Uncertain of What I Have (Thread 4)

[SoTorn]

She wants you to be of service to her but she doesnt want you emotionally.

Detaching is for you. Not for her. Detaching means that you are doing things without any expectations of getting emotional support or providing emotional support. It's for your mental health.

The best way to figure out how to detach for me was taking note of what made me feel bad in my interactions with my W.

What are you doing right now, in interacting with her where you come away feeling emotionally destroyed? What actions cause you to jump on the rollercoaster? Or what expectations have you set up, based on some action, makes you ride the rollercoaster when the expectation is not met?

That's where you need to detach from. You dont need to be a jerk. It's not about punishing her. It's about realizing what you need to do that makes you feel good and let's you remove yourself emotionally from the situation so that you aren't stuck feeling like garbage all day.

Once you figure out how to detach, you will feel better, more confident etc. It will show. You absolutely have to help with the kids. You're the dad. But you need to take action based on benefiting the kids and yourself and not with any expectation that W is going to appreciate what you are doing. Because if you take action thinking "I hope she likes this" you will just get hurt when she doesnt care.

When you do something for someone that's acting like this they aren't thinking "wow, that was nice, I appreciate them for doing that". They are thinking from a place of selfishness where it's more like "damn right he better do that for me"