WAW willing to try, for now (#2)

[DejaVu6]

What everyone else said. My thoughts about MC is that no one should be forced to go to marriage counselling as that just leads to more resentment. Also...the WAS may agree to go but never assume they go with the same goal. The LBS may be going to keep the marriage together whereas the WAS is going to either justify their departure and/or try to make it an easier exit. I would avoid MC altogether unless your WAS tells you she is interested in going because she wants to keep the marriage together. Unless she is that explicit, it would be a waste of your time and just give you a false sense of hope. As everyone here has told you, this is the time to focus on DBing and GAL for YOU!!! (((HUGS)))

[Traveler]

So again it’s another sitch where girl gets to go on dating apps and sleep around and then comeback home with zero consequences.

Mako's W indicated she was done and wanted a divorce--THEN bought lacy underwear and went onto Bumble. She was actively pushing the D along. She ended a relationship that wasn't working. The consequences, if both choose to rekindle the marriage, is they now have hurts and trust to repair beyond the original work.

When my ex and I reconciled, she had a hard time with me sleeping with another, and I had a hard time trusting she wouldn't suddenly quit. We had to repair those beyond the original (ultimately unsolved) issues.

LH, clearly she's not all-in. I suspect if he pushed her, she'd run away, don't you?

I also agree pretending he's already piecing or in a committed relationship would be folly.

[LH19]

LH, clearly she's not all-in. I suspect if he pushed her, she'd run away, don't you?

It's possible but if she does it's better now then later. This BS cookie cutter advice of detach, 180, become a man only a fool would leave NEVER works. Find out where you stand right now, heal then move on.

[Ready2Change]

What it all really comes down to is:1) We both need to be attracted to each other for this to work

No. Attraction is a small part of it. Yes, you should understand attraction and become an attractive Male. Not to win her, but it is a good way to be.

2) We both need to be committed to working on the M for this to work

Not at this stage. You need HER to express her commitment to you before you make your decision.

if we don’t change anything that’s where we’ll likely end up again

Correct. The way YOU interact with her is the important changes YOU need to make. Again, you do not do this to win her back, but rather as an expression of your new found wisdom and personal growth as a man.

I've been doing IC and reading and trying to recognize more of my role in all this

Good. Clean up your side of the street. Keep your personal growth a priority. It should be a never ending process.

So a big thing now is I need to figure out how long I want to wait on improvement. Setting the date

Where are your core values in all of this? Has she had sex with someone else? If so, has she expressed regret? Is she actively having sex with someone else? What behavior have you, or do you, or should you show when dealing with these type of disrespectful behaviors?

One weird thing to me is that the consensus seems that I shouldn't say anything about wanting MC. I am supposed to hold her accountable if she doesn't do it.

MC should be one of your unconditional terms, but it should be HER idea.

As far as 180s go, I should be open and honest about my wants and needs.

At this phase of the process, you may want to be selective. Timing and wording play an important role.

I appreciate that I have a number of folks with thousands of posts commenting. You all have seen a lot of sitches and have a lot of experience here.

I believe we had more success stories back when I was going through my sitch about 10 years ago. Some of the wisdom from back then has been lost.

Changing my believes, my behavior and the way I interact with woman (as well as men) all started from this website. My parenting beliefs and style were also part of my personal growth journey that started back then.

This is your journey and you can keep the traits you like, drop the ones you don't and incorporate new ones as you see fit. Your spouse may or may not give you feedback, but ultimately you should be the judging your behavior. Did I behave the way that I wanted? Am I making decisions based on my core values? Am I changing my behavior for the better?

[may22]

LH, clearly she's not all-in. I suspect if he pushed her, she'd run away, don't you?

It's possible but if she does it's better now then later. This BS cookie cutter advice of detach, 180, become a man only a fool would leave NEVER works. Find out where you stand right now, heal then move on.

I suspect MWD would disagree with you. LH, I am constantly surprised by the fact that you spend so much time on this site and not over on, say, the chump lady's website. It really doesn't seem like you subscribe to the principles of DBing in general.

[LH19]

LH, clearly she's not all-in. I suspect if he pushed her, she'd run away, don't you?

It's possible but if she does it's better now then later. This BS cookie cutter advice of detach, 180, become a man only a fool would leave NEVER works. Find out where you stand right now, heal then move on.

I suspect MWD would disagree with you. LH, I am constantly surprised by the fact that you spend so much time on this site and not over on, say, the chump lady's website. It really doesn't seem like you subscribe to the principles of DBing in general.

Actually May DB principles are for what they are attended to do. You improve yourself move on and you find someone better who doesn’t bail when things get tough and who doesn’t cheat and destroy the family. That’s what is considered a success story. He can and will most likely do that. If by chance he wants to reconcile with his W who BTW said she wants to work on the marriage he needs to get some backbone and make her work for it. He’s been through this before and seems like a pretty strong dude and able to hold is ground.

You guys gave the same advice and argued with me with Salty Dog and his W fell in love with another man.

Now he can certainly play the long game pretend like nothing happened and wait until she walks again. Cheaters cheat that’s what they do. There are enough statistics to prove it all over the internet.

May never forget that MWD is here to make money. Before your time she would have people on here soliciting coaching sessions. That’s why she never talks about success rates, timelines or how many people end up cheating again.

Something to think about.

[MrBrside]

Actually May DB principles are for what they are attended to do. You improve yourself move on and you find someone better who doesn’t bail when things get tough and who doesn’t cheat and destroy the family. That’s what is considered a success story.

Plus 1 ! - its not all about reconciling.. It's about moving forward towards a happier life.

[OnlyBent]

I suspect MWD would disagree with you. LH, I am constantly surprised by the fact that you spend so much time on this site and not over on, say, the chump lady's website. It really doesn't seem like you subscribe to the principles of DBing in general.

May, I guess everyone is coloured by the nature of their experience. I know that you suffered awful treatment at the hands of your H, and I'm sure it is no recompense, but you have also had the benefit of his remorse and attempts to makes amends. Remember that not everyone has had that. Please don't take that as a slight on you, I know from your posting that you are kind and compassionate, and I think that almost everyone else on here is too, in their own way.

I may not agree with 100% of what LH says, but his intentions are pure and he is ready to support anyone on here with the message that is coloured by his experience.

What is the point of this forum? For me, I know I came here at a pretty dark time and more than anything, as unhealthy as this sounds, it was a crutch. I didn't even need a response to my sithc, just anyone posting having remotely the same experience as me eased the hurt that I was feeling. Being told that no matter what happened I would be ok, and to continue focussing on myself got me through some hard times. Does it matter whether it was 180, detach, become AMOAFWL or move on, go dark, never look back...I don't think so.

This site has people who have shared experiences, some recon, some don't. But most of us come out the other end better from the experience because we learn a of things about ourselves and a better way to live, some of these encapsulated by DBing, some extra to DBing. I'm not sure of the utility of arguing these points and I'd love to see this forum get back to the core of helping each other, whatever form that may take.

R2C, AS are very wise. MrBside, LH are blunt and direct, May and CW are compassionate, SteveLW is SteveLW (jokes). What's more important is that these people take the time to help others who really, really need it. They need to know that what is happening is not unique, that we understand and that whatever happens you will be ok and in fact its a grand opportunity to improve, although it might not be what for in life....but hey isn't that life all the time?

[OnlyBent]

Sorry for the hijack Mako

[SteveLW]

Mako, I am not sure if all of this back and forth is helping you or not. The bottom line is that it is up to YOU to decide when to pull the plug and stop waiting for her to come around. I stand by the fact that a mere 3 months after BD is way too early. Most of these situations took years to go into, they do not turn around in weeks.

When in doubt, go back to solid DB principles:

- DO not start R talks
- Remove all pressure and pursuit
- Get a life! (You've admitted to not doing this very well!)
- Continue to self-improve, 180 on bad behaviors (just resist the temptation to use 180ing as an excuse to break the other DB principles!)
- Continue to work on loving detachment

I would always go back to Cadet's welcome message and start reading whenever I got conflicting advice on my thread. It happens. We have a lot of perspectives on this board. We have the dump and run folks. We have the wait forever folks. We have a lot of folks in between! But remember this is not a site with any poster's name on it, this is Michele Wiener-Davis forum, so when in doubt go back to the source. MWD helped me immensely in my situation, not only on what I should or shouldn't be doing, but also on learning to empathize with what my WW was going through. No one, not even a WW, wakes up in the morning and thinks: "Hmmmmm, what can I do today to destroy as many lives as possible?"

Nope, the WW is fueled by selfishness (which results in destroying lives) and emotion. There isn't a lot of intent involved, though sometimes there is since most WW feel hurt by their LBH. But in the majority of the cases the WW is simply trying to do things to find her own happiness again. That was one of the best pieces of insight that I received in my own sitch was that my WW wasn't doing what she was doing to hurt me, she was doing what she was doing in order to try to be happy.

So mako, we are here to support you. Some posters are more confrontational with other posters that they disagree with than others. I don't agree with that tactic because it results in unhelpful back-and-forths in a LBS's thread where all they want is support and advice. So when that happens, default to Cadet's welcome message. Pick up Divorce Remedy and read it again. Go back to the basics of DBing.

3 months is a drop in the bucket for these sitches. We've seen WASs/WSs change their mind about wanting to R or wanting to D over several months. What I can tell you is to reiterate what CW said above, if they show signs of coming back and you force them to choose at that exact moment, more than likely they will choose to continue to move for D. Some of the best advice I got when my WW started to show signs that she was moving back to the MR (and it wasn't her words, in fact the words "I want to try to save the MR never came from her lip!"), was to take things slow and easy. A few of the veterans here at the time actually told me "When the WW starts to show signs of coming around, that is the time to double down on DBing, not to start pressuring and pursuing!" Some really good advice.

So take your time. Be patient. Adhere to solid DB principles. And when in doubt go back to MWD's own words and teachings for what you should be doing!

You've got this Mako! Hang in there, believe it or not things will get better no matter what ends up happening.