Detachment

[antlers]

Hi 25.

This is something that I never wanted, and although I made so many awful mistakes that led up to her leaving, I know in my heart that I did everything in my power (after she made the decision to leave) to make amends...including genuinely apologizing for my actions, taking responsibility for my actions, getting counseling, reading and learning, and most of all, changing for the better...in every way I could. I validated out the wazoo! These changes needed to happen for me to get better and be better, and for no other reason. I got stronger physically and mentally, and started to think about things differently than I always had. But I did have hopes I would get a second chance. When the reality that I wouldn't get that chance became clear, and that she was divorcing me, it pummeled me. Now I'm dealing with all those emotions...plus, I'm getting involved in these bad legal processes that are necessary when stuff like this happens, and it's not pleasant!

I want so much to get happy and enjoy my life. Nope, don't know if I'll ever know of her doubts and true feelings. From what I've heard, she has no doubts about what she's doing...and she's made her true feelings known to me..."I don't love you", "we will never be together", "you need to move on with your life", etc.. Don't really know if she'll ever reflect...she seems very resolute. I should let go of all that stuff, 'needing to know', etc..

I have become much closer to our smaller children. Our oldest daughter (hers from a previous marriage) has distanced herself from me, and that hurts. She was my first daughter, and I love her as much as the others. She moved in with her mother a while back. Anyway, my 11 y/o son and 12 y/o daughter and I are, I believe, closer than we've ever been. Youngest daughter is hard sometimes because she is close with big sis and mom. I am a better dad than I've ever been.

I understand the need for the laws, but there are exceptions (like ours), and applying those laws to every case regardless of the exceptions is, in my opinion, grossly unjust and unfair.

You saying "if you can always know that you acted with dignity, in the face of anything that comes, that's worth a lot more than you may now realize"...hits me hard because that's really what I've done since she decided to leave. It didn't stop her from leaving and it didn't bring her back. The only person that it mattered to was me, and our smaller kiddos.

Do you still think that love is a choice? If it is, shouldn't it be easy to decide to 'stop' loving someone?

I'm doing my best to stay strong, I really am. Don't know what else I could be doing, really. I know...time. It's just hard to bide that time. What you're saying makes perfect sense, and I believe it...it's just hard to do! I appreciate you telling me these things...I just gotta continue to tell em' to myself!

"I control all the realities in my new life as far as being happy." "Her relative happiness/regret level is not relevant." "Only mine is...and I think I will be happy down the road." "How long it takes is up to me." "Only me."

Gotta' believe it! Thanks 25. I enjoy your helpful posts more than you know!

[ginab1966]

Coach, Puppy, GIMA...all of you. Thank you for this thread. I'm at a really bad place in my M right now and I'm hanging on by a thread. Tonight, I was close to walking downstairs and saying "Can't do this one more second" but I opened up my CoDA books and started reading. I began reading on detachment because I'm finding it so hard to do with my H and I living in the same house. Nothing was clicking...then..low and behold I come on here and find this thread. You all have said more to me in this thread than my CoDA books could have. I think it's because you are real people who are living the detachment...and living through it...thriving even. When I read my CoDA books it seems almost unatainable.

I know, to save myself within this M that is crumbling around my ears and in the face of some horrible emotional torture, I need to detach. Oldtimers been talking to me a lot about it and of course I hear it in my CoDA meeting all the time..."Detach with love. End the emeshment!!"

Thank you all for being here when I needed you most. Today has been the most challenging since June...hands down. I have been so anxious and on pins and needles. I finally feel peaceful I also believe that my God lead me to this post. He always knows better than I what I need. It may not be what I want..but it's always what I need.

Going to bed now..and peacfully sleep.

God bless all of you...Gina B

[25yearsmlc]

Antlers,

am going off the boards for a bit but wanted to encourage you to stay the course. We NEVER know what's in their minds, these WAS's but if she seems resolute, perhaps that should be your path as well. For now.

Yes I do believe love is a choice and if I were M to a man who beat me, I'd stop loving him. I believe to an extent, where the head goes, the heart will follow. We cannot create the alchemy or magic of infatuation or lust and we cannot always overcome someone else's viewpoint that they have created with someone else & torn down from us...but WE can choose. You may have to choose to love your wife in a less painful way....until IF and when she chooses to see the love she has for you in a new light.

If you have conducted yourself with dignity as I believe, she'll know and respect this. And her new man cannot be perfect. If he is, good for her, she found the new Jesus Christ and he's in love with her. Who can compete? But alas, he's only human and has his own frailties and faults like all of us. SOME of his faults will be ones you do NOT have and then at those times, she'll know that she made a trade that is not always profitable, so to speak. She also knows that 2 of those kids are yours biologically AND you treated all the same and that's worth gold to a woman. The kids don't even know what to make of all this either.

One suggestion--Invite the older d as often as you can so the 3 of them can still be together. At least some times. That's also a sign that you still care for the older d and don't see her as merely a piece of a package deal but as a young girl you also love like a father does. Make sure you buy all of them gifts they'd like. Prove to them that no matter who else lives with or around your stbxw, that you are always there for them as well.

As for the law, never ask me to defend an injustice. (Heck, I'm still apologizing for OJ...) I just explain it. And in truth, I never met a man who said he paid too little for his kids. One guy complained to me about paying a fourth of his salary to his ex w for their kids (yes HE cheated and left for OW#3) and I thought, "geez, that leaves YOU with 3/4 of your salary for just you... and that's not enough?"

The state/court does think a parent is supposed to support his kids as best he can, not as he wants (or believes the ex w deserves.) Many paying spouses dislike that the ex's benefit from the child support indirectly, and I see that as simply not focussing on what mostly matters. Surely not what matters to the court. They don't care if somehow the "bad guy" (according to the other spouse), derives benefit from living in a safe neighborhood b/c they live with the kids.......the point is, the KIDS live in a safe neighborhood....know what I mean?

Sure, I get what you are saying but you are inserting fault into the issue of child support and the law separates that in part to spare the kids the turmoil. I mean, should the kids suffer financially b/c of their mother's mistakes? Or their parents disputes eating up legal fees instead of funding their college? Just to be proved "righter"? (Also won't the new man's income count for something? ) Ask your L to explain this more b/c you could become bitter if you don't. I knew a guy who told me he didn't want to share his bonus with his kids...b/c "they don't need it" as if HE "NEEDED" it more...and when he got to court, the judge "frowned" on his self serving reasoning and said, "Your children are by rights, entitled to the fruits of your bounty" and he was quoting a legal dogma from centuries ago. Not a happy judge and not a happy dad...(and not my client either).

Like I said, I'm not defending it. When I explain things to some people they literally tell me off as if I'm representing their stbxw's...or xh's and they cannot distinguish the messenger from the message.

Just try to see that the court's main concern is the stability of the kids. If they can remain in the same home, neighborhood, and schools, so be it. That's a good thing. Does it unfairly benefit a "wrong" spouse? Sometimes it does....and I'm sorry for that.

I hope your income grows and that you continue on your journey of growth personally as well. I see good things for you around the corner Antlers, I really do. Men like you are good catches and when you are ready, that will be manifest. Til then, we'll all hope for the best. And in case, you may want to work on forgiveness b/c without it 2 things will occur. You will not be able to trust ANY woman, and you will still feel a lot of pain in your life, today and tomorrow, until you let go of the unjustice of it all. I mean it. I know lots of couples who are in 2nd marriages and give very little thought to their first w's. My fil is on w#4 and honestly, he's MUCH nicer to this wife than the others. He changed for the better. Why couldn't he do that for my mil, who is now dying? Is that just? He's a self made multimillionaire and she worked 2 jobs over 20 years...No it's not fair. Neither was his 2nd or 3rd M either.


Nor was his childhood fair or good, at all, to tell the truth. We aren't God. We don't know each person's past or inner demons or their struggles.

The more dignified and kind and strong you are, the more happy you seem, (and more happy you ARE) the more your wife MUST wonder what she's leaving. I simply believe that with all my heart and mind. Will she doubt herself so much that she'll come back? Don't know but Will you keep the road home paved and smooth WHILE also moving on? Up to you. But she'll wonder...if you GAL and stay strong and move on, she can always change her mind and chase a bit after you to show you that she's sure she wants back in IF IF it happens.

And if she's not willing to do a bit of work to get you back, why on earth would you want to risk your heart again anyhow? You can choose to love her fully again, if the time comes. For now, move on to protect yourself and love your children as best you can.

(( j ))

[breakaway]

Hey, j..left you a message in the alt. Sorry to see you go from here but I hope you are enjoying life. :-)

sorry for the hijack, just wanted to leave this where she might see it.

[antlers]

25,
I'm gonna miss your posts while you're off the boards. I have to stay the course...I've got no other choice. Nope, one munute she's one way and the next minute she's another way! She seems resolute, and I've got to go that route also.

I think the way you do, that love is a choice. So our cognitive processes can help us in these matters, to a larger degree than we think? I don't want to hang on to any false hope. This divorce is going to happen. I wish things were different, but they're not. I DB'd my butt off, and did everything in my power...hoping I'd get a chance. I don't.

I have done everything that I've said on these boards, but I don't think she cares at all, and she doesn't respect me. I became the man that she wanted me to be all these years, but it didn't matter to her. I love all 3 of our kids, and she knows that...doesn't matter to her. She badmouths me to all 3 of them. No, the kids are confused and don't know what to do with all of their thoughts and emotions.

I'll start doing that more. She lives with her mom. She told me the other night that I was her 'dad', regardless. I make sure she knows that she is just as much mine as the little kids are, and that I love her just as much. I do what you say, but I'll put forth more effort to do it even more.

I can't stop her from divorcing me, but I'm not gonna 'help' her divorce me. My attorney said after looking at the original papers that I was served with, that she could tell that W thought it was going to be simple and uncomplicated.

I do support my kids as best I can. Have been ever since W left last February. The kids live in a safe neighborhood when they're with W, and they haven't lacked for anything.

The kids, in our situation, don't and haven't suffered financially at all.

I know you're expalining it, but it isn't 'just' to not take particular situations into consideration.

Things will continue to be as 'stable' as they have been since last February. Same homes, neighborhoods, and schools.

I plan to continue on my journey of personal growth. Income is a different matter...they quit giving us raises at work because of the economy. I hope you're right about seeing good things for me around the corner. I appreciate the compliments, and I'll hope for the best too. I've read here that 'forgiveness is a gift that you give yourself.' Lots of emotions right now...I'm still working on forgiving myself fully.

No, we don't. That doesn't excuse mean, rude, uncaring behavior. I had my own inner demons, and that didn't excuse the way that I acted for so long.

I agree with what you're saying here about being happy. Don't know about any second thoughts from her though. Hard to imagine she'd have any.

That's exactly what I want to do...move on to protect myself and love my kids as best I can.

I'll miss ya' while your gone.

[SmileysPerson]

How to practice detachment? Figure out the worst thing that could happen to you? (Spiers Doctrine - "The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function.")...when you aren't afraid of the outcome, you can't get hurt if you are already dead.

As the author, for lack of a better term, of the "Spiers Doctrine" -- a notion I latched onto back in May -- let me weigh in here, especially as I am a failed DB'er (a longish post I'm working on at my own thread).

I was recently sorting through all the receipts, unopened mail, and the like I accumulated during the first few, awful months of LBSdom. And there I came across a receipt for the entry fee to Famous Art Museum in Big Midwestern City. I saved it, for it was a tangible symbol of my re-birthday.

Let me explain: Like many of the newbies -- like all newbies, I suppose -- I was mired in it after the Bomb. Bitter self-recrimination, "what-if-itis," "if-only-itis" -- in other words, I was doing the full-bore Mope-'n'-Hope.

It was reflected in everything -- my lack of interest in work (6 months of lost manuscript time, for example), my half-hearted attempts at GALing, the physical way I walked, a tenuous feeling inside me as if everyone in the world were looking at me, seeing -- knowing -- what a Loser I was, what a figure of, alternatively, scorn and pity.

When I found The Divorce Remedy, I latched onto it like it was the rosetta stone of relationships -- the key to unlocking the mysteries. And with DR came the boards and the all-important, impossible-to-overestimate-the-value-of realization that my experience wasn't World Historic. I'd been like a teenager, you see -- You don't understand! No one else felt this way in the Whole History of Forever!

Well, well, well; turns out, I was just Joe Average Left-Behind. Everyone feels this way. It's the way These Things are done.

For me, that was one absolutely essential awakening. Because what that meant was that divorce -- a divorce, the divorce, my divorce -- would, in fact, not be fatal. Oh sure -- we kind of secretly want it to be, don't we, in that immediate, adolescent-like rush of anguish after the Bomb? Oh, if only it would really kill me, that would teach him/her! Then s/he'd see how True I am and Worthy of Marriage!

I had been wallowing in the sentiments expressed in W.H. Auden's poem, "Funeral Blues" (best known for its recitation by the gay character in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (YouTube) but in fact written by Auden to be sung by the (female) performer Hedli Anderson, as if for a lost lover):

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

But I have kids, as many of you do, and very quickly realized that I'm not a teenager any more. I have responsibilities. Two of them. And that forced me to redirect my focus somewhat. Yes, yes, yes -- "it would be better for the kids if." But it ain't "if." It's "is."

So that redirection was the second essential step in detaching. Once I had my head around that, the GALing actually became meaningful because I started taking pleasure in what I was doing for its sake and my sake -- not for her sake.

So those posts that have described detachment as a process are, IMO, spot-on; I started to rediscover things that I love, things that I enjoy -- things, indeed, that I had suppressed, ignored, and abandoned as part of the role of Husband Dude.

Being a thinker (with all due respect and apologies to my esteemed colleague @Thinker) -- often, if the gentle (and not-infrequently-not-so-gentle) pokes by some of our colleagues here are any indication, too much so -- I began then to reassess my marriage. And that's when I got my mojo.

Objectively -- or, if not "objectively" in the strict sense of the word, then objectively in the sense that I stopped making the D all about my failures. I have observed that there's a tendency to accept nearly all the blame -- even in instances of EA/PA by the Walkaway -- especially early in the recovery process. The divorce-busting paradigm is, in a sense, predicated upon it -- what did you do to make Walkaway walk, Left-Behind? Go 180 and un-do it. And the like.

But at a point -- and, regrettably, that point is undefined -- it is well I think to reassess just how happy you were in the M. Not rose-colored glasses reassessment (of course I was happy! s/he was my North, my South, my East, my West) but real reassessment. Let's face it -- all of us are aggrieved, unhappy, disappointed, reluctantly brought to compromise, during the course of a long-term relationship. Some (many?) we do willingly; other compromises (of self) we make reluctantly; still others unknowingly.

And as I did that, I began to reach what is (IMO and for me at any rate) a better (i.e., healthier) anger stage.

I began to question why it was I had put up with this and that; was the balance sheet really in my favor? Not that any one, or even all, of my grievances would have led me to drop the Bomb, but it became clear to me that I was constructing an artificial view of my marriage in order to (I think) justify or rationalize my own post-Bomb misery: If I felt this bad, then it must be because the marriage was simply Wonderfulness, right?

No. Not right. Perhaps I was in a fog myself during the marriage. Perhaps I was unwilling at the conscious level to see what I could now see. Perhaps I was just naive or blind. Perhaps it was fear, yellow freaking fear; like Joe Banks (YouTube @4:50), I was too chicken-sh*t afraid to speak up. All possible.

But the point was, in terms of detachment, I now had the opportunity to look at the totality of my relationship with my Walkaway Wife coldly -- as if looking at someone else's life and not my own (cf, the out-of-body experience described up-thread).

And it didn't look so good. It was a series of petty debates, little compromises, an untold-number of settling-fors -- and why? What had it gotten me? This! The Bomb! So what, really, had been the point?

And there I was, in Big Midwestern City -- my home town -- to undertake some kind of GAL thing, it was unclear what, just to get away, whatever, and it was rainy and I went to Famous Art Museum to look at the pictures there that I always consulted when I felt myself adrift, and She called.

She called and she carped and she attacked -- because, for a Walkaway, she sure did have a lot of desire, most often expressed as a desire to attack, to poke, to "prove" that what she was doing was "right" -- and I -- because I had no ability (desire?) to Drop The Rope, to Not Engage, to Ignore, to Hang Up -- I sat there, on my butt, on the cold marble staircase, for nearly an hour, the battery on my phone draining like the battery on my patience, like my soul.

And when she said -- no, she didn't "say," she sneered -- "goodbye" and hung up, I sat there feeling like Wiley E. Coyote (YouTube). The only thing I could do, the only thing I could think of, was to get up and walk.

Up and down Magnificent Boulevard I walked, in the pouring rain, thinking-but-not-thinking, reacting, feeling.

And that's when the "Spiers Doctrine" (YouTube) came to me. Having been a soldier, and having been in Iraq for over a year, I understood intuitively the absolute necessity of detachment in crisis. By way of example, many rape victims will report later, during therapy, that they were completely detached during their victimization; it is a pure survival instinct.

The challenge is to activate it consciously. How does one consciously accept fate? By acting, via DR, "as-if" -- as-if the thing one fears the most has already happened.

So. That's the way it was going to be? She was going to leave me and then attack me? Leave me and then reach out to me, day-after-day, simply to reinforce what a great idea it was to leave me? As if I didn't feel enough like sh*t as it was?

Well f*ck that.

So be it. I was already dead; I was already divorced.

And I went into my favorite tavern, ordered up an Irish coffee or three -- purely for medicinal purposes, you understand -- and read the local papers and chatted with my fellow patrons and....

When I left the bar, I was detached. There was nothing, I could now see, to be gained by not being detached. Yes, after a while, I had that fear that I could be too detached, and, as I am writing on my own thread, may well in fact have become so.

But that's an indictment of me, my resentment, my anger, my impatience, rather than an indictment of detaching. But since it's time for breakfast and for two rambunctious kids to spring from their beds to face the day, I will have to close this much-longer-than-anticipated response and suspend drafting of my own post for a couple hours.

How do you do it, this detaching? By doing it. There's no recipe, there's no procedure, there's no magic bullet. But you can't fake it. You can't pretend. You have to do it, deliberately and consciously.

You have to accept that you're already dead. That you have no control. That there is no logic, no argument, no plea, no justification, no photograph, no memory, no rationalization, no prayer, no wish, no hope big enough, strong enough, persuasive enough, enough enough, to deter Walkaway.

And you have to live it. You have the Walk That Path every minute, every day. When you feel yourself drifting, you have to consciously bring yourself back. Put away the photographs, Left-Behind. Put away the love notes. Stop idealizing her. Stop idealizing him. There are, in fact, other fish in the sea -- you know it as well as you know yourself. You may not want them, not now, but you know this to be true.

It doesn't mean you didn't/don't love Walkaway. It doesn't mean you didn't/don't cherish your marriage, value your marriage, desire your marriage. It doesn't mean you didn't/don't believe in the institution.

It means you love, cherish, value, desire, believe in...yourself.

[Heartbroken20]

All I can say is "Wow!" and "Thanks!"

[chatterbug]

Great thread. Thanks to everyone who has posted here.

[Heartbroken20]

futureunknown & Antlers

It occurred to me during my ordeal that being detached is similar to a R with a friend, which is very different than a R with a spouse.

Friend: "A person who is always glad to see you and has no immediate plans for your improvement"

A friend is someone who will come bail you out of jail. But a TRUE friend is someone who's sitting right beside you in the cell saying "Damn, that was fun!"

[BeautyMe]

Hi all,

I can really understand all your feelings about the whole idiotic crime that our partners are doing to us. I am now at the stage of struggling to survive. I have been told numerous time to be strong and attractive in myself but these are easily said than done. I am not even strong enough mentality cos of my depression, so I really don't know how I can be stable. I just find that our betrayal partners are pushing us to deadend, didn't even want us to survive with pride. I have been mentally and physically drained and have no energy to move on with life. Is that what they want from us?

My H told me this morning that he wants the family and I told him I will not allow him seeing another woman if he chose this path. He told me he wants the marriage and the kids (this was about 2 weeks ago when the bomb started) but until yesterday he still having sex with the OP. So what does he means by wanting the marriage and the kids. He just couldn't accept the fact that he will lose his kids while he still want the enjoy the fantasy outside.

Moments ago, I have planned to end my life but moments now, I planned to rescue myself and I want to punish him. Irregardless whether he repent or not, it doesn't mean anything to me cos he is the one forcing me to dead end. I want to stand firm and show him I can be strong without him and when the time he wants my forgiveness, he will not get it. I want him to know what is it like to go through this pain. He needs to learn his lesson.