Newby here, desperate for some advice (thread 3)

[cheesyt]

cheesyt-- what do you mean by "how to wrap your head around all this will or may lead to R?" I don't understand.

Forgump, it's hard for me to wrap my head around how being physically separated & going dark (which all feels opposite of being "close" with W) will or can lead to Reconciliation. I'm doing it because I somehow trust this, but when W and I were "friends" after S I felt closer than I do now. (cake eating business for her of course!) Now, today, I feel a billion miles away.

[albac]

Cheesyt,

I know this feeling. The thing for me was yes I felt much closer after S when we were "friends" we were doing heaps together and got along great but I was a "friend" and that's all.

I have no interest in being her friend I want to be her H. So yes it feels like we are getting further away and in reality we are but its to make them miss us the only thing with this is a fear of losing them but when you get comfortable with the fact they are already gone as our W you will start to except it.

My W is like an alien now and yes we could easily be friends, in fact she is trying very hard to put me in he friend zone but I have no interest in that because at best it will last until one of us moves on and then that will be dead anyway.

[sandi2]

I am going to copy and past a description of DBing detaching. Read it carefully b/c it will help you understand that detaching is not so much about the physical pulling away as it is other things.

*****************************************************

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.

When we are Detached from the actions of another, we can meet 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.

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 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)


PART II Detachment (found around here)

Detachment is the:

* Ability to allow S the freedom to be him/herself.

* Holding back from the need to rescue, save or fix S from being sick, dysfunctional or irrational.

* Giving S "the space" to be him/herself.

* 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 and independence.

* 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.

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

* Placing of all things in life into a healthy, rational perspective. (=Balance is 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 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.
_________________________
_________________________

[Rose888]

This is a great list, but I think this item:

* 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.

Is missing a not.

I think it's supposed to say

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

[Rose888]

doodler -- my W is a bit of hybrid. Resolutely refuses to work on the R, go to MC, etc., but, at least to date, no OM (I've snooped, I'll admit it, embarrassingly).

She's just "done" and sees no way we could be rehabilitated but, for now, is willing to play house while our youngest completes 4th (just started) and 5th grade because we're zoned for a great public school but will in any event be putting him in private school for 6th and can live anywhere, in two houses, etc.

So I keep hoping the GALing and 180ing breaks down the Berlin Wall she's built up around her heart, but my continued difficulty detaching undermines the efficacy of those otherwise really good activities. They read as "because of" or "for her" instead of evidence of me moving on emotionally, without her.

Any advice that ever occurs to anyone following this thread will be gratefully appreciated.

Just curious--how do you know how your GALing and 180ing is being read? Can you give us some examples?

I am not a vet. My sitch is still way too new for me to know if my R is going to be a success story, and even if it is, H deserves a lot of the credit. Insert some more disclaimer text here. ;-)

That said, I'll share my experience in the hope that it is helpful.

When I first came to the board, I spent a day or two trying to "detach" as some people on the board seemed to see it. I treated H like a neighbor. Initiated no unnecessary conversations. If he initiated, I kept my responses to validation and contributed nothing of my own.

It backfired. Despite keeping my tone pleasant and my validations friendly, it was such a departure from the norm that H read it as cold and felt like he was being gamed.

Here is what I switched to that seemed to work better:

* No encouraging or initiating of R talks. If he initiated, I validated and tried to keep the convos as brief as possible.

* I worked really hard to realize that his mood was not all about me. He could be tired or grouchy or angry for reasons that had nothing to do with me. I should not be responsible, and I did not have to fix it.

* I stopped giving him friendly reminders about things like appointments. (He would say I stopped nagging him.) If he forgot something, I let him fix the issue all by himself. I validated that it sucked, but I treated him like I might a good friend. I empathized, but I didn't call people or log into accounts to fix.

* I stopped expecting him to make me feel better. If I felt bad or upset, I put on my big girl panties and dealt with the feelings myself. (Note: often he would realize I must be feeling upset about x--because he knows me well--and would reach out to console, and I accepted those, but I retained the primary responsibility for soothing/dealing with my own feelings of sadness or fear or worry.)

* If there was something I wanted to do (concert, hike, etc.), I made plans to go. I sometimes invited him, but if he didn't want to go, I went anyway. In the past, I might have stayed home, thinking, "I'd rather be with H." Now, I go. Don't get me wrong; I'm not out every night. But I don't force him into the role of controlling what I do by the choices he makes for him. If I haven't asked him, but he asks if he can come, I say yes.

* Especially in the early days, when I was struggling to not initiate R talks, I looked for things we could do together at home (watch a new show, play a game) that would allow us to spend pleasant time together and give us something to talk about besides the elephant in the room.

Since H was still at home and wasn't in an A, rather than making him feel the loss of leaving before he'd actually left, I wanted him to feel how good home could be, so he'd have a taste of what he would be giving up. But I wanted to do it in a healthy, emotionally detached (not cold! just two people being adult about owning their own emotions) relationship.

I think those are the key things I did with regards to detachment.

I also focused on identifying micro exchanges that kept coming up that introduced minor moments of discord into our R. Some of these had to do with me changing my response to H's humor. I worked to 180 these, and H has noticed and commented pleasantly on my new responses.

And I worked on worrying less and being braver, more willing to try new things--and to seek new things out. This is still very much a WIP, but I'm happy with the progress I've made.

I also made a point of allowing/encouraging as much physical contact as H seemed to want, but not engaging in contact that he seemed to pull away from. My logic here is that physical contact releases chemicals in the brain that help with bonding--so I didn't want to close off that method of reconnecting.

Just my two cents. No guarantee this is the right course for anyone else.

[JRuss]

Thanks to all who posted overnight. Lots to read and think about.

ForGump -- my IC is primarily focused on my recovery from depression, not my marriage, per se. She is not egotistical at all, but I do think she thinks divorce is not as bad as I do, or that it poses as big of a potential threat to children as I do, probably because its her business and life's work to help people through those sitches, and she's had success doing it. She'd admit if pressed, though, that not everyone she's tried to help has been helped; not all outcomes were "good", etc., and, for me, that's the deal breaker. My family will only go through it once, and there's no guarantee one or both of my kids will sail through unaffected. Cue fear, anxiety, sleeplessness and pain in JRuss' stomach.

sandi2 -- great stuff. I think I'm starting to understand what detachment is, but it seems sort of a zen thing in terms of getting there; like it just happens. Is anyone aware of techniques, materials, maybe meditations that might help those of us in this boat to get from point A (not detached) to point B (detached)?

One thing I'm going to start doing, and its an outgrowth of my meditation practice, is everytime I notice myself trying to mind read, or feeling bad because my W's ennui is palpabale or she's sleeping on the far edge of the bed -- whatever -- I'm going to say to myself "Drop the Rope". I suspect I'll be doing it a lot, but maybe it will help.

[sandi2]

I think it's supposed to say

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

I agree.

[JRuss]

[quote=Rose888]Just curious--how do you know how your GALing and 180ing is being read? Can you give us some examples?

Rose888 -- thanks so much for your post. To answer your initial question, I don't have a lot to go on in terms of how the GAL/180s are being interpreted. At one point several weeks ago, I was working in the backyard, and she was on the phone on the porch talking to one of her friends about our sitch and didn't know I was within earshot. She told the friend in that she knew I'd been making "some tweaks", but the overall conversation was about how hard getting out would be, how she feared I'd start hoping again. So, as of then, the efforts were being minimized/not much appreciated, too little too late. Other times since that call she's told me of her own volition that she can see how much weight I've lost, that I look handsome, that she appreciates all of the helping out I now do around the house, etc. So I have no idea, really. There's no overt change in how she acts around or toward me, though,so I don't have any basis for believing there's been any material change in what's going on inside her.

There's so much good stuff in your post -- I'm going to study it closely today as work allows. Thanks again!

[Rose888]

One thing I remind myself is that I can't expect the behavior of a few weeks or months to override the effects of decades. This is why the gift of time is such a gift. I just keep doing what I know I need to and don't try to put results on a timetable.

[JRuss]

Rose888 -- I definitely remind myself often that, less than 2 months ago, my W was in touch with realtors and even went to look at a house into which she was going to move. That tends to get me back to reality and not so frantic to see "results".

I just need to string a whole mess of great days together and see where I get. If it's as a newly divorced (shudders) dad of two great kids, well, we'll figure that out.