Setting them free

[steady]

I'm not sure they truly believe they are setting US free. It is one of a number of ways they rationalize what they are doing...it's the old, it's not you, it's me line.

They are trying to set themselves free, but whatever it is that creates their shame for doing what they're doing, ie: guilt, they use the 'you deserve better' mentality. (If this is the line of thinking you are talking about by your post??)

You don't approach setting them free. You do it. It doesn't depend on what they are doing.

IMO the question you asked seems to come from a place where you would use setting them free as a tool to get a certain reaction from them. 'If I set them free, then they'll come back'. Under this pretense, it's not setting them free at all. Just another attempt at control and manipulation, which in my experience always has a way of backfiring on me.