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We do not have list of requirements for recovery - can you elaborate?

Requirements for R usually are a list of things that you the BS require to stay in the relationship. This is where most people sign off, because if you say, "if you do X then I do Z" requires the BS to follow through.

My BS laid it out for me by saying "Here is what you need to do and if you do it, I will think about staying." From the beginning I had a place to start. IC, SI, books etc.

Talk is dirt cheap, action is priceless.

dupe

[This message edited by hardlessons at 2:33 PM, June 26th (Wednesday)]

I think finding the whys are top priorty if not essential. As others have said, if you don't knoe why then there's really nothing to stop it from happening agsin. If you don't know how something is broken then you don't know how to fix it. I once compared it to car trouble. You could say there's something wrong with the engine. Okay, what exactly is wrong with the engine? It it the piston? The carburator? Perhaps one of the belts? Or maybe the fuel injectors or the spark plugs. The point is, unless you know what the specific problem is, you can't make a permanent fix. Any "repairs" made will be temporary at best.

I found my why without benefit of IC. Most WSs aren't that lucky and my aha moments weren't the "Oh my God!", flashbulb kind. Mine kinda slipped in under the radar, like "Okay, that makes sense." They *felt* right, felt true. My why sounds simple - I let other people define who I was - but it took me literally decades to acknowledge and accept that and realize that *I* was the only one with the right to do that. I'm still working on it but I am making progress.

Like for you, why did he need to feel young? Why was the risk worth cheating in his mind? Are there really no answers like that??

I don't know. It's been a long time and personally I don't really care. It's fine if you do, but he IS a lot older than me. I'm pretty sure he'd gotten that memo when we got married. Why having an affair with a woman his own age makes him feel young -- I'll never get it.

Many of these WS's just need to be slapped upside the head with the "Your Ex-girlfriend's Vagina is NOT a Time Machine" speech. (Unlike when you play a Country song backwards, You're not going to get back your hair, the six-pack abs you had in high school, your non-minivan vehicle, that dog you loved that died or any of the opportunities you lost along the way...)

Which can also be re-phrased for the "get the point" challenged as "You either have to love me or give me half your shit."

Hang in there, lady. You're going to make it through this.

Oh, and as for the "sociopath vs. lazy-thinker thing" again, I just don't have the time or desire to put a lot of effort into figuring that out. Figuring all of that out is the WS's job, not mine. My job is setting up and reinforcing my boundaries. Because at some point I no longer care whether you're a sociopath or a lazy thinker, I just care that you're a jerk.

Which can also be re-phrased for the "get the point" challenged as "You either have to love me or give me half your shit."

Because at some point I no longer care whether you're a sociopath or a lazy thinker, I just care that you're a jerk.

Omg, I have poor boundaries because I think I'm in love

I can embrace this because this is how I think!!! I'm still new and I'm just so sick of this crap! Figure your own shit out, I have 5 kids, I don't have time for that!!

What's really essential for R is for the WS to change the thoughts and feelings that allowed her to cheat.

One approach is to look at the root of the behavior and replace old behaviors with new ones - that's looking for the 'whys'.

But there's a big danger in that - continually looking for the root and the roots of the root, and so on and never changing. After all, we all have heard of IC clients who analyze and analyze for years but never change....

I think IC is essential for WSes. The metaphor I use for internal mental/emotional processes is 'self-talk' - dialogs we conduct in our heads and messages we hear. (Other metaphors can work just as well and maybe better, but this is the only one I can use.)

IMO, we generate and hear lots of conflicting messages, so many that they're impossible to sort out without help. IC confronts the contradictions we carry with us and helps us sort them out and change our behavior. I just don't think many WSes can do that without help.

[This message edited by sisoon at 12:18 PM, June 27th (Thursday)]