Is it Midlife Crisis, Walkaway Spouse or the End?

[25yearsmlc]

PS

Detaching yourself from the actions of your spouse, is key for surviving this ordeal.

First, it helps you not spin, and to keep your sanity. It helps you to not take everything or action or word from your WAS, so personally. Which is a big challenge.

In addition to meditation & turning your pain over to God/the universe, etc.--I only know one way to really Detach...which is

to GAL. (I prefer doing both).

GAL forces us to push our comfort zones (and to meet new people who don't all know about the divorce so you can talk about other things in your life!)

It's the fastest way to help you detach.

Here is a piece on detachment that helped to simplify what it meant, for me.


Healthy Detachment...(Posted by DBer Peanut originally)

I. Detachment

Detachment is critical to the process of altering and repairing a relationship.

Attached, we take personally All that is said, not said, done and not done. Truly...

When our ego gets wounded, we are more inclined to do/say things that undermine our goals. (So know your goals!)

When we are Detached from the actions of another, we can meet their anger or indifference, with love.

Met with love, we are in a position to diffuse the situation, and transform it in a way that will be in alignment with our goals.

On the flipside, detachment allows us to play it cool when we do get a positive reaction from our spouse. It is a way to break the distance/pursuer cycle. Don't jump at every gesture that MAY be positive.

Detachment is not withdrawal. It is not indifference. It is not the mind saying, ‘I am not getting what I want, so I must pull back."

It is the natural acceptance of the reality that we alone are responsible for how we act.

-We cannot control another person, we only control how we respond to them.

-We alone are responsible for our own actions (no one else is).

-We alone are responsible for our own happiness. (No one else is)


PART II Detachment

Detachment is the:

* Ability to allow our Spouse the freedom & space to be him/herself.

* Not reacting to our need to rescue, save or fix S from being sick, dysfunctional or irrational. (Not being co-dependent, too).

* Disengaging from an over-enmeshed or dependent relationship with S.

* Accepting that I cannot change or control S and it was never my "duty/job" to do so.

* Establishing of emotional boundaries between me and S, so that both of us might be able to develop our own sense of autonomy & independence.

* Process by which I am free to feel my own feelings when I see S falter and fail, and not feel responsible for his/her failure, faltering or learning.

* Ability to maintain an emotional bond of love, concern and caring, without the negative results of rescuing, enabling, fixing, demanind or controlling. Balance.

* Placing of all things in life into a healthy, rational perspective. (= Balance, a piece of detachment).

* Ability to exercise emotional self-protection and prevention so as not to hang on beyond a reasonable and rational point.

* Ability to let people I love and care for, accept personal responsibility for their own actions, and not to bail them out when their actions lead to failure or trouble for them.

* Ability to allow S to be who he/she "really is" rather than who I "want him/her to be."

IF & WHEN THESE ^^^ FACTORS ARE ADDRESSED, -

We could have a great friendship, or a great marriage. And those are treasures.