Hi, I have the book "Co-Dependent No More," which has a chapter on Detachment. Would you like me to summarize it when I have time and list the homework assignment so we can do it and talk about it here? karen
Quote: Totally detaching is only good if, the two people are moving on.
I am not moving on, in my mind I've been thinking "what if" meaning H doesn't come back. I need to change that to, H is coming coming back or my H "is back." I must treat H as if he was back in my home, back with me back as family.
Quote: You have to know where to draw the line in detaching.
Yes, yes...that is the tricky part. So freak'n out over OW wrapping S's Xmas gifts was okay then...lol.... That is over the line!!! Even though H didn't give it a second thought, I'm sure OW did...grrrrhhhhhhh..
From "Codependent No More," by Melody Beattie: Detachment Ch. 5 (summarized)
"Detachment is not detaching from the person whom we care about, but from the agony of involvement." -Al-anon member
Attachment Attachment is becoming overly-involved, sometimes hopelessly entangled. Attachment can take several forms: *We may become excessively worried about, and preoccupied w/a prob or person *we may graduate to becoming obsessed with and controlling fo the people and probs in our environment *we may become reactionaries, instead of acting authentically of our own volition *we may become emo'ly dependent on the people around us *we may become caretakers to the people around us
The probs w/attachment-can keep us in a state of chaos and the people around us in a state of chaos. If we're focusing all our energies on people and probs, we have little left for the business of living our own lives. It overworks us and underworks them. It doesn't solve probs, it doesn't help them, and it doesn't help us. It is wasted energy.
"If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a fact, then you are residing on another planet with a diff. realitiy system." Dr. Wayne Dyer
Worrying and obsessing keep us so tangled in our heads we can't solve our probs. Whenever we become attached to someone or something, we become detached from ourselves. We lose touch w/ourselves. We forfeit our power and ability to think, feel, act, and take care of ourselves. We lose control.
Worrying, obsessing, and controlling are illusions. They are tricks we play on ourselves. We feel like we are doing something to solve our probs, but we're not. Many of us have reacted this way with justifiably good reason. We may have lived with serious, complicated probs that have disrupted our lives, and they would provoke any normal person to become anxious, upset, worried, and obsessed.
Out of habit, some of us may have developed an att. of attachment-of worrying, reating, and obsessively trying to control. Maybe we have lived with people and through events that were out of control. Maybe obsessing and controlling is the way we kept things in balance or temporarily kept things from getting worse. And then we just kept on doing it. Maybe we're afraid to let go, b/c when we let go in the past, terrible, hurtful things happened.
Some of us may not even be aware we've been holding on so tightly. Some of us may have convinced ourselves we have to hang on this tightly. We believe there is simply no other choice but to react to this particular prob. or person in this obsessive manner.
Detachment is not a cold, hostile withdrawal; a resigned, despairing acceptance of anything life and people throw our way; a robotical walk through life oblivious to, and totally unaffected by people and probs; a Pollyanna-like ignorant bliss; a shirking of our true responsibilities to ourselves and others; a severing of our r's. Nor is it a removal of our love and concern, although sometimes these ways of detaching might be the best we can do, for the moment.
Ideally, detachment is releasing, or detaching from, a person or prob in love. We mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically disengage ourselves from unhealthy entanglements with another person's life and responsibilities and from prob's we cannot solve.
Detachment is based on the premises that each person is responsible for himself, that we can't solve probs that aren't ours to solve, and that worrying doesn't help. We adopt a policy of keeping our hands of other people's resp's and ten to our own instead. We allow people to deal with their own disasters that they have created. We allow people to be who they are. We give them the freedom to be resp. and to grow. And we give ourselves that same freedom. We live our own lives to the best of our ability. We strive to ascertain what it is we can change and what we cannot change.
Detachment involves "present moment living." We allow life to happen instead of forcing and trying to control it. We relinuish regrets over the past and fears about the future. We make the most of each day.
Detachment also involves accepting reality. It requires faith-in ourselves, in God, in other people, and in the natural order and destiny of things in this world. We believe in the rightness and appropriateness of each moment. We release our burdens and cares, and give ourselves the freedom to enjoy life in spite of our unsolved probs. We trust that all is well in spite of the conflicts. We trust that someone greater than ourselves knows, has ordained, and cares about what is happening. We understand that this someone can do much more to solve the prob than we can. So we try to stay out of His way and let Him do it. In time, we know that all is well b/c we see how the strangest (and sometimes mostpainful)things work out for the best and for the benfit of everyone.
awesome so far, Karen...please keep it coming!!!!!
Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.... (thoreau)
Detaching does not mean we don't care. It means we learn love, care, and be involved w/o going crazy. We stop creating all this chaos in our minds and environments. When we are not anxiously and compulsively thrashing about, we become able to make good decisions about how to love people, and how to solve our probs. We become free to care and to love in ways that help others and don't hurt ourselves.
The rewards of detachment are great: serenity; a deep sense of peace; the ability to give and receive love in self-enhancing, energizing ways; and the freedom to find real solutions to our probs. We find the freedom to live our own lives w/o excessive feelings of guilt about, or responsibility toward others. Sometimes detachment even motivates and frees people around us to begin to solve their probs. We stop worrying about them, and they pick up the slack and finally start worrying about themselves. We each mind our own biz.
If you can't detach in love, it is better to detach in anger rather than to stay attached. If we are detached, we are in a better position to work on or through our resentful emo's. If we're attached, we probably won't do anything other than stay upset.
Many of you are deeply grieved over, and concerned about certain people in your lives. Many of them may be destroying themselves, you, and your fam., right before your eyes. But you can't do anything to control those people. If you could, you probably would have done it by now.
Detach. Detach in love, or detach in anger, but strive for detachment. It's difficult, but it will become easier with practice. If you can't let go completely, tr to "hang on loose." Relax. Sit back. Now, take a deep breath. The focus is on you.
Activity: 1. Is there a prob. or a person in your life that you are excessively worried aobut? Write about it. Then focus on yourself. What are you thinking? What are you feeling?
2. How do you feel about detaching from that person or prob.? What might happen if you detach? Will that probably happen anyway? How has staying "attached"-worrying, obsessing, trying to control-helped so far?
3. If you did not have that person or prob. in your life, what would you be doing with our life that is diff. from what you are doing now? How would you be feeling and behaving? Spend a few minutes visualizing yourself living your life, feeling and behaving that way-in spite of your unsolved prob. visualize your hands placing n God's hands the person or prob. you are concerned about. Visualize His hands gently and lovingly hoding that person or willignly accepting that prob. Now, visualize His hands holding you. All is well for the moment. All is as it should and as it needs to be. all will be well-better than you think.
I think I did the detachment exercises I did incorrectly.
All I managed to do was spin myself up more.
Activity:
1. Is there a prob. or a person in your life that you are excessively worried aobut? Write about it. Then focus on yourself. What are you thinking? What are you feeling?
David is the person and the problem is the marriage or lack thereof! I am not sure what this wants you to write but going to write something so I can focus my head somewhere today!
Thoughts:
I mostly think why can't David figure himself out and give our marriage a chance.
I think why did he choose to have an affair, he has been involved in two affairs previous to this one. Did he not learn how much pain is involved in affairs? Is he morally weak and incapable of maintaing a relationship on an ongoing basis such as a marriage and the only way he can be involved with someone is in an affair where there isn't really the responsibility of working at a relationsip?
Is he incapable or unwilling to focus enough of himself away from his job to maintain a relationship on a full time basis, but at the same time he wants some companionship, some physical relationship, but no full time responsibility?
I also feel sorry for David as I don't see him as a happy person. He covers a lot up with humor, but he used to say I was depressed, which I was, but right now I'm not sure that he isn't depressed. I would say he is definitely unhappy.
Of course I don't see him with OW and I'm assuming he is happy when he is with her, but I don't feel it lasts when he is away from her.
Feelings:
I feel hurt and betrayed that he chose the route of an affair rather than try to work on our marital problems, either through the C we were seeing or if he thought she wasn't seeing what was really going on to suggest finding a different C.
He also chose to involve two of my closest friends and enlist them on his side of the problems, rather than share with me. Therefore costing me two close friends. But when I had called his friend to try to ask him to help David he was angry. He apparently doesn't see he did worse to me with my friends. Entering an affair with one and involing the other in the knowledge of the affair and our marital problems.
I now feel that there is a good chance he actually was involved with J at our house in our bed. This makes me feel even worse about him and the whold sitch.
I also now wonder if they ML at our picnic shelter while I trustingly went to the house and to bed. This is apparently where the dastardly plan was hatched, to D both their spouses. Then they paraded it in my face but still acted as if they were only friends and she acted as if she was still my friend to my face while screwing my H.
This leaves lots of anger, resentment, broken trust. A total not understanding of how David could do this to me and not feel horribly guilty and slimy. How he could face me and himself, with the actions he has committed and the choices he has made or let J make for him.
I actually don't feel he has taken over making his own choices for his life yet. First his mother made them. Then Janice made them, then Pam made them, now Janice again.
But some day if he ever wants to be happy in his life David is going to have to make his own choices.
2. How do you feel about detaching from that person or prob.? What might happen if you detach? Will that probably happen anyway? How has staying "attached"-worrying, obsessing, trying to control-helped so far?
I feel I have been making steps to detach from the person/prob. I go back and forth at times. Sometimes I'm great and feel very detached, sometimes I get all cozy with the worrying about the problem again.
If I could detach I would feel better all of the time.
No, feeling better won't happen until I detach on an ongoing basis rather than hit and miss.
Staying "attached" worrying, obsessing, trying to control, has not helped at all, if anything has hindered my forward progress with my life.
3. If you did not have that person or prob. in your life, what would you be doing with your life that is diff. from what you are doing now? How would you be feeling and behaving? Spend a few minutes visualizing yourself living your life, feeling and behaving that way-in spite of your unsolved prob. visualize your hands placing n God's hands the person or prob. you are concerned about. Visualize His hands gently and lovingly hoding that person or willignly accepting that prob. Now, visualize His hands holding you. All is well for the moment. All is as it should and as it needs to be. all will be well-better than you think.
I have to come back to this one. It is not something I have enough mind to focus on right now.
Pam
"We must be willing to let go of the life we had planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us"
That is over the line!!! Even though H didn't give it a second thought, I'm sure OW did...grrrrhhhhhhh..
