Detachment With Love - Discussion

[optimist]

Detachment is a process, not an instant achievement. You have to keep in a steady state. This is my best attempt to explain how I got there. I posted it originally to LovedOne

Hi, Loved One

I had been reading your thread and if you have seen mine lately you know I may not be the best person to ask for advice. But I'll do my best, here.

I too find myself pulling away from my H and not even liking him at times. I frequently ask myself why am I putting up with this crap and whether I am wasting my time (this o so short and precious life) by even trying to rebuild my sorely wounded M. Maybe I should just call it quits and go our separate ways; my H may or may not marry OW, I may or may not marry again, but at least the pain would be over. Tempting? It is for me...

Then I look at my little girl's upturned nose and her big, trusting eyes when she looks at her Daddy (the guy who left her alone, the one who was not there when she was sick, the man who let her establish a friendship with OW and her family to totally cut off the connection when she let innocently escape that 'Dad is a baby because he sleeps with Mommy', the man for whom she cried herself to sleep many nights...) and I cannot do that to her. If it is only for her happiness, I owe her a try. A good honest try.

I can tell you the things I do know:

1. I know that my H could have left me and married OW any time in the last 5 years

2. I know that I do not have a sense of 'rightness' when I think of a divorce (not yet, anyway). I still feel it is the wrong path for me.

3. I know I have done a lot, but I have not done my best.

4. I know I am worth more than this R, but I have to build it.

5. I know that if I quit now I will be always marked by my past. If and when I let myself into another R, I'd be looking for signs of infidelity and find it hard to trust.

6. I know that if I do not learn how to trust now, I will have to learn with someone else. But the learning will have to happen anyway or I will never heal. So I might as well try now and give my d's family a chance.

7. I know that I cannot control my H, though I sure try to. I can control myself, but it is not easy. And I will for sure backslide.

8. I know that fear kills the soul. And if your soul is dead, you are too, even if you still breathe and your heart is beating.

9. I know that I like myself, and the person I've become more than I ever liked the old me. So I cannot regret the path that got me to be the person I've become, though I sure wish it had been less painful to walk it.

I hope this helps you. They are the tenets that keep me going when the going gets rough. As a practical matter, I try to repeat constantly my mantra "I cannot control him, I can only control myself" and if that does not work I use the Bene Gesserit 'Litany against fear' from Dune, by Frank Herbert. Works for me

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

I hope it helps...

---