There will come a time with no more tears

[Treasur]

Found this useful reminder on an old post...my thoughts in blue

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.

When our ego gets wounded, we are more inclined to do/say things that undermine our goals.
And it's hard when we hurt, or feel rejected or confused because our ego jumps up, if we're a 'fixer' we want to fix, or run away if we're a 'flee-r' and it gets really hard to separate what you want but can't control from what you need and can control.

When we are Detached from the actions of another, we can meet anger or indifference with love.
This matters to me. Partly because I love my H as a human being, partly because I realised it is at the heart of my marriage vows for me. Mostly because I just believe that love and kindness matters, and matters most when it's hard to do. That's about who I am, not my H or the sitch.

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.

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.’
I've struggled with this - the difference between acceptance and giving up, letting go and letting be. Sometimes I have told myself I was detaching when actually I was just withdrawing to protect myself because I was frightened of more pain.

It is the natural acceptance that we alone are responsible for how we act. We cannot control another person, but we can control how we respond to them.

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

We are responsible for our own happiness. (No one else is)
Easy to 'get' intellectually, but tough to actually do. Helped when I realised a few months ago that focusing on my M/H/D stuff was actually a way of hiding from the scary responsibility of picking myself up off my own knees and GAL.

PART II Detachment (found around here)

Detachment is the:

* Ability to allow S the freedom to be him/herself.
Even when you think their actions s**k, even when you think they are making rubbish choices. Maybe they are doing what is right for them even if it's not right for you? Time will tell. Maybe my H will be happier without me. But freedom and responsibility to make your own choices includes the right to make cr*p choices too, doesn't it?

* Holding back from the need to rescue, save or fix S from being sick, dysfunctional or irrational.
Yup, tough to do when you've been a team, tough to do when you see them hurting or ill or unhappy or confused. Still true, and made me reflect on how often I jumped in to 'rescue' my H in the past when truthfully, I probably didn't understand what the real 'problem' was.

* Giving S "the space" to be him/herself.
Gets easier with time. Easier for me with a magical disappearing H. Much harder if you have kids, I imagine, or are still living in the same house. Harder when their choices are hitting your finances, life or sanity.

* Disengaging from an over-enmeshed or dependent relationship with S.
I think there is a fine line between co-dependence and the natural interdependence of an intimate M and friendship. My H and me certainly spent time on both sides of that line in our M. The interdependence always made us stronger and happier, more than the sum of our individual parts. Most of our M was like that and I miss it, but it needs two healthy people to do it. The last year or so pre-BD of our M, both of us were struggling and it sucked us into co-dependence. I think co-dependence just feels more like fear, resentment and lots of unspoken things. It feels like two half-people, not two whole ones. That weakened our M.

* Accepting that I cannot change or control S and it was never my "duty/job" to do so.
Yup. Although I think part of H's head both blamed and resented me for not being a 'magic fix'. It is possible that he now feels that OW is doing a better job!


* Establishing of emotional boundaries between me and S, so that both of us might be able to develop our own sense of autonomy and independence.
This went up and down in our M. My H always admired me more when I was more independent, but felt safer and more loved when I wasn't. I felt less me when I wasn't but more needed maybe?

* Process by which I am free to feel my own feelings when I see S falter and fail and not to feel responsible for his/her failure, faltering or learning.
The great benefit of seeing my H implode with a breakdown, and being diagnosed and some of the WTF stuff he has done makes it easier to feel this. Having said that, my fear for his health and my confusion about what was going on stopped me doing this for months. I wanted to support him...but I had no idea how to and he didn't want me to. As time has passed, I do feel this even though I am frustrated at the fallout from some of his actions. I have no idea what he sees or thinks about my actions...to be fair, by vanishing into silence, he has no idea of what I think or feel now either. Not sure he's interested or sees it as relevant.

* Ability to maintain an emotional bond of love, concern and caring, without the negative results of rescuing, enabling, fixing, demanind or controlling.
It has surprised me (and really annoyed other people) that my love for my H has never gone away. It has changed because it's got more complicated and tangled up with other emotions. In some ways, I love him more than I thought I did. The love is quite simple for me. Choosing what, if anything, to do with the love has been trickier as well as balancing it with love for myself. Right now, my love is about letting my H go, a STFU love smoothie supply and acting as fairly as I can in the D process without being an idiot.

* Placing of all things in life into a healthy, rational perspective. (=Balance is a piece of detachment).
GAL helps. Taking time to get outside my head helps. Remembering that there is more to life than me, my H, my grief or my sitch helps. Time helps. And detachment really, really helps as you start to feel it as opposed to 'acting as if' - and you know that when you get there, no other way.

* Ability to exercise emotional self-protection and prevention so as not to hang on beyond a reasonable and rational point.
Yup, although it's a trial and error thing.Sometimes your mind or body just shouts 'enough'.

* Ability to let people I love and care for accept personal responsibility for their own actions and to bail them out when their actions lead to failure or trouble for them.
Yup, although hard when they don't want to do that - for a variety of reasons - and when not being involved creates trouble for you too. Probably this is about your own priorities at any given moment. For me, it came down to sanity and money. And accepting that D is the price I'm going to have to pay for both because there were no better available options I could see. For some of you here it will be about protecting your kids.

* Ability to allow S to be who he/she "really is" rather than who I "want him/her to be."
This is the super-biggie for me. I loved my H and I really liked who I saw him be. So did lots of other people. But obviously he didn't, or not enough. He did become unrecognisable and that was bewildering, and I've spent ages wondering about who the 'real' H was or is or will be. The reality as far as I can wrap my head round it is that he was 'real' then but some bits were broken and hidden. Who he is now is as 'real' and other bits are hidden. I have no idea what he thinks is more 'real' or who he will choose to become. But it is true that I wanted 'my' H back because I liked him...and, for whatever reason, that was not who he wanted to be anymore. Honestly loving him means loving all the bits of him, albeit from a distance and no matter how much I hate some of his actions and choices. But it is more peaceful to get to that point. It helps me accept that the H I valued in my life was half of the M I valued, but neither one exists anymore. One needs the other. I wish that my H would want me to be part of his future and want to introduce me to himself after the crisis he has gone through, but I see no sign that he will. So my expectation is that I will love and miss the H I knew and never see the person he will become. Which feels tough to swallow but also feels honest to accept and plan for.

I hope my ramblings about detachment are helpful
I know all of us struggle at times with it. Lots of us worry that detachment means not caring or loving our spouses.
I think my biggest lesson is that there is a HUGE difference between DOING detachment and FEELING detachment. And, like lots of other things in life, you sort of get that when you get there if that makes sense.