Detachment

[Deep]

As someone still very much learning and living in hope my M continues to heal and never skids wildly off the right path again, I'll add some thoughts on what I feel.

Detachment is so personal and unique although there are basic general guidelines. This applies to both WAS and LBS. It's impossible to have absolute zero expectations. Nobody ever went into or stays in a r/s without some hope / expectation of happiness ands stability. Especially in my most painful times of trouble, I had such problems coping with the basic idea that happiness is everyone's personal responsibility. Now, I would say that is a truth and a necessity. Yet, the very idea of M is of 2 becoming 1 in many ways, a shared happiness, shared growth, shared future. How can you invest yourself fully in a complete M and reconcile that with the idea of detachment and personal happiness for each spouse? There have been posts here that spout bile at New Age gurus, counsellers etc, who because of a focus on "personal happiness", often give WAS the empowerment they need to go off on their trips of fantasy and delusion.

Where does one even start to draw the line?

And when you start to detach because you need to, the impact on you and the WAS is in the hands of God. I don't think it's a coincidence that not a few LBS on this board start to experience symptoms of switching to WAS mode over time.

I had a CORE session recently. There, I shared some of my thoughts on detachment, bringing back many hurtful memories. W and I have come such a long (and traumatic) way over the past 2 years and I felt trusting enough to talk about stuff more openly. I talked about how the A "ended", but W still having feelings for OM, and still "not in love" with me. The months of having her "stay for the kids till they are ok" shoved in my face while she still kept contact with OM. The blunt facts of "Deep, I can stay married to you without being too unhappy" as my marital status quo. The gnawing pain I felt as I pursued, pleaded, cajoled, demanded, nagged, screamed. For her to love me again, for our M to make sense. For the world to make sense and be ok again.

(This was way before I found about DB/DR, we were well on the ay to R by the time I came by this forum).

So I detached, but imperfectly, because to be honest, I could not "lovingly" detach completely as so many veterans here would advise. Not because I did not want to, but I had lost a lot of myself. I can honestly say I loved my W thoughout, but I had reached a point at times when I was ready to walk away myself, because that was the only way the world could start to make sense to me again.

In my own biased hindsight, I felt many things drew my W back. The lifting of the fog, OM's behaviour, W's growing fear she would lose me, the "Gucci/Robx" factors, W waking up to my good qualities again, and qualities I grew while dealing with the sitch (including what SP would call "mojo" I guess :)).

I shared this at CORE. Now, we may be healing but we still squirm at times when we have to face the demons again, particularly in a group setting. Just as WAS re-write history when they plunge into WAS mode, it can happen when they emerge from the fog - they can't recognise the alien either. And frankly, LBS can be guilty of re-writing too. W insisted she knew she never had a future with OM and had decided to stay, but of how the sitch was so hard because of her guilt and my pain. The detachment on my part to her helped when she felt less pressure and accusation and could "find herself again without wondering if Deep would walk out on any given day because of what happened". And that this made it so much easier for her to (seemingly) one day just snap out of the fog and fall in love with me all over again. And yet, the knowledge that I could indeed walk, also made her take responsibilty for her own happiness and a future without me. At different points in time, it could have driven her towards OM, and away from OM (or potential OMs).

Somewhat confusing, and somewhat logical and in line with conventional wisdom eh?

So, detachment (and GAL) per se, was necessary to me to stay sane, and ultimately played its part in getting my M to the point where healing was possible. The forms of detachment, applied at different points of the WAS fog, was also alternatively push and pull factors for W.

Apologies if this somehow degenerated into a long and rambling post.