I think you're confusing BEING detached with ACTING detached. Being detached means you don't give a rip about how you appear to her. You are focused on you and your kids and her actions and responses no longer cause you to respond emotionally. You're not trying to get any sort of reaction out of her. You're not acting like you don't care, or stonewalling, or acting like anything, really-- you're simply focused on yourself and no longer getting emotional about whatever she's doing or saying. Remember-- you don't control her. You control you. Be sure that everything you're doing is aimed at controlling YOU, not trying to get any sort of reaction or response from her.
One thing that was helpful to me was treat her the way you would treat a nice cashier or neighbor-- you can be kind and friendly-- no need to stonewall-- but you're not exactly hanging onto every word she says or putting a lot of thought into every interaction.
This is exactly what my DB coach said, treat her like a houseguest.
Originally Posted by may22
Detaching is hard. I remember one other poster here saying that you think you're detached and all of a sudden there is a whole new level of detachment that you need to reach. But really strive for it. It will help you SO much to stop caring so much about what she's doing or thinking or how she might respond if you do x, y, or z, and turning all that energy on you and your kids. I guarantee you are wasting an enormous amount of energy that would be waaaay more productive focused elsewhere. I'm with Wayfarer-- put your kids to bed on time and help them with their homework and be grateful you are getting all this fabulous 1-1 time with them while your W is off doing whatever. That CAN be GALing-- it doesn't all have to be going to the gym or out with friends. It could be snuggling with your children and really being present with them. For me, that was some of my most healing GAL-- spending really quality time with my kids where I totally closed off my head to worrying about my dumb H and his dumb A and focused wholly on the magic of being with my children. And when you are so angry you want to scream--- go do it! Scream into a pillow or run outside and scream into the void, or do pushups till your muscles fail, or dump it all out in a journal. It is okay to be mad. Let it out!
I really feel like I need to scream sometimes. I trying GAL with my kids but it doesnt really feel like GAL as I am stuck in the house. Maybe I should be reframing GAL as for me and the kids. let her do what she wants.
Originally Posted by may22
Also, a word of caution on the listening and validating if your W decides to dump a bunch on you about her headspace... just because you *can* handle it doesn't necessarily mean you *should*. I listened to a huge amount of garbage from my H about how he felt, and in the moment I mostly held it together and handled it. People here were like BOUNDARIES and I finally realized it was doing me no good to listen to that garbage so I stopped. But it is hard to unhear things you hear, and now we both really wish he hadn't spilled his guts and/or I had erected those boundaries earlier, because I think there's a lot more to work through in piecing than there would have been if I hadn't listened to all that garbage.
Yes I got a lot of information about the sex and the sweet nothing he was saying. I imagine those are gonna be hard to shake from my head.
Im also going through your thread at the moment May, it has a lot of good stuff in it.
