CentralOhioDad

Okay, help me out here. I'm the guy who always writes that "my situation isn't as bad as others on the Forum". Anyway, I read these posts day-after-day and have garnered a lot of useful information.

Althought I don't go to any meetings, I am seeing my employer's EAP counselor. I've read a bit/heard about 'detaching with Love', and I am practicing the "3Cs" and so on.

Might have I become TOO detached? I just really don't just a hoot right now about what she does, or when she does it. And, we just had an anniversary the other day and I really didn't care one way or the other about it. If she walked out the door right now with her bottle and said, "have a nice life", I would probably give her a smile and a wave and say, "Yes, I will". That is, as long as she leaves our 2-year-old with me.

I feel sorry for her, that she is going down this path. I feel bad that she has a job she hates, I feel bad that our finances are not in good shape right now. But the constant crabbing and complaining and b*tching about every little thing has gotten too much, and now I just don't care.

I'm trying my darnedest to turn over my life to GOD and let him lead the way. And she's just complaining about everything. And the fact that I'm NOT in the same frenzied state as her, I think is ticking her off..

Thoughts?

fourmaggie

practice, practice, practice...we go and learn at our own pace....

only you can discide if they is good and stable boundaries...

please try not to hold resentments on what she says and does...that is all part of this crazy disease, they dont know any better...

albionel

Why would constant drinking, crabbing, complaining and b*tching lead you to have feelings of love for your wife? Attached or detached, I don't see how you could love someone who is in that state. You sound like you are in the right place to me, and I think it is a much more peaceful place to be for you and your child!

ShootingStar1

Good for you! You are on a great path. What a huge amount of progress you're making so quickly. Isn't it amazing, once the veil is lifted, how clearly you start to see their behavior?

BothSidesNow

OhBoy

Not long before I found this forum, about 2 years ago, my father was dying of cancer. It took him pretty quick, about 3 months form diagnosis to him passing. My AW's drinking had been really bad & when he was in the hospital it got even worse. I could not deal with both problems at the same time so I disconnected. She was on her own in every regard. I abandoned her emotionally.

Her drinking continued at the same pace & now that my father was gone, this problem was in sight again. So I searched for answers & I learned how to be justified in abandoning her, after all she was the one with the problem. Well I was wrong, I did the best I could at the time with what was given to me, but I was still wrong. I was detaching the person not the problem, not the disease. Sure it was easier & I felt better but I was cheating myself of being able to love. It is very hard to separate an active alcoholic from their disease for detaching with love. After all there is little to no love received from the alcoholic.

I found SR & learned some things to help me get by. I learned a lot of things & life was getting better. But I felt like I had all these tools but really didn't know where & how they worked. When I started going to face to face alanon meetings, things started to sink in. I had read most of the things they spoke of but to hear a bunch of people express how they view things & how they practice it made a lot more sense & made sense a lot quicker. Hearing other people share their experiences first hand helps me so much.

And I can totally relate, there was a time when I could give 2 s#!+s what the hell she did! I was actually hoping she would just leave, everything would be solved if she would go. Now we're talking about separation & it's not exactly the blissful feeling I thought I would get. But through it all the only thing I can do is take care of myself. Part of that is to practice loving detachment, even though there is very little love between us, I still owe her & myself that much. Besides, then I'll be better for Betty, Michelle or Bridget, or whoever I find after(if) we split. Besides I feel better when I do things that I believe are the right thing for me. Sorry for the ramble, I must want to practice my typing!
OhBoy

seek

You ask a very good question. I think it is much easier to "detach with love," when you actually detach physically and the person isn't in your face . . .but I would love to hear how others have managed to "detach with love," while still living with an active alcoholic. I have NO IDEA how one would do this, but would like to learn.

Good luck to you.

Katiekate

It's okay to just detach, maybe the love part comes later.

For me, learning to love and honor myself is at the forefront right now, I am detached, maybe with like now, there is still a lot of stuff that I have to give myself first, before I become enlightened enough to detach from someone who has hurt me so deeply, with love.

All of these ideas are a process, being compassionate with ourselves, IMO, leads to having compassion for others.

Not sure if that makes sense, it's what works for me. It's a lot to ask of yourself, especially for those who are still living in such toxic situations, or staying becuase it is best for them at this point, to meet the idea head on and accomplish it without the time to get some real healing under their belts.

LuvMySis

CentralOhioDad, I've also detached without love from two of my alcoholics. I'm not particularly angry at them any more. I just plain don't care. It may cause me problems down the road, but right now it feels fine.

coffeeclouds

What is love? Is it a reciprocal relationship? Are you getting that as long as she is having one with her bottle? Or are you talking about loyalty? I am having to unravel the differences myself.

Ellvk

I am having tremendous difficulty with the love part myself. It is super hard when living with an alcoholic, but I continue to feel guilty when he tells me I obviously don't care about him.... because I kind of don't. Ack.
L.

JrsJourney

I think my first aha moment with detaching with love is when someone explained to me that an alcoholic is like a person with diabetes. It's a hidden disease where they have become physically dependent on alcohol. Hear my words: THEY ARE DEPENDENT ON ALCOHOL. I had to constantly remind myself that there is nothing I can do or say to change their relationship with this disease. It was to come from them. THEY have to be willing to make the first steps and change their behavior. Okay, once I realized that I realized that we both have choices. We can choose to be together OR we can choose to be separate (which I have separated from my RAH 2 times so far). I took steps to take care of myself...very important. Detaching with love is being able to say I love you so very much but I HATE your actions with the bottle. I love you but I love ME too and unless you get help I refuse to be in this situation and then separate yourself from it. Whether it's moving into another room or whatever you decide is best for you. I cannot tell you HOW you should separate yourself but for your own sanity you need to take care of yourself. If you grow apart then make more choices. Couple grow apart all the time. If this creates a positive change and your qualifier gets help - be loving and supportive without bringing up the past and without living in resentments. If you live with anger and resentments it never works and you only hurt yourself. If you can get to a meeting, work the step and really concentrate on YOURSELF only then you're heading int he right direction. Change never happens overnight and it's all about progress not perfection. I am ending this with a quote from some Alanon material:

"My response is to ask family members to consider a deeper meaning of detachment with love. This meaning centers on new questions: What are your needs beyond the needs of the alcoholic or addict? How can you take care of yourself even if the person you love chooses not to get help?

Detachment with love means caring enough about others to allow them to learn from their mistakes. It also means being responsible for our own welfare and making decisions without ulterior motives-the desire to control others.

Ultimately we are powerless to control others anyway. Most family members of an addicted person have been trying to change that person for a long time, and it hasn't worked. We are involved with other people but we don't control them. We simply can't stop people from doing things if they choose to continue.

Understood this way, detachment with love plants the seeds of recovery. When we refuse to take responsibility for other people's alcohol or drug use, we allow them to face the natural consequences of their behavior. If a child asks why mommy missed the school play, we do not have to lie. Instead, we can say, "I don't know why she wasn't here. You'll have to ask her."

Perhaps the essence of detachment with love is responding with choice rather than reacting with anxiety. When we threaten to leave someone, we're usually tuned in to someone else's feelings. We operate on raw emotion. We say things for shock value. Our words arise from blind reaction, not thoughtful choice.

Detachment with love offers another option -- responding to others based on thought rather than anxiety. For instance, as parents we set limits for our children even when this angers them. We choose what we think is best over the long term, looking past the children's immediate emotional reaction.

In this sense, detachment with love can apply whenever we have an emotional attachment to someone-family or friend, addicted or sober. The key is to stop being responsible for others and be responsible to them-and to ourselves."


Hope this helps

Florence

Maybe "detaching with empathy" is a better description. To say, "I feel for you, as long as you stay over there, please and thank you."

JrsJourney

Ohhhh I like that Florence I guess the main things is for you, yourself to stay centered and anxiety free and not to respond with knee-jerk reactions. Let the qualifier fail. They have to see it themselves. It's only when I stood back and let him drown did he get scared and want help. I stopped giving him EXCUSES to drink and drug (because oh man he was married to a BI*CH so he HAD to drink and drug = blame) When I stopped reacting, when I got still, when I acted out of love - without being bitter, angry and resentful, when I thought of him as a sick and diseased person THEN I understood detaching with love. When I could feel good about myself for not adding to or fueling things...when I took myself out of the equation THEN he was able to make his choices. It's easy for me to type about and say what i did but it's much harder to practice this. I had to go to meetings, I had to read a ton of stuff, I had to realize my part in all of this and to be honest it wasn't pretty. Once I stopped acting like and feeling like a victim, once I starting working on myslef and things that made me happy THEN I could detach with love. I stopped stirring the pot, so to speak. I lived my own life and he had to chose to either keep up with me and live or drown himself with the drinking and drugs. I happy to say he made a choice to get healthy. It can happen. You would be shocked how things can get better again; but it has to start with you first

jamaicamecrazy

I detached somewhat the last few years we were living together. And I think it was defense mechanism for me to think that I did not care what he did. Because when we separated physically it was excruciating. The emotional detachment now is the hardest thing for me. For me I find it goes in cycles. The ability to feel that it is out of my hands and I did all I could to save the marriage, the feeling of overwhelming loss for the person I once loved, the anger and spitefulness of "I hope you realize some day how good you had it, and how much you are willing to give up.", and the strength of "I can do this. I am free to live the life I want." You too might find that as time goes by all these emotions will come into play. I've learned to recognize which emotions are healthy and can help me move on. Or choose to wallow in for just a little while. Denying the bad feelings has not been healthy for me. I needed to feel them fully, but chose not to let them keep me stuck.
Most days I feel that I "love him". But I recognize that it is not heathy for me to have a relationship with him. I don't desire bad things to happen to him but I may not want him to be successful/ happy without me. Obviously that is not healthy so I know I have more work to do. However some of that anger helps propel me forward and that is a good thing.

lillamy

Detaching with love while in a relationship was never something I mastered.
I simply could no longer love a person who was abusive and self-absorbed and prioritized drinking over his own children. I was very much like you describe.

It's not until after leaving, and rebuilding myself and my life, that I can feel compassion for my AXH. Love? No. But compassion is a step up from wishing he was dead, which is what the last five years or so of my marriage was.

BlueSkies1

I started to understand what had happened to me, and to him, too late. I didn't understand alcoholism at all, and by the time I started to understand things, I was too deep, too sick, so I had to detach physically, move out, and with my anger, divorce.
I still love him.
As long as he is still an active alcoholic, or maybe even if he was in new recovery, I cannot be around him. For me this is just not possible. The anxiety and anger are too great. Others have a less anger-trigger personality to begin with I suppose, so they are more able to be calmer in the face of alcoholism. I am not.
Even though I can't be around him, that doesn't mean I don't love him. But even "Hello, how are you?" would be a trigger for me. It would send me into all the anger and resentment. I would not want to have small talk, I would immediately want to chastise.
For me, and for him, I have detached with love.
How someone can turn off the natural feelings that are reactions is beyond me.
I have to live in my natural feelings, and that's just the way it is, the way I am. It is part of being true to myself.

ZiggyB

I wasn't really able to detach with love, I detached with anger which makes me feel bad about how I handled things. :-/

My ex was looking for a job but I got sick of his constant drinking and complaining about everything that *I* did, instead of looking for ways to improve himself he turned the tables on me and became very irritable and nitpicky. Of course anything I would say to defend myself later got used against me as evidence of my non-caring and unsupportive nature.

You do get sick of the whining, and if the person isn't happy the last thing they need to be doing is drinking, that's just plain common sense, but one that often gets lost on the A.

Anyway it sounds to me like you're doing a great job by not letting yourself get all sucked in to her drama. I tried to stay out of mine's drama too but that was not acceptable to him. Good luck!

m1k3

I am at a point where I am detached with compassion. Compassion in the sense that I recognize that my STBXAW is suffering. I also recognize that her suffering is hers. I didn't cause it, I can't control it, I can't cure it and I sure as heck don't own it.

I also use suffering in the Buddhist/recovery way in that suffering is what we inflict on ourselves.

Your friend,

Thlayli

I remember hearing their are different types of love but don't remember the details. Apparently I heard it somewhere in my years practicing Christianity. I got this from a blog and the poster credits a book. It seems to me that "detaching with love" may be referring to Agape and that, since we generally don't use different terms for "love" it can get confusing.

From this site: The Five Kinds of Love

This post is heavily based on a chapter from Dr. Ed Wheat’s “Love Life for Every Married Couple”. The book is very faith based and draws from many Biblical sources but also applies many useful theories and practices in sustaining a healthy marriage or recovering one. I found it to give me some strong tools in both.

Epithumia: Is of Greek origin and is a love based on a strong desire of many sorts. Many times it is associated with lust or sometimes to covet. While epithumia love can draw couples closer together it can also be divisive as it can lead to an uncontrollable desire to have or to own. We often hear on this forum from people who desperately try and draw a spouse back after they have become detached from the marriage. The efforts can be overwhelming to the retreating spouse as epithumia love can be seen as controlling. Epithumia love can also nurture strong bonds in a couple if they both experience it especially in a sexual context. To mutually desire each other sexually and to engross themselves in love making that is driven both by desire and selflessness in pleasing each other. Epithumia love is a double edged sword and is most likely manifested in a positive manner in the early stages of a relationship.

Eros: This the love most associated with romance. It is that head-over-heals feeling we get when a relationship moves forward. Your world and mind circles about your loved one and they are always on your mind. You strive for time together romantically. It is manifested in poetry, words of affirmation, love making, that special look in the eyes.…. A feeling that you could not be happy in life without their companionship and love. Eros love is wholly emotional and cannot be summoned at will. Sadly while most of us have experience eros love in our lives it is not sustainable. Most experts estimate that it will only last 18 – 24 months in the best of relationship before the relationship moves on to another form of love. While eros love is not sustainable, it can cycle in and out of a relationship over its course.

Storge: (Also Greek) Storge love is often described as a comfortable old shoe relationship comprised of natural affection and a sense of belonging to each other. Storge love represents a safe haven for couples as it is a place of acceptance, mutual respect and shelter. Many couple dwell in storge love for years and misunderstand it as mundane or boring. But in effect it is a very safe place but can simply lack that spark we seek. It can also serve as the moat around your marriage protecting it from outside forces and allow the other types of loves to dwell and flourish. Storge love can co-exist with other types of love and can be likened to a foundation made up of trust and safety.

Phileo: This love cherishes and has tender affection for the beloved but it expects a response. It is a love of relationship, comradeship, sharing, communication and friendship. While eros makes lovers phileo makes a close companionship that is all trusting. They share each other’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes, plans and dreams. They confide in each other the most intimate secrets, fears and needs that they would not share with another. A marriage without phileo will be unsatisfactory no matter the passion in the bedroom.

Agape: Many have heard me speak of agape love in several posts over the last year. Agape love is of particular significance to marriages in troubled waters, especially if one partner has disconnected. To love agapely is to love your spouse completely, love them wholly, but expect nothing in return from them at the current time. Agape love is different from eros love in that it is not sexual, nor romantic in nature. Its nature is that of self sacrifice but is not unconditional. You can love your spouse completely and still have boundaries and maintain your self respect. Agape love is also different from the other kinds of love in that you can choose it. You can elect to love your spouse this way because it is what is best for your family and marriage. It is a giving of yourself for the betterment of the marriage. Agape love can help you to “protect” yourself emotionally during difficult times as you love your spouse but expect nothing in return. Many I talk to have difficulty in trying to apply this type of love but if the marriage is in trouble and the detached spouse still cares for you but is in danger of leaving agape love can do wonders both for you and the marriage.

Cyranoak

...but I don't know what they are. What I did, and do, is simply detached and I'm not sure how I did it other than to ask myself, "Is this any of my business and am I responsible for dealing with it or cleaning it up?"

When the answer was no, which it was more often than not it turned out, I simply let it go (or let God as others would say). Sometimes emotionally I didn't, but in action I did.

Later, I stopped feeling emotional about those things most of the time. Later than that I noticed that even when detaching I still felt love for her, but that love was no longer leading to codependent behavior on my part.

This happened over the course of about seven years. I'm a slow learner. Your results may vary.

I hope this helps.

C-