Excellent video about the trauma bond. I believe it’s an exceptionally worse one for her being that she’s stuck between two worlds - her JW parents and exJWs - all of whom have strong feelings about her husband one way or another. She seems to have no secular friends as Kim alluded to.
Lloyd wants her to continue as his titular wife and mother of his children, but it’s clear he wants sex elsewhere whether it’s through sex workers or women he can find through dating apps and events. “Open marriage” could mean different things to different people, but in Lloyd’s definition the sex with her is either limited or non-existent.
So he does his thing and at a certain interval or if he feels she’s pulling away, he swoops back in and does something nice for them and intended to bring back memories of good times in the past. Their family holiday last month was an example of that. He made sure to do things as a foursome and probably put things into his daughter’s minds such as “isn’t it great to have daddy back? If it’s OK with mummy, daddy would like to come stay at home for awhile to be with his family”.
Lloyd knows he’s a hideous looking fatbody neckbeard and likely has plenty of online rejections and post first date ghosting. It irritates him to no end that Dijana is the best he could have ever hoped for and the pickings are going to get worse as he edges towards 50.
It’s going to be difficult for her to break this cycle. Like jumping into cold water, it’s best just to jump in instead of testing the water with your toes. But it needs to be done and she should understand this by now. She can’t continue to let him back in thinking it’s going to be different this time.
I read those emails he sent to her. I’ve seen his attempts at dating. She has to have the self esteem of a bug right now and she really shouldn’t. It’s him who should be worried about his prospects outside the marriage, not her. The sooner she understands this the better it will be for her and her girls.