Not even sure where to start

[dleague]

Good Morning dnj

lots of good information and advice here!!! Appreciate this and the clarity it provides.

Detachment is when one is no longer uncontrollably emotionally dragged around by their spouse’s words and/or behaviours. One still feels. The detachment part is that their feelings are no longer “uncontrollable”.

With detachment, one can better exert their own influence upon their emotional state and thus postpone that which once would’ve simply overwhelmed. Do realize, it’s postpone. Scheduling a convenient time, in a safe space, to feel and healthily express those feelings is a critical part of detaching and working towards indifference.

Indifference is when one’s emotions and feelings towards their spouse are not marked by any particular liking or disliking. There is a numbness, a quietness, a calm, where once there was a cacophony of feelings and fret. A caution, nature abhors a vacuum. Other feelings, especially temptations, will loom much larger than they truly are against the void, against that absence of feelings towards one’s spouse.

This helps make sense of the 2. I feel at times I am detaching but not sure if I have reached the Indifference phase yet but feel like I am getting there at times. Lots of back and forth on this one still. Def take time to set aside to let emotions show and process those. on my time though and as needed. It has gotten better as the days have gone on.

Indifference, like all feelings, is temporary. It does unwind. Those old feelings do return. The advice that decisions based upon emotions, or lack thereof, leads to regret is most germane. Embrace this emotional limbo and remember doing nothing is doing something.

absolutely!!! lots of back and forth and agree that sometimes its better to be in limbo instead of reacting.

Be accurate in thought and heart. This is one of the main components along your journey. Striving to see and be accurate requires a rational, logical, and reasoned approach. Being dragged about emotionally is best reined in with intellect and rationalizing. Fear, withdrawal, and such also benefit from such logic and reasoning. Those tenets are an LBS’ sword and shield, to cleave our irrational ties and defend against triggers. Intellect is sans emotions, and directly controllable, keep your sword sharp and your shield brightly polished.

this I struggle with. Being an engineer by trade I am leaning towards being a problem solver. And that mentality of "fix it". I always look for logic and reasoning. This in case though doesnt fit those parameters. Its more emotional. I have never been and only learning now more about tapping into my emotional side and how those are effected and controlled. Still a learning process though. Its a daily tackle dealing with. Good days and bad days and some in the same day. I try to approach everything with logic and reasoning and this chaos doesnt apply.

See this accurately. Realize the extent of your direct control and where influence takes over.

still learning my controls and what triggers my reactions and how to notice those before being triggered.

We all live on four paths, or lanes on life’s highway. The lanes being intellectual, physical, emotional, and spiritual. In each of these lanes is a car of our’s. The place, direction, and speed of us in that particular realm.

This is very eye opening when you look back at your explanations!!! Never looked at life this way and was always a hard worker type of person and find a good woman to settle down with and enjoy the life you create. So when all of my "cars" were all over the place when BD, I didnt know how to react or process things. But lots of researching, self reflecting and using logic/reasoning has helped me understand. Not to mention the IC sessions. Its chaos when all the cars are not aligned heading in the same direction. And thats what happened here. Built a life and then it just came through like a wrecking ball. No warnings or slow progress. Just showed up and BD and then deal with it type of mentality.

Promote positive healthy thoughts and actions.

^^^ this is something I need to work on. Been down for the last few years with the stress of life and work and unhappy. This rolled over into my marriage. Creating the distance between us. The less I was in tune with us the worse it got. She has blame though as well but I own my part. I was always known as a negative thinker. I always considered it more of a realistic type of thinker. Now I see how unhealthy that was all along!!

The spiritual path, influences everything. Your deeply held values do lead you. Lead your intellect, physical actions, and very much influence your emotions.

learning more about this recently. What my core values are and how they need to be instilled. Lots of self reflecting and understanding more of myself. Considering starting a journal just to help keep track of things in my head and also have a visual to look back on.

Your emotions are yours. No one is responsible for how you feel. They are responsible and accountable for their actions and words. And how you react or act, is upon you. This is good, for you control (and influence) you. Therefore, you cannot be emotionally dragged around.

^^^ YES!!! learning more of this. Being more in tune with myself and understanding my reactions and what those look like helps. It was said back earlier that emotional reactions are short term and logical reactions are long term. I feel like this has helped me understand more and therefore realizing how I may react to something. And how I respond. Its interpretation of feelings.

However, one first has to truly discover their deeply held convictions, and organize them. Strengthen, craft, and discard. It is surprising how many preconception and prejudices we unrecognizingly built up over our lives and interactions.

yea realizing this more. Lots of built up things through the childhood years and then relationships along the way. Working through the process of understanding them and how they have affected my life and dealing with them so I can move forward instead of holding onto them and putting them on the back burner so to speak.

Our emotional car is zooming along, just running flat out. Way ahead, then zoom! way behind. At times gone around the next curve in the road. Influence with thought and physical actions.

How do you influence with thought and physical actions? I feel like you said its way out and then trailing behind. Still working on trying to get the emotions under control and back in their lane.

Sweating it out exerts influence upon that emotional car too.

Not sure if I understand this. I have been doing more GAL for sure. Sometimes I feel like it helps and other times I feel like it doesnt. Most of the friends I have enjoy more of the bar scene and that has never been my thing. So planning on getting more into some hobbies that align to things that I have been wanting to do and expand my friends list by that. I have good friends but the GAL isnt ideal for me. NOt sure if its because I have thoughts of the W still and dealing with that or what at this point.

Our spiritual car is the least felt at BD. Everything was blown up. Who you believed your spouse was. Your definitions of family, love, faithful, vows, and so on; all questioned. So many doubts. Yet, in time, this all settles, and we do grow. This car and path yield the fruit of acceptance and forgiveness.

Absolutely!! yea everything was blown up here. Everything I understood life to be and planned on and instilled in myself and our life together just went BOOM! SO trying to work on this during my self reflection.

Focus on you. I complete get the need for a certain amount of understanding before one can/will let go. We all focus on our spouse at first. Focusing on you, is not about forgoing your spouse or forgoing rationalizing or forgoing finding understanding. It’s about ensuring you look after you.

Yea I agree with you here DJ. Just trying to understand what brings me happiness. My happiness for many years revolved around being the person to be there for her and make sure she was happy. Neglecting myself without even knowing it. I was so fixated on her and her needs with her medical conditions that I lost track of myself along the way. This though will give me the push I need to find myself again and at my age (44), trying to figure out what that is. Trying to remain positive in thinking with new job incoming, being debt free and having the world in front of me at this point.

I also added “might” realize. Accuracy. No one can see all ends. She might, she might not.

The future is known and unwritten. Hope lives in the possibility. Do have faith.

agreed with you here. I feel her and I see her hurting. She is struggling with this decision but she feels its the right thing to do. She still throws out the possibility of us being together eventually. I am not sure if that will happen or not. I feel like I may be a different person if she wants back later on. I think this is good though as we both were fixated on each other and not really living our own lives and having our happiness. We both were stuck in a relationship rut so to speak and although things looked good on the outside, she was dealing with feelings and not expressing them and I was stuck in depression from life and work and just everything came crashing down. I realize that we both still have an attachment to each other. I realize we both are still attracted to each other. I realize we need to find our own happiness though and figure out our own lives and if we find our way back to each other then maybe it could work. That can not be the focus at this time though.

Thank you for the information and advice here D. It was very interesting to read and trying to understand it all at this time. Head is still cloudy from everything at times. So trying to open that up and reflect on myself and how I can become a better person out of this.

D