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Does anyone here have any experiences they can share on Radical Acceptance and DBT. It confuses me and I feel it is asking one to do the same thing waywards do, put those thoughts in a little box in the back of your brain.

I am really struggling with this concept and would love to get some feedback.

Sorry, I have no experience, but I wanted to bump your post so others might see it.

Yes! Radical acceptance is recognizing that what happened was what was set up to happen. Accepting that at that time, given all the circumstances including what one was feeling, thinking, and perceiving as it interacts with past experiences led to a decision, choice or action that was the only option for them at that time. Accepting that there is no "if only." It isn't condoning what happened, or even saying it was ok that it happened. It is recognizing that it did happen and it happened in the way it was meant to happen because if all the factors influencing it at that time. It's a way of releasing oneself from the past. We get stuck on what should have happened, when in reality if what we think should have happened was going to happen it would have. It recognizes that there is nothing we can do to change it. What happened happened and we need to discover ways to move forward instead of lamenting over lost opportunities. It also states that we won't make this decision once. We make this decision over and over again until it becomes natural. Every time we get stuck on "if only" we make a decision to radically accept. When we do that we empower ourselves to move from victim to survivor.

Does that help?

[This message edited by peoplepleaser at 6:14 PM, March 28th (Friday)]

WOW! Peoplepleaser...what a great explanation!! Thanks! I am trying to practice that myself! Thanks for the question Herkemeyer!

peoplepleaser: that was a great explanation.

But speaking as a fWW this:

Accepting that at that time, given all the circumstances including what one was feeling, thinking, and perceiving as it interacts with past experiences led to a decision, choice or action that was the only option for them at that time.

makes me very uncomfortable. I could have chosen otherwise. Easily. That's why being a BS is so very hard for me.

Accepting that at that time, given all the circumstances including what one was feeling, thinking, and perceiving as it interacts with past experiences led to a decision, choice or action that was the only option for them at that time.

makes me very uncomfortable. I could have chosen otherwise. Easily. That's why being a BS is so very hard for me.

But maybe (and I have no experience with this book but it sounds interesting) what this means is yes you'd like to think you could have made a different choice, but given (especially for a wayward) your emotional state and your inability to face and resolve your issues on your own, this was the only path available for you.

Not that you were destined to do it, but you were not equipped to handle the situation any better than you did.

Kinda like given all the circumstances what was most likely to happen? For instance, an older man who isn't steady on his feet, an icy sidewalk, slippery dress shoes because he wanted to look nice, and a need to rush to the car because he is late for an appointment-given all those things it's no wonder he fell and hurt himself.

Given your coping skills, life situation, opportunity, and everything else that came together, the A was an "expected" outcome. And by expected I don't mean expected behavior but expected outcome of all those factors being present at one time.

It doesn't release you from responsibility. Does that make sense?

Is that right people pleaser? Is this related to the radical honesty book?

[This message edited by BtraydWife at 8:21 PM, March 28th (Friday)]

I am having a problem with this. I can not at this time articulate what it is exactly that bothers me about this. I will be thinking about "Radical Acceptance" as peoplepleaser explained it and see if I can come up with what it is exactly that is bothering me. It may just be a semantics thingy. *shrug*

Off the top of my head, it does sound like a "fate" or "destiny" acceptance. I don't believe in either of those things, so I am sure that is in part what is bothering me.

OTOH, I believe that my FWH was at a point in his life that everything that happened was a perfect storm waiting to happen.

As I said, I will be thinking about this.

The hard part is that there are MULTIPLE perspectives to help the BS come to terms with this and I think there is NO ONE perspective for any of us that will help.

There is no ONE THING that we as BS or even WS would ever say, "AH, so THAT is how to think of this and come to terms with this"...there is not just ONE WAY to come to terms and we must, I think, ACCEPT that there probably are multiple ways employed and needed to help us accept it and find PEACE.

So entertaining the "radical acceptance" is one way, and saying that "other choices may have been made but were not and I accept that as well" is another among many others probably and it may be that we need them ALL (or not) to help us find our peace and acceptance.

Coming to terms with this is hard because there is not one GRAND EXPLANATION, or GRAND PERSPECTIVE, that gets us there I think.

And I THINK a lot about how to accept, come to terms with it, find a way somehow to be at peace and go on.

That is really what we want in the end is to be at peace with all that was to the extent that we don't have to analyze it all day, but instead let,allow, and give ourselves the GIFT of being happy....

I know...getting to that point is hard, take times and EFFORT...but let's give yourselves a break and say it is okay that it does...just as long as we keep moving forward, little by little, and don't beat ourselves up when we go back a bit or get stuck...we are human too...just realize it, and try again.

I try to tell myself this...I am struggle with all this THINKING too...little by little...slow and steady...be gentle to ourselves ...

[This message edited by morethantrying at 9:15 PM, March 28th (Friday)]

ng) what this means is yes you'd like to think you could have made a different choice, but given (especially for a wayward) your emotional state and your inability to face and resolve your issues on your own, this was the only path available for you.

I can't buy this myself. But as someone on this thread explained maybe there are more roads to acceptance?

Answer the secret email. Don't answer the secret email. Door A or Door B. I've accepted my poor decision making and why I did it. I don't accept that it was my only option at the time. No. I had 100 other options.

Good thoughts on this thread. Thank you for posting!

Well articulated, PP & MTT...

Part of my path is trying to not argue with reality. Still searching for acceptance, and this helps.

[This message edited by bionicgal at 9:35 PM, March 28th (Friday)]

It is important for the BS to accept that what happened was the decision of the WH...it HAPPENED...WAS A CHOICE...problem with "only option for them"

what is DBT?

I agree with crossroads. It's seems to release WS from any agency. WS made choice after choice after choice. Yes, my WS has bad decision making mechanisms and poor coping skills, but he had the ability to make decisions. He is responsible for these choices. As a result, he damaged me, our marriage, his career and self esteem.

Granted, every BS has the right to interpret their situation as they see fit, and perhaps not every A can be characterized in this way. But IMHO, most affairs are by choice. It's not like my WS accidentally found himself naked and happened to pass by his AP who was coincidentally naked and then coincidentally tripped and accidentally stuck his dick in her. Oh and this happened accidentally time and time again for the better part of two months..... For what it's worth, I don't believe in th BS stories that "i was trapped in the A" either. Everyone has a choice.

But that's my interpretation of my sitch, not your interpretation...and you have a right to that too!

Quite frankly, it just sucks that we have to accept this pile of shit from our spouses in the first place. and I guess that's what I am most angry and disappointed about.

[This message edited by Lowlow at 8:29 AM, March 29th (Saturday)]

so true lowlow - it's choice after choice after choice. I simply refuse to believe there was no other option. at one point I made a choice to end my affair. Certainly wasn't the only option at the time but it was the right one. That one was harder than starting the affair. Finally did the right thing.

[This message edited by rachelc at 9:41 AM, March 29th (Saturday)]

OTOH, I believe that my FWH was at a point in his life that everything that happened was a perfect storm waiting to happen.

This is what I was trying to explain. It's not meant to take the responsibility away from the wayward in any way. In fact it pins the responsibility down on them. It is all on them. They ultimately created the storm with their life choices.

It's not destiny or fate. It's the result of many poor choices that were made. It's not healthy or right, it's just the best thing they were capable of doing. You know this because it is what happened.

It's in line with the thought that their very best thinking got them into the affair. Therefore they are not capable of making the changes on their own to resolve the issues they have.

This sort of thinking is almost like a mathematical proof solution to the idea that they need to fix something inside of them. This is the realization of all the things that were broken and that added together totaling having an A.

I do find this interesting. I'm the last person on earth who would remove responsibility from my WH. This is a proof of concept that it is all his responsibility.

As I understand it, it’s not about excusing your decisions by saying you had no other option — It’s about having compassion for the position that you were in when you made those decisions, and being able to engage with the consequences of your actions in a more constructive way through being aware that you're no longer (exactly) that same person.

Maybe another way of putting it is the difference between regret, where you're still wishing you'd chosen differently at the time, and remorse, where you're choosing mindfully all the time, based on the circumstances you're in at any given moment.

Acceptance doesn't imply some kind of master narrative (like "destiny") beyond those circumstances, some of which are to varying degrees consequences of the totality of decisions we've made in the past, and some of which are totally beyond our influence. There isn't a clear line in the sand dividing the realm of our personal responsibility from everything else in the world. Which is not to say that there is no such thing as personal responsibility — merely that each of us is only a small segment of the world we exist in, and that everything we do arises in a context and also affects everything around us.

So for me, looking at things this way doesn't release me (or anyone) from agency; rather, it supports me in being responsible and exercising my agency to the fullest, and helps me to have empathy and acceptance for the things outside my conscious control.

Or, to put it completely differently: The only proof that you could have done something is for you to have done it...

Omg!!! I have never heard the term or the definition but that is exactly what I believe. Thank you!!! I am going to look into it.

I have always believed that all of our decisions are subconsciously premade based on our previous experiences, actions, and results. Positive results promote repeated behavior and extreme negative results create change. We live in a falacy of true free will.

It's definitely a difficult concept to embrace. And I agree that every road to healing is not for every person. When I was first introduced to the concept the person told me that everything that happened was what was "supposed" to happen. I couldn't get over that word, so I changed it to "set up" to happen.

I use this often in my work, and it can be very freeing for people. It encourages empathy for those who wronged us, and some relief for those who have wronged others.

The key point for me is that by radically accepting you are not condoning. What happened was set up to happen. The responsibility for what happened remains, as choices were made along the way to allow it to get to that point.

I agree that it is fatalistic in nature, as it is part of eastern philosophy. This is a hindsight fatalistic view, rather than a foresight one. For me and the way I conceptualize it (in my western, individualistic mind)is that it's not necessarily saying that what happened was "destined," rather that it made sense that it happened based on everything that came before. I, like someone else noted, see that though there were options, this horrible thing was the best option to my WS at that time. And it sucks. And it hurt. And it's not ok. And it can NEVER happen again.

When I accept that it happened based on how it was "set up" I am better able to look at what happened leading up to it to change those patterns. WS is better able to look at what happened leading up to it to change those patterns in her. If you can wrap your brain around it, it is very freeing.

Also, there are books on DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy). It is a mental health intervention designed to help people who have intense emotional responses and struggle to understand dialectics--opposing feelings and ideas can exist simultaneously, i.e., that one can hate and love you at the same time, for example. The concepts of mindfulness and distress tolerance (which includes radical acceptance) are invaluable and wonderful to borrow for healing or coping with any situation. If you are looking for more information on it, there is a workbook available with a green cover that is pretty good. You can also google for information.

[This message edited by peoplepleaser at 10:34 AM, March 29th (Saturday)]

I respectfully disagree. As I understand it, the WS is thus characterized as so damaged and so nonself- aware, that in a radical acceptance perspective, they had NO other choice but to commit to an A. Few people are that dumb and few people are put in such situations (and I'm having trouble of thinking how an affair could fit that situation). Yes, life presents all of us with challenges and environments where it looks like there is no other choice (or maybe there is no other better choice), but the fact is that although situations and institutions do influence our environment and life chances, they are rarely the only factors at play. Otherwise, why would humans evolve to have emotions like attachment if these were so easy to ignore?

If radical acceptance was true, and the WS had no other choice, then the American motto is false. Hard work will never lead to success, since that motto depends on the idea that adversity can be overcome by the individual and that the individual is powerless.

I just can't buy into this. I believe that circumstances surrounding our relationship (bad boundaries, self esteem issues for him, health issues for me) contributed to the decision he made, but in the end, that's what it was...a decision, that means there WAS a choice, and there were thousands of times during the affair when he made the choice again.

This is like saying as BS we couldn't make any other choice than the one we made when it came to R. I HAD a choice, and I made it. I don't believe it was because I had no other option due to the past, circumstances, or the place I was in at the time.

We all struggle in many areas of our live but ultimately, as intelligent beings, we are responsible for the choices we make. This "radical acceptance" theory DOES take some responsibility from the WS, there's no way it doesn't. We are working on fixing the circumstances, both as a couple, and for him as in individual, that contributed to him MAKING A BAD DECISION. That doesn't mean he couldn't have made another.

The way I am understanding it is NOT that it was destiny or that there was no other choice.

Rather, it is accepting that with all the key elements in place, the stage was set for the event to happen. It is accepting that it happened. It is removing from your mind a 'coulda, woulda, shoulda' mentality, NOT to give excuse, but to get you to accept that this is your reality.

You many want to look at this link:

http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/html/radical_acceptance_part_1.html

Click on the yellow arrows at the top to read through the 6 pages of explanation.