Detaching is confusing. It's not letting your WAS's actions dictate your moods and feelings. Your feelings come from your thoughts, and you control your thoughts. You can take an action personally or not and it's completely your choice, whether it was meant personally or not in the first place. But then you still have feelings, you still care, you still think your thoughts the way they are until your feelings give you a reason to analyze and modify them.
I don't like what my H is doing. I don't like that he even walked into a sex shop. I don't like that he's ogling teenagers with his ridiculous friend. I don't like that he left our family. I don't like that he won't tell me anything. BUT.
I clearly saw that something was wrong with him. He couldn't get out of bed. Anyone who had an ear would get an earful from him about property taxes, the government, gun control, kids these days, whatever his mind was mad about at the moment. He really was miserable. He was the Grumpy Old Man at age 40. He was Archie Bunker. He used to tell me his dad was like Archie Bunker. I tried understanding, I tried accommodating, I tried explaining, I tried loving, I tried arguing, I tried pleading, I tried asking for a doctor's intervention, I tried asking for counseling. There was literally nothing I could do. What I could do I did.
Once my eyes were opened by this forum and IC, I tried respecting him, I tried showing acts of love, I tried being agreeable, I tried modifying my behavior, I tried communicating better, I tried hearing his meaning in spite of his tone. These did not turn things around. There is still literally nothing I can do.
So he moves on. So he becomes promiscuous, or a lecher, or a monk. So he spends his time working out, working, watching tv. So what. It is all his to figure out. He will date, I know that. He will probably date someone he's had his eye on for a long time. He will probably think all his problems would have never come about if he had been with her and not with me. Whatever. He will think all kinds of things and they may in fact be correct.
All I can do I'm doing. It still hurts sometimes.
Adinva 51, S20, S18 M24 total 6/15/11-12/1/12 From IDLY to H moving out 9/15/15-3/7/17 From negotiating SA to final D at age 50 5/8/17-now: New relationship with an old friend __ Happiness is a warm puppy.
