Detachment

[Fightin4mywife]

K4D

I am trying to learn how to get around and find folks on this forum. Have wanted to get back with you about meeting in the DFW area. my contact info: 469-323-3050; [e-mail] (thats zero2)

jim

[K4D]

I just sent you a text Jim. I will give you a call tomorrow.

Kevin

[25yearsmlc]

K4D

I am trying to learn how to get around and find folks on this forum. Have wanted to get back with you about meeting in the DFW area. my contact info: @#$%^&*
jim

be careful about posting personal contact info as it's expressly prohibited on this board. Sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it's not convenient, but they definitely have their reasons. You can get banned from this board and I've seen some GREAT people get kicked off for this. So, fyi.
j-

[25yearsmlc]

INCOMING TORPEDOS!!! Whew.

25,

I will respond on my own thread as to not hijack this one.

Kevin

Maybe this thread should be called "Detachment Derailers"...detachment and ways to avoid doing it...
Okay k4, speaking of torpedoes...
Ever, EVER think that maybe some of your posts feel like torpedoes to others? Ever wonder if maybe you are looking for religious debates and arguments where there aren't any? Ever notice that the lengthy scriptural quotes OFTEN derail good conversations & dialogue people were having--which means that discussions veer from helping others in a R problem, into a pseudo-theological debate with you? Ever read the book you promised, "Blue Like Jazz"? Wish you would, b/c it probes how to better use one's faith productively to bring people together, not to divide them or and push them farther apart. Regardless of intent, the long scriptural diatribes do not promote discussions here nearly as often as they end them, shutting people up, or pushing them farther away. Time to do something different.

Your wife has not enjoyed these types of talk from you and religion is a point of contention in your M. Think about that. It doesn't help that sitch either. Look, this isn't about rubbing your nose in it. There is a teaching point here if you can get your ego out of the way and just see it. And then do something different. This is NOT a theological debate. It just isn't.
Inserting religion into a discussion about detachment strikes me as looking for a debate in a place that needs clarity and something other than unrelated argument.
No matter how much you want it to be about faith, it's not. It's about changes in behavior and making new choices, and living your life very differently with REAL changes...it's about GAL that does not relate to DBing or getting your wife back, or merely filling your time between visits. (Could your faith help you in this? Sure, if you let it. But you have used your faith, somehow, to avoid GAL and detaching...)

As for the c comments...
You say you are now going to c, every other week for 1/2 hour or an hour. Great. Why do I question that??

B/C of your track record that's why. I can't enable you to pretend to forget that.Then I'm part of your cycle problem, wherein you cycle through the same behavior and post things here that you've posted before, and back slide and yet want "only positive encouragement"...to what end? To cheer you on when we see you go down the same road just weeks after doing it and just watch you "wreck the car" again, and say nothing? Oh, b/c we're supposed to "Only be positive"...if your d swings the golf club or baseball bat incorrectly and the coach shows her the right way, what would you tell her if she said she only wants you to cheer for her no matter how she holds the bat or even if she swings at bad pitches?
Just keep saying "Great swing! Maybe next time!" Or would you get her a session one on one with the coach and show her the patterns of low pitches she swings at and misses and the times she lets good pitches go by...would you prepare her for occasional bunting or just tell her to "keep swinging like you have been!!" even though she's got poor form and won't hit much with it??

Many urged you to get some c, and You promised long ago to do it, for you AND for your d's. Only you didn't do it...for a really long time, while letting us believe that the girls were getting c, and to a lesser extent letting us think you were as well. People were aghast about it for the kids b/c they clearly needed it even if you didn't want to pay for it or deal with it. And you forgot to tell us that you weren't taking them until 1) TONS more pleading from us your little girls sending out their flares into the universe, begging for help. When you really did make an appointment for you, you quit after one session b/c you judged the man to be too young/inexperienced for you AND you did not tell us that either, until we questioned you about how it was all going...

2) after agreeing to attend AA for months, you finally actually went ...(WHICH we had assumed was already happening cuz you let us assume that), and then you went to one AA meeting and quit, b/c you judged the people there to be beneath you, AND you did not tell us that either, until we asked you for weeks and weeks how AA was going....

So there's a track record here of you making promises to make change and then not following through, and misleading us about it, and not being honest about it. If your w left out things like this, would you describe her as being open and honest?

So forgive me if I'm not getting back onto the cheerleading squad quite so fast these days. I'd LOVE for robx or gucci to come in and show you the ropes b/c you admit you need help with the 'man up' department and they have lots of advice there. The cheerleading for the same old same old though, I think it enables you too much.

You could simply continue this way for decades. I've asked you if you are happy this way or miserable and even when you admit that of course you are not happy ...you won't do what it takes to get there.

You resist, using the old excuses and some new religious red herrings as arguments to stall and deflect. What really irks me is that you derail other people with that and since it has not worked for you either, I just wonder if you want others to follow suit to their detriment just to keep you company or what. Of course that's not your intent, but it is a consequence of that derailing. Think abou it. It just confuses people who are in a lot of pain.

Stalls their progress by arguing about "unconditional love" and that can lead to them "standing still" and just praying. The appeal of that? It means NO changing on our end...

but what Antlers, C-bart and others are trying to get across here is healthy behavior and boundaries. Just b/c sometimes you tell your d's they cannot have candy, does not mean that you don't love them. Sometimes detaching from or even breaking up with an abusive person, and DETACHING from them, is both good for you AND good for them, in the long run. But their welfare is NOT our first concern;our own survival is. People can't just treat anyone any way they feel like it and claim that you should put up with it "if you really loved them...". That's garbage.

If a WAS mistreats you, then detach and GAL and do all the rest. LATER ON IF there comes a time when they want back in AND they do the work, THEN bring out the issue of choosing to love them again, & trusting or forgiving and moving on without bringing up the past, etc and that will test unconditional love. What's to test now, when a WAS is with OP?

When a spouse is with OP, seems to me detaching saves your life/soul/heart. Pursuit in some sitches just kills your heart....K4, your wife has asked you strongly, to let her go and leave her alone. So, why won't you? Seriously.

Until your fear of detachment lessens or you finally learn what it truly means, seems you'll be posting here as a grandfather. I don't enjoy saying that. But as long as you refuse to Detach, you won't GAL or move on and that means, you'll be the same guy she left.

You have mentioned financial issues so often I assume it really is an issue for YOU...if so, what are you doing about improving your financial sitch?? I recalled you job hunting before, even after this temp job came up. Did you follow through on any of that? Are you making less money now than before you went to Florida?? Are you sure this is only an issue for your w? I get the feeling it bugs you as well, if not more).

When I say bring more to the table as a man, it's not a 6 figure salary that is mandatory. It's the confidence of a man who can provide for and protect his family, even if he needs some extra $$ help now and then...but if there's NO movement in ANY direction forward...then you are not bringing anything but your needs to the table.)

This is not what I'd wish for you; but hey, until you take full charge of your life, you'll choose to stay stuck. This is about choices YOU are making, not her. She isn't even in the equation anymore. You said once that you don't know how to take charge of your life, that you "never had to 'man up' in the past". Although I can't see how that's possible, I accept that you see your life this way. And therefore cannot hold HER responsible for where you are now.

As for AA, You don't disclose much you learned there and I don't recall you ever mentioning your sponsor. As a 12 stepper myself, I find that revealing. This lack of disclosure reveals a lot. I found myself awestruck by the miracles I saw in my 12 step work and the people I met there were Godsends. I mean that. I'm Absolutely sure they were miracles for me to witness and experience. And there are so many issues that overlap about resisting certain behaviors and avoiding certain triggers so we don't make the same mistakes that did so much damage to our lives in the past....any of this sound familiar?? See, 12 step programs and learning to detach DO relate...(Anyone up for saying the Serenity Prayer? It's ALL about detachment in its' own way!!)

Of course it's curious and disappointing to see the same mistakes made that i think good c and AA involvement would have prevented or at least lessened...& but Coupled with the apparent non-committal nature of your approach to c and AA, I see why you are still where you are. You can change. Drunks with 40 years of drinking, are sober today. And happy and often, [/i]iin good m's.

Doing a 12 step program was a life changing experience for me and for every single person I know who has completed it,. It's not a small thing. But alas, you have to stick with it for months in a good group YOU must find, to get it going and then it's a forever thing. While You talk about M "covenants" and keeping commitments, you seem unable to make/keep a promise, to do or attend something or to give it a real chance. How about that?

This is a hijack of sorts but it goes to the heart of detachment b/c most LBSers resist detachment with a dozen different ploys and ruses and excuses. Most people resist detachment due to fear of letting go, and loneliness.

Some of them even KNOW they are pushing the WAS further away in the long run by not detaching, but they're so starved/needy for ANY contact with the WAS that they think any is better than none. If only they could see how wrong they are. (read the db books again folks!! Read the success stories and what they did!)

Most will argue why THEIR situations are different and why detachment won't work in THEIR cases...."but I have to see her b/c of the kids so for ME it's different..." or "But I can't detach b/c whenever I see WAS, I simply must SAY something..even if it's bad..." "there's too much tension", "Just miss him/her so much" "just so lonely/ so angry" "don't understand." but I couldn't help it" and we've all been there.

K4, I think you throw in your religious discussions as a way of deflecting away from your own work, or from the detachment discussions to derail the way the conversations are going. Please don't do that. Learn more from this board than you have. Process what someone writes before posting right away again as if they never spoke. And let others do their own detachment / GAL work, without you looking for borderline comments as avenues for you to hurl a pseudo-theological argument/wrench into, (especially a thread on detachment!!).

Look, There are tons of sites even on this board, for people who want to wax poetic OR discuss the road to salvation and faith, and the religious implications of choices made. BUT I don't think it belongs here--

Detachment is among your biggest challenges. But Your approach to this situation has not included true detachment at all, as far as I can see. [[/b] So you can't claim it failed... You have pursued and manipulated and each "GAL" thing or "now I get it" has been a type of tactic either to get her or to get approval here. The role your faith could have played, if you had let it, would have been to detach and yet keep faith that God would protect you, not guarantee a reconciliation but yes, guarantee you peace and His love. Instead, you harped and argued with folks that your faith means that God will reunite you with your wife, sometime in the future. To you it seems like No other options exist for God's plan for you. You either get her back or you are alone all your life b/c that's what you say the bible says and what you say God means.

By implication, all the 2nd M's in the world (including the loving warm M and stepfather that CG discussed with you), are adulterous and all the stepdads are "pieces of s$^#"..(no judgement there k4, nope...perfectly loving. Even Unconditional love you might say...???), etc. You forget how offensive and hurtful your comments are when you play the victim but your self righteousness is a turn off to many here. I thought you were way off base with CG when you said that and you blew off a woman who has posted to you at length, the WHOLE time you've been on this site and who gets about a 5% answer rate from you....IOW, you answer about 1 in 20 of her comments/questions and do maybe none of what she suggests. When i asked how your approach was working in your sitch, I didn't mean your db approach. I don't see a DB approach. I just see your k4 approach.

Hopefully those who see themselves in the detachment quandary will get themselves out of it. Antlers, C-bart, to paraphrase what we said earlier, Detachment makes forgiveness much more possible, Detachment makes GAL possible, and not detaching makes GAL IMPossible so really folks, read up on it. There are many articles on this site about what it means so you don't have to debate "unconditional love" or semantics to know how to do it. It can be confusing when you are trying to "listen like a lover" and yet detach. Going dark is also a bit different, but it's a DB strategy. SOME of these things are mutually exclusive and some are not. Make sure you know which is which and the books are pretty clear so buy one so you can mark it up. The info is around here. For concrete examples either find them in the articles, get a session with a DB coach (SO worth it!!) or ask someone who is detaching, how they are doing it. Good luck,

((( j )))

[brknheart]

Did She say she wants you to move on? If so, do it. Or fake it til you make it as far as being in front of her. Where the head goes, the heart will follow....eventually.

Yes, she told me this 2 weeks ago. I told her I agreed last week, started making plans, told her I cannot see or talk to her until the D, unless its important. Talking or seeing her only moves me backwards.

(I'm guessing she wants a man who will fill some of HER needs, like a partner) the more you'll push her away and confirm her discomfort around you. Please read the posts and digest them. You want her to feel comfortable around you, not guilt ridden. The more that happens, by backing off ALL R talk and being upbeat, the more likely you will be able to build some sort of friendship down the road. That's a start.

Thats the problem, she has so much resentment towards me, anger, hate, that she says she is broken, can never love me again. Ive tried many times to not talk about the past or the R, but she brings it up each time. She really wants to fast track the D... The way she is handling this separation, I feel she will killing any chance that we could have any kind of relationship...

Ive been making good progress detaching. I still love my W, but I feel my W is gone, she is another person now. I am making plans for my future, it involves moving out of the city we are living in, she knows this, seems like she doesnt even care. So many people are telling me she is doing me a favor, maybe its true...

[TrentC]

(Anyone up for saying the Serenity Prayer? It's ALL about detachment in its' own way!!)

I have that on my mirror at home, and on my monitor at work.

K4, I think you throw in your religious discussions as a way of deflecting away from your own work, or from the detachment discussions to derail the way the conversations are going. Please don't do that. Learn more from this board than you have. Process what someone writes before posting right away again as if they never spoke. And let others do their own detachment / GAL work, without you looking for borderline comments as avenues for you to hurl a pseudo-theological argument/wrench into, (especially a thread on detachment!!).

I feel the same way about this "support group" that you've thrown now thrown yourself into forming, K4D. It seems like you're trying to bail on the uncomfortable discussion here, but still want to steer others' efforts to DB on the premise of "being there for each other." It's harder for people to be honest and critical if they're in the same room...

I'm not opposed to live support groups in general, just suspicious of the timing and motivation of this one.

[TrentC]

Yes, she told me this 2 weeks ago. I told her I agreed last week, started making plans, told her I cannot see or talk to her until the D, unless its important. Talking or seeing her only moves me backwards.

It's great that you see that.

Thats the problem, she has so much resentment towards me, anger, hate, that she says she is broken, can never love me again. Ive tried many times to not talk about the past or the R, but she brings it up each time.

Then change the subject. If she challenges you on the things you've done to hurt her, validate those feelings without necessarily agreeing with them. That may take the wind out of her sails.

She really wants to fast track the D... The way she is handling this separation, I feel she will killing any chance that we could have any kind of relationship...

Divorces still take time. She can file tomorrow, but it doesn't change where you are now.

Ive been making good progress detaching. I still love my W, but I feel my W is gone, she is another person now.

If you can detach, then it will make forgiving her easier down the road (should you desire to do so). If you can stop rising to her provocative comments and change her thinking about you, then you give her a reason to rethink things.

Which is why 180's are so important. Is there anything that she's told you she hates about you/the relationship that you can work on? Not for her sake necessarily, but for whatever relationship you may have in the future.

So many people are telling me she is doing me a favor, maybe its true...

It's not for me to say. We'll be here to support you however to choose to handle this.

Just remember that you have power in this also; if you decide that it's not worth the effort to keep her, then it sounds like getting her out of your life will be easy.

That can be a useful last-resort technique -- giving in and pushing towards the divorce may upset her thinking; why, all of a sudden, are you so eager to get rid of her?

However, be warned that a LRT cannot be a bluff. You have to be OK with the outcome if she decides to keep going. If you're not, and she realizes it, then you've lost whatever leverage you have left to change things.

[Deep]

Some really interesting posts here of late, and for some reason, I've gotten a tad more philosophical too. I re-read Coach's opening post, many of the threads, including SP's last post - which was a great post, but one which I don't really agree with 100% ... they all had an impact on me - so forgive me if I'm rambling here with some random thoughts and musings.

Detachment, GAL ... all part of the DB philosophy and a near Holy Grail that promises a path, or at least a potential path out of the abyss of pain LBS types find ourselves in. At the end, how much more is it than a path of self-discovery, self-improvement, and self-validation that we should have been on without being forced to look this way by circumstances inlife?

It struck me, what Coach initially said in his first post about letting go of outcomes. I would say it's perhaps more like letting go of desired outcomes. It's fine to say one does not give up trying, believing, wanting, but accepting that one does not control what the WAS does. But the reality seems to be, and particularly for the typical LBS, that it is all too easy to totally give up responsibility for the desired goal (e.g. the continued M), and your own role in it. "Gee, I detached my ass off; ah, I gave it all up to the hands of God; gosh, my WAS is the stereotypical alien, nothing got through". I've posted recently about the fine lines that exist in all the unique sitches here and the choices made, and this is yet another one. Letting go of the impact of other's choices on you as a person, but not your own best efforts and responsibility in working with them through their fog, in areas that will impact your life nonetheless. Else, why all the angst and trauma, and the agony of the effects on the kids in the M?

From the wisdom of many posters here, it seems a simple basic point is detaching is not to be confused with detaching from others, it's detaching from yourself, your needs, your wants. It matters not what curveballs the WAS throws at you if you did not inherently have pre-conceptions of what his/her affections, approval, and attitude towards you mean to you. You take a couple of steps back from yourself. Your spouse formed a pretty big part of the world outside yourself and somehow you have to find a new(?) balance between yourself, that outside world, and the status of your spouse in that world.

A balance so delicate that it makes you think - is it any wonder some LBS waver towards WAS mode themselves as they find their feet in that new environment?

And it is accepted as a truism - reclaim the responsibility for your happiness for yourself, grow a pair, don't surrender your happiness to your spouse and his/her actions. Sure, but how many LBS really, TRULY want and are prepared to do that? We recoil from the hurt of betrayal and rejection, despite ourselves we pursue, beg and plead, until one way or another we are told to "DB". And then what? We start to remove or reduce the power we surrendered to our spouses. But how often is it that we still hold onto a need for something in that world outside ourselves? We switch our dependence from our spouse to something else.

How many really take on the burden of being happy in our own right - LBS trauma being an unwelcome addition notwithstanding? And because these other things are temporal too, sometimes we can backslide, lured by the memories of a time when we shared a shared permanency in life, with that spouse who is now living on planet Zork.

"I'm going to be happy and have a fantastic life anyway, no matter what he/she chooses". Sure, I believe that too, but what is that "anyway" to each individual? ***

And the thought occurred to me, that at the back of our LBS mind, whether we admit it or not, whether we "DB'ed successfully" or not, there is this need, and really, we have to detach from it, bury it deep once and for all. Analogous to what SP termed "SAR", and for want of better terms, I would call this a need for "justice" and "empathy". Whether you've just being hit by the bomb, wherever you may be on that long, hard journey of healing most of us are on, even if you're deemed to be close to "DB nirvana", I think these thoughts have a teeny, weeny clawhold in the dark recesses of your mental palace you would never visit willingly.

You want some recognition of the crap you went through. You want someone to truly, really know how every fibre, every cell was ripped apart, even the "humiliation" of DB-ing, detaching, having to accept the alien and nudge him/her back, the 2X4's you had to take on THAT forum . You may not necessarily want to hurt your spouse (although thoughts of revenge is a common enough unspoken reaction), but you want the world to make some sense, have some balance, offer some sense and fairness for God's sake! Justice.

And most of all, what would you give for your pre-WAS spouse to see this, to have been / be there now for you, to have that soulmate, that see-you-through-hell-or-high-water-life-partner somehow come back and see your journey - all of it. And finally, to say those words never to be said: "You put me on this journey." And it doesn't matter, and never will again, because that soulmate embraces what happened with you, and that journey means nothing because the loneliness is now gone. Empathy.

And it will never happen. Because that's life. Whether or not your spouse finally returns, whether or not that return is real, or willing, easy, or hard, remorseful or tentative. You could show every post you ever written, every journal you kept, become a WAS yourself and put your returned spouse on the rollercoaster. It'll never be the same. You're never going to get that "justice" and "empathy". It's for you alone, to accept, and yes, embrace.

*** I have to go back to that earlier sentence. SP's post really made me think. One point he made was that DB-ing is to stop the D-train, not to fix the M. True, but I feel only partly so. Sure, there will be desperate times when you have to do just about anything to derail the WAS in full runaway mode. But hey, if you truly think detaching is for YOU, what makes you think it stops when the D-train stops (or if it disappears into the horizon for that matter?). You're not manipulating your spouse right? You're offering a better you, a better M for them to return to, for real. Right? And this vision, it ain't pie in the sky, it starts from day 1 and it ain't going to end, coz the one thing you will have learnt is that r/s and Ms aren't ever static, and you're never going to take that for granted, ever again. Whether this is with hopefully-soon-to-return WAS or not.

Ok, this rambling took even longer than I thought - my apologies. I'm not sure it even makes sense, but I'm glad to have gotten it out, and of course, no offense to anyone. Take this as venting from someone struggling to learn.

[rockedworld]

Wow... Deep... you chose that screen name very appropriately! You have articulated a lot of thoughts that I don't think I could have put words to, because I am such a newbie. I think I will re-read your post a few times. I have been trying to find my way through the detaching process and, like others, struggling, back tracking, getting back on track etc. But, some of the deeper emotional reasons for all of that are some of the things you articulated above.
Don't apologize... really, really good food for thought.... thank you.

[brknheart]

Just remember that you have power in this also; if you decide that it's not worth the effort to keep her, then it sounds like getting her out of your life will be easy.

That can be a useful last-resort technique -- giving in and pushing towards the divorce may upset her thinking; why, all of a sudden, are you so eager to get rid of her?

However, be warned that a LRT cannot be a bluff. You have to be OK with the outcome if she decides to keep going. If you're not, and she realizes it, then you've lost whatever leverage you have left to change things.

At this point, Im moving on with my life. The way I feel, the only way I could take her back is if she admits what she has handled the separation is wrong and is sorry for this. Then she has to truly want to make the M work. Will this happen, I highly doubt it. I feel like she took our M, put it in a blender and pressed the highest setting. Im already starting to pack my things, making plans to move, and she doesnt seem to care. Taking these steps definitely is helping me detach from her.

Deep, good post. I can definitely understand the other S going into WAS mode when they detach, especially if the original WAS handled things very poorly. Sometimes there is a point of no return.