with him and try to work things out.

I do believe that as we DB and better ourselves, it is core to building a potentially better M as well, if the M is saved.

It's just that, while they may be REASONS for the WAS to change their mind and come back and drop the OM... They make that choice...

Otherwise... the WAS/AP will continue to waiver... as Starsky has conceded in the past that piecing was long for him...

His W made the choice to step back in... but she still wavered...

Starsky... and Denver and any others who have R...

If you asked your spouse, why did they choose to R? What would their responses be? Would they say it was because of something specific you did, that could relate to a specific DB method? Or would they say it was because they changed their mind or decided it was what they wanted?

[zig]

thanks denver for your replies.

i'm not being hard on star sky, i hope. i think that it is more a case of, well if he is so adamant about how to do this, then why can't i ask questions before i take his advice?

what you write resonates with me about how you describe your r with your wife. i too feel that i did things that it will take my h a long time to get over. he is not one to let go of stuff and carries every little thing deep within himself.

and just like you said, a few months is not enough time for either my h or myself to resolve issues within ourselves

I got hit hard and often for having expectations, hope and belief that ultimately I would reconcile my M. But it was the only way that I was able to sustain for as long as I did. And I believe in positive imagery as a means to accomplishing one's goals. So yes, I do believe that you have to have faith and hope in order to keep going.

This ^^^^ to me is the elephant in the room on this bb.
the constant 2 x 4's from everyone to everyone about not having expectations, not having hope etc.

in my honest opinion, it is downright impossible to go through this for as long as we have to without having some belief that it is possible.

i like what you said about the visual imagery and also what i quoted from you above - it is frankly some reassurance that i am in an okay place. i have beaten myself up way too much for having those and tried to force myself to being detached. (i don't believe i am alone in this)

frankly i think that it slows down our growth as well as slows down the process towards that real final detachment that comes on its own eventually. if we didn't have to work so hard at where we are at, and constantly try to convince ourselves that we are in the wrong place and only focus on trying to get to that right place, we could spend a lot of that emotional energy focused on healing ourselves and then naturally move towards healthier solutions for ourselves.

what do you think the effect would be that when newcomers came on the board they were allowed to acknowledge for themselves that where they were was an okay place to be - and the "pressure" of detaching and letting go would eventually come on it's own in it's own time.

i do see the value of urging them to get there as fast as they can, and i think that that is necessary, but there is an element missing here sometimes for many - that most crucial element involved in moving forward is truly accepting where you are at.

in the last few weeks after many months of trying to 'convince" myself that i am detached, i started practicing somewhat the opposite:

i started acknowledging very gently to myself, that yes, zig, of course you are not detached, of course this hurts, of course this is painful, of course you don't know how long you can stay the course (This comes form Pema, obviously) etc;..

and then literally just mentally embracing where i was truly at - and what i find is that there is a certain amount of mental relaxation that results - where you are not fighting something and trying to be something that you are either not ready to be or are not

i will say that it is seemingly a more passive approach rather than an active go-getting one, but after trying the second for so long,i think i am more emotionally exhausted at this point from that rather than the sitch itself.

of course, if one sees that the person is practically wallowing and needs a severe nudge to get to a stronger place emotionally then more proactive support is definitely needed

just some thoughts...

[Denver_2010]

In my opinion, it's far from too early to employ the tougher stance. from starsky to busting

denver - i believe you read that wrong. from what i understand of this sentence starsky is saying that it is not too early to take the tougher stand to busting

Agreed. I did read that wrong.

Well, Like I've said, I don't always agree with Starsky. LOL. I don't know Busting's situation though. I haven't read the posts. Maybe Starsky has. Either way, my point still stands. Every situation is unique. Busting may be at the point where the tougher approach may be appropriate. Or she may not. Only she can decide that.

Like I said before, 1) spend a period of time showing WAS that your changes are real, that you are a person only a fool would leave, and that he/she does not have to fear the past; and 2) then take that option away.


and of course the crucial question - when is it time to take that option away? and how do you know it's time?

I think my answer to that is that you will just know. For me I was driven by my instinct. Most of the time, my instincts were right. I look back on things, and maybe if I pulled the D trigger sooner I could have avoided some of the pain that I endured. But one, I was not ready to pull that a trigger until that point when i did. And two, had I pulled it sooner, the result may have been different. It was all on instinct and how i felt. When I pulled that trigger though, it was not a tactic. I was indeed done. My W was the only one that was going to save our M at that point.

now i see the first real glimpses of feeling where i know that i could take that option away, eventually. but i also sense that i am not fully there yet.

Then definitely don't do it. It can't be a tactic IMO. You have to be fully there... D-O-N-E. Only you can decide when that is. But i think that you will know.

In the meantime, you do all of the other things that we learn here. GAL, detach, work on you. Live life and try to find some peace and enjoyment. And trust me, I struggled with that stuff A LOT.

it is a process to get there, and for the life of me, from where i'm standing ,one has to be one tough cookie to do it any other way.

Agreed.

[zig]

thanks denver - that's what i am beginning to realize - you can't force it - you will just know.

it's good to know you followed your instincts alot during your sitch. that should be encouraged here. after BD, the lbs is thrown into such a turmoil that they lose trust in what their instinct tells them to do and only act on their feelings.

it takes a while to trust oneself again - after some inner growth and after many of those stages one goes through, until one can build the self-confidence one needs to move forward.

thanks again denver. so great that you could take this time to come and give your thoughts on these issues. i imagine many many people are reading tis thread right now

zig

[Denver_2010]

Starsky... and Denver and any others who have R...

If you asked your spouse, why did they choose to R? What would their responses be? Would they say it was because of something specific you did, that could relate to a specific DB method? Or would they say it was because they changed their mind or decided it was what they wanted?

My would probably say two things... well, in fact, she has told me these two things:

1) That i did sincerely change. She told me months ago that she saw that I had changed, that her family had seen it, and that she believed it. Her problem, at that point, was that she was still unable to forgive me for hurting her like I had. At that point, she was unsure that she ever could.

and

2) That I was patient and gave her the time for her to learn and grow as a person... to figure out why she was unable to be happy with herself before. And it is obvious that she is not the same person that I first met. She is stronger now, more independent. It is actually very nice to see. I feel that she is more of an equal partner with me and not someone who I have to carry, someone whose problems I have to fix all of the time.

She recently told me that there are two sides to her... 1) the side that wants to pursue her singing, to travel, to be a free spirit, and 2) the side to her that wants to be a good mom, a good wife... basically the domesticated side. What she realized during our S is that the first part of that was not being attended to. So that is something that we are now both aware of and can address going forward.

In sum, patience, time, and change demonstrated by consistent behavior over a long period of time.

[Denver_2010]

thanks denver for your replies.

i'm not being hard on star sky, i hope. i think that it is more a case of, well if he is so adamant about how to do this, then why can't i ask questions before i take his advice?

No problem. Just paying it forward as they say.

Eh, Starsky is tough. He can take it.

I got hit hard and often for having expectations, hope and belief that ultimately I would reconcile my M. But it was the only way that I was able to sustain for as long as I did. And I believe in positive imagery as a means to accomplishing one's goals. So yes, I do believe that you have to have faith and hope in order to keep going.

This ^^^^ to me is the elephant in the room on this bb.
the constant 2 x 4's from everyone to everyone about not having expectations, not having hope etc.

in my honest opinion, it is downright impossible to go through this for as long as we have to without having some belief that it is possible.

I believe that everyone here has good intentions. I became very good friends with a handful of members who began their journey right around the same time that I did. The BITS. Each one of them responded differently to different posters who give advice. One BIT might get offended by the hard line approach, while another might be completely fine with it. One might not get much out of the hand holding approach, while the other might find that extremely comforting. My point? It is a matter of personality IMO. For me? I have a thick skin and trust myself and my instincts a lot. True, I was weak when I first came here because I had just been hit as hard as I ever had in my life. But after a while, my confidence came back.

Some posters got on my nerves at times. But mostly it was when they were telling me things that I didn't want to hear. In hindsight, I can see that many times, they were right. I didn't want to see it at the time, but they were.

The bottom line is that I believe that newbies can learn a tremendous amount from those who have been through this. And sometimes those lessons come in the form of a 2x4. They are just telling you their opinion based upon their experience.

I will concede that I never bought into the idea that this is about working on us and not about saving our M. I eventually learned that it IS about both though. I never bought into not having hope or expectations. Without hope, what is the point?

i like what you said about the visual imagery and also what i quoted from you above - it is frankly some reassurance that i am in an okay place. i have beaten myself up way too much for having those and tried to force myself to being detached. (i don't believe i am alone in this)

I get this Zig, but I do believe that detachment is a big part of being successful here. I struggled with it a lot though. But I can tell you that my most significant progress was done when I was detached from my W and what she was doing.

frankly i think that it slows down our growth as well as slows down the process towards that real final detachment that comes on its own eventually.

I disagree with this. I believe that the healing process is assisted when we are detached. When we focus in on being detached. Listen, this is probably the hardest thing that we are told to do. However, we have control over our emotions, our actions, and thoughts. In fact, that is the only thing that we control. If we allow ourselves to do it, we can detach from our WAS's and their craziness. When we are detached, we learn that there is a happy life outside of the mess that our M has become.

I do prefer the term 'lovingly detach' though. In other words, you remove yourself from what your S is doing and the choices she/he is making, but you continue to love them from a distance. You offer a beacon of light for them to find their way home.

what do you think the effect would be that when newcomers came on the board they were allowed to acknowledge for themselves that where they were was an okay place to be - and the "pressure" of detaching and letting go would eventually come on it's own in it's own time.

i do see the value of urging them to get there as fast as they can, and i think that that is necessary, but there is an element missing here sometimes for many - that most crucial element involved in moving forward is truly accepting where you are at.

Yes, but again, the people giving newbies advice are just telling them what they know from experience. Man do I wish that I had been able to see, understand, and implement some of the advice that I had gotten when I first came here. I could have avoided wasting SO much time being obsessed and miserable. Not that I could have made myself happy during that time, but if I could have seen what a long haul it was going to be early on, I could have hunkered down and weathered the storm without AS much misery.

i started acknowledging very gently to myself, that yes, zig, of course you are not detached, of course this hurts, of course this is painful, of course you don't know how long you can stay the course

There is nothing wrong with being kind and understanding to yourself. In fact, I encourage it.

[breakdownbill]

I'd go along with what Denver is saying here about people's good intentions and speaking from experience.

I believe that everyone here has good intentions. I became very good friends with a handful of members who began their journey right around the same time that I did. The BITS. Each one of them responded differently to different posters who give advice. One BIT might get offended by the hard line approach, while another might be completely fine with it. One might not get much out of the hand holding approach, while the other might find that extremely comforting.

It's really useful when you've got 2 or more posters who are looking at your sitch from different angles, depending on their own personal experiences.

When you are a newbie , you need to hear a few interpretations and be challenged to be objective and be sure you are not just taking the easy option.

Most sitches go on for a long period of time and the good thing about looking back on your threads, is how one piece of advice you may have dismissed earlier in your sitch can now be something you relate to and helps you understand better.

This is a really good thread BTW KD and I'm really enjoying checking in on what people are saying.

Bill

[bustingout]

First...all my respect and admiration for this discussion and all of the time and advice you all here have given. I hope one day I will be able to pay it forward as well. Its really an amazing community.

Personally, I would like to be able to take a tougher stance. I hate what this is doing to my family, emotionally, physiclly and probably one day, financially. This is MY family, and I would do anything for them. thats the primary reason I came here.

However I know that right now that stance would only be a tactic. And it would more likely than not end with a bitter, emotional and angry end of the M. My H is not ready, able or willing to see a light back home. RIGHT NOW.

Before I found this site I shot myself in the foot more times than I can count because I pushed and pushed and pushed H about this effin OW. This OW right now sands in the way of my kids and their father, their happiness, their emotional well being, his emotional well being, his ability to be the best father he can be, she is my obstacle to my M. I cannot do any thing regarding my M, the actually core work, until she goes.

So even though I know she is not the reason my M went to pot, she is now the primary obstacle before anything else could happen. I want her to go.

I can't do a starsky Right NOW. I can understand it, I can want it, but ultimately I get denver as well about the instinct. My instinct says not yet. Plus I am not D.O.N.E. Yet.

As I see it, it seems that in several cases, the key to removing the OP is to actually being D.O.N.E. It's the appraoch on how to get to D.O.N.E that we seem to struggle with. No one want too prolong this state of limbo, and our motives of wanting to save our Ms our, children, our families, etc is to shorten the pain of limbo as much as possible. to end the negativity, the fear, the pain. To not have our Ms end and break up our families in misery, pain and fear and anger.

So we learn that one way to shorten this pain is to work on ourselves, especially when we have been given the gift of time.

And this will have a butterfly effect on our children, and are other relationships, hopefully our Ms. We need to feel strong enough, good enough so that we can be
done. And I guess that means detaching from the pain of the affair, even if the affair is not the reason the M is in the crapper. Because as it says in te book, if the spouse is not ready to end the affair, we can do the ultimate tough stance. But we must be ready because it is not for the faint of heart.

I guess the timelines for everyone is different in terms of when their hearts are strong enough for this.

Muddling through this.... I feel like an amateur reading you all!

[MrBond]

This ^^^^ to me is the elephant in the room on this bb.
the constant 2 x 4's from everyone to everyone about not having expectations, not having hope etc.

Here is where you're not understanding the definition of "Expectations". There's nothing wrong with having goals, in fact, DB encourages you to write certain small goals down and how you plan to achieve them. Whatever action you do, you must have no "expectations" as to what your spouse will or will not do. It's acknowledging that they have a choice on how they will react.

Too often, people come here and "expect" their spouse to react a certain way and are discouraged time and time again when it doesn't happen. They start second-guessing themselves, looking at every detail, every correspondence, etc. And all it does is make them paralyzed through fear or indecision.

Having a goal is great, but expecting another human being to react in a way that you find favorable every time, may discourage you from that goal.