WAS showing you positive signs? WAIT- READ THIS!

[Indy470]

bump.

[Newbie20]

Still the funniest thread I ever read on here.

[Steve_]

Yeah my W was telling me how good I look, asking if she can touch me, I said no she lunged and did anyway and boy I let that little thing get me into an R talk. That was incredibly stupid, she just had to reaffirm why and how she is leaving instead of wanting to touch me and not being able to. I could have had a small win for myself, instead I blew it by letting that micro positivity pull my emotions to be like “oh she likes me, let’s talk about the big OM bomb I got yesterday and see if that’s still what she wants” I laugh at myself for being so dumb, yeah man that’s still what she wants and looking good, even better than OM still ain’t gonna just make her change her mind like that. That was dumb of me! Ain’t going down that road again. She can’t even be physically attracted to me now without me using it for an R talk, I blew that up like a dumbass. /shrug lesson learned.

[SteveLW]

The goal of this post is to avoid misinterpreting their WAS's mixed messages resulting in actions that hurt ourselves, our WAS's, and our chances for the M.

If you're an LBS it's important that you don't assign too much meaning to signs of warmth or indecision from your WAS. One of the easiest mistakes to make is to assume other people feel and think similar to how we do. In our LBS minds it's easy to project how we feel or how we desperately want our WAS's to feel onto them. Maybe this is part of denial, we simply can't imagine things not working out so we are just waiting for the sign that shows us this is the part of the movie where everyone falls back into each others arms.

Hey, we're human, we're going to feel desperate at times and get our hopes up at times. That's fine. We just can't let it derail the road we need to walk.

WAS's are much farther gone that we think. On these forums we say the marriage is dead at BD. That maybe if you do your work and they do theirs a day might come when the two people you become reengage, but this relationship is dead.

This isn't about giving up hope. I'm 100% in favor of standing for a marriage. It's about not allowing ourselves to be strung along and fed crumbs so we end up enabling an impermissible situation.

I remember when, 90 days after BD, my XW started sending me emails that demonstrated some regret. I'd been warned and was trying very hard to be deliberate and cautious. Very hard. I waited hours before I'd respond. I'd check with the boards. I was TRYING to reign my emotions in. But when she used phrases like "She hated divorce" and "She liked the person I was becoming" and "She missed talking to me" and asking if I was seeing anyone or if I still thought about us together, I was SURE this was a big break through! She finally was seeing what I saw, that we can work this out!!!

She called me late in the night and said she was drinking a little and she missed me and our marriage and was so lonely she didn't think she could make it through. I, the white knight I was, drove over to see her because she sounded like she was in a dark place.

You all buckled up? When I got there, she freaked out because OM was sleeping upstairs in the marital bed passed out. She was depressed because he had just told her he wanted to break up with her. I'll spare you what was by FAR the worst part (for those who like pain you can dig up my old thread) but I had a chance the next day to open up her phone and I was blown away with what I saw. She had been with many different guys, and she had a different persona via text message exchange with each of them including new OMs she was lining up. She also had one with her friend talking about how "Great, now I have to push Zues away again because of yesterday..."

This isn't my thread, but I hope this example is better than a general warning. Conflicting feelings and some sadness does NOT equate to remorse and commitment to the marriage.

So, how is it that they can express genuine regret, pain, loneliness, and warmth without meaning 'let's get the band back together?'
Simple. Those feelings are genuine, they just aren't commitment.

Pretend your WAS started using heroine habitually. Or started gambling away all of their money every paycheck. Do you think that they'd feel regret at times? Do you think they'd feel the pain of the consequences of their choices at times? Do you think that they'd miss their old life at times? Of course they would, but that's totally irrelevant. We know they do. The ONLY thing that matters is whether they have felt enough of those things to hit the rock bottom to where they'll actually commit 100% to changing their lives for the better. Even then it's lip service and only time will tell if their actions match their words.

So why do they do this to us? Simple. To avoid consequences.

Some is avoiding physical consequences. Maybe they want to control the speed of the breakup, like when you wade into cold water little by little. They aren't ready to be splashed yet, they're still working up to it- but they are going to do it on their time, in their way. They don't want you charging around now they have to deal with consequences like being cut off financially, or having family or mutual friends hear about their behavior, and it sure is easier to get you to agree to give them whatever they want whenever they want it when you are blinded by hope.

Some consequences they wish to avoid are emotional. So long as they string you along they aren't sacrificing their marriage for their love affair because they know they can get you back at any time, so they are just indulging themselves because they deserve to feel better. No, they don't want you back, but by knowing you are still there they don't have to deal with the sense of loss the same way they would if you moved on.

So how can they say they say they want to repair the marriage one day and then not follow through the next, you KNOW they were being genuine at the time. Hey, I'm not saying those emotions aren't real, just that they aren't the same as ongoing consistent behavior. There is something I call "Medicating with positive intent". Think of it this way. Say a friend is in an abusive relationship. Their partner just slapped them around. They call you crying and saying they can't take anymore. So what do they do? They talk to you for hours, making plans about where they will go, what they will do, and on and on. Guess what? Now they are feeling better. Empowered. Hopeful. They feel alright again...hmm...now they feel alright again, and guess what? Things aren't that bad. They do love so and so. They can get through it after all. I don't know about you but I've seen too many examples of people that truly convince themselves they are going to make a positive change because the good feelings that follow their well intended proclamation are all they really needed, no reason now to bother with all of that following through hard work stuff. It'll be ok. Right?

So what's an LBS to do?

Well, the first step is to read this like ten times and really understand it. Because while our feelings will be all over the map, we have a responsibility. If we truly love our WAS's we need to allow them to experience the consequences of their choices. This is the best chance to save the M. And if that isn't possible, consider it the last gift you give to someone you pledged your life to, ending on a positive note after all of the hurt. That gift means that when they are engaging in unhealthy choices that are destroying their lives we don't make it easy for them to keep doing it.

I'm not here to script out verbal responses to temp checks and displays of emotion, but the underlying message you need to communicate are things like this:
-Your not the shoulder to cry on anymore
-Getting back together isn't that simple anymore
-You are firm in your boundaries and won't accept [open marriage, loveless marriage, sexless marriage, uncommitted partner, disrespect, etc]
-You've told her everything you have to tell her and have nothing left to say (no R talks, never ever ever ever).

From our LBS view it seems like we're destroying our only hope. But WAS wants to have the R talk!!! If I blow them off then they'll blame me for being the one that ended it.

Hogwash. If WAS is seriously remorseful and ready to do anything and everything to work on the marriage they will let you know. They won't play games. The 'well then, that's why we can't work' card is manipulative and proof there is no lasting remorse. Any R talk that doesn't start with them going first with a list of apologies and re-commitments is just proving to her that you are willing to compromise your boundaries and remain emotionally involved with a wayward spouse. I repeat, this is hurting yourself, your WAS, and your chances of preserving your family.

In conclusion, if you are seeing signs that your spouse wants to return, post all about it here. Get it out of your system. Overreact on these forums. Tell us how it's going to work out after all, that we were wrong, that YOU KNEW your WAS, you KNEW they would fall back into your arms, that you think you are in piecing, etc, etc, etc. But please, for all that is good and holy, stay detached from them outwardly and give them time to see if they actually recommit, show true remorse, and prove it to you with consistent behavior over time. Keeping DBing and may you make it to the other side, whatever lies ahead.

This. Is. Awesome.

I see Zeus wrote this 5 days after my BD. And boy I wish I had read it the day it came out. (I didn't find this forum until near the end of Feb. 2018.)

But he is spot on here. I have three personal stories that prove his hypothesis as laid out in this post. And LBSs reading this, please learn from this!!

First, I have mentioned my decades long on-again, off-again relationship with an ex-GF. She kept me hanging on through the years, even through my dating others and her dating others. Even when we were dating our now spouses, she would occasionally throw out a "I'll always wonder what it would have been like to marry you." Stuff like that.

Well one fall she called me out of the blue. I was dating at that point but no one seriously, I was about a year and a half away from my meeting my W. She gave me this sob story about how her BF was moving to another town for a job offer. She told him she wasn't going, and she didn't want him to stay for her (lie). She kept me on the phone for 3 hours, reminiscing about times we had together, how she wanted to kiss me again, etc. (You get the point.) The last hour was concentrated on how she still loved me and wanted to know what was still possible between us. I tried to play it coy, but inside I was a ball of excited energy. When we finally hung up I had a pep in my step. I was on cloud 9!

Two weeks later she called again. It was weird she was very distant, with all small talk. It was as if she was avoiding the elephant in the room. Finally a few minutes in I said "Whatever happened with the job offer?" Her: "What job offer?" "The one X was going to be moving away for?" "Oh, he turned that down." And that was the end of it.

The first call had been to secure her Plan B, since Plan A had the chance of going away.

In 2005, my W had an EA. It was a very deep deep deeply emotional EA. She was all in. When I discovered it I could see how he was softening her up for a PA, grooming her. Early on she was insistent to him that she would never do that, but by time I found out about it she was starting to waver. She was opening up to meeting him for lunch so she could see if there was still a spark (she had known him in Jr. High). Maybe one kiss just to see what it was like. I found out about it and blew it up.

She immediately said she didn't want a D, she sent him a cease and desist email. She went into a period of "remorse". It was remorse for having been caught and losing her EA. Weeks went by she was sad and depressed. I saw it as a sign she was sorry for what she had done. Nope. Still sorry for losing her A. In fact, she had started emailing him again, and he wasn't responding. (I had threatened to tell his W, and he didn't want that.) Finally he responded to her that he didn't think they should talk, he didn't want to cause anymore problems for her. (Snake that he was, he really didn't want to cause problems for himself!)

That was when my W finally let go and recommitted fully the marriage. Her Plan A had fizzled so back to Plan B. (That's me.)

Then our most recent sitch, at the end of 2017. This time I discovered an EA (it was no where near as deep as the other but she was definitely full blown WW), and again confronted. She immediately said she wanted a D. This sitch is a long story, but eventually EAP bailed, and she went through a period of about a week of mourning. This time I realized she was mourning the loss of her A, and not really sorry for what she did. She then started looking for another Plan A, but at the same time she kept me as Plan B.

In the two days (Christmas Eve and Christmas) following BD, she was very affectionate. More so than she had been for years. However, when I brought this up she said "You seemed to be hurting so I was trying to make you feel better." IE. Plan B. When she mourned the loss of her A, she didn't want to remain married, but she wasn't ready to let go of Plan B (again me). Eventually she did feel bad for all she had done and wanted to work on marriage. As Zeus says, YOU WILL KNOW BECAUSE THEY WILL BE WILLING TO MOVE MOUNTAINS TO COME BACK. Do not fall for being Plan B and false restarts. Make them earn their way back. That is only way you really go from being Plan B to being Plan A.