[Nerissa]

Oops I posted before Acorn’s summary - but I’ve kind of covered her points.  I think detachment is the ability to live one’s own life and before and after d day, a lot of us have become not-so-good at that.

[Not Applicable]

I just recalled an incident that sums up what detachment means for me. I went back and found the post where I talked about it from late 2017. Here's the relevant part. I recall at the time I was washing dishes and I continued to wash dishes and barely even turn my head to look at him through the whole encounter:

MIL had a new chicken coop built. In the evening I told him I didn't like it.

The next day he tried provoking me in about 2 or 3 different ways, and failed to get a rise out of me. So he came and shouted at me, "If you don't like the chicken coop, you can leave!" I said, "Why would I leave? I mean it's not like I am living in the chicken coop." He said, "I told you before, leave!" I just burst out laughing and he left the room frustrated.

As an aside, he tore down the NEW chicken coop and built a better, bigger one last year. At one point he threatened to make me live in it. 

[Treasur]

My very first lesson in detachment was perhaps the hardest in the first couple of months when I thought 'all' I was dealing with was a h who was severely depressed.
My then h was telling me frequently that he was self harming and suicidal. No one else would believe me and he was then living 150 miles away and would not talk to me f2f.

I still remember how hard it was to accept that if he made that choice, and I had done everything practical I could to encourage him to get the help he needed, there really was nothing I could do. And I needed to let that sink in to my bones.
Ironically my mother was also threatening to kill herself at the same time. For about a month I felt
like an amateur offshoot of Samaritans   

[osb]

It's an interesting question you ask, Acorn.

I think developing detachment was completely central for me. But it was something I was actually schooled in as a child - one of the oddly mixed blessings of growing up Hindu and collectivist, perhaps? I heard it so often: "Put your heart and soul into your own effort, then let go! Don't get attached to results!" "That's not your room - it's A room, and you don't get to bar the door." "I'm just my soul, my body is a set of clothes that I'll have to change someday."  Developing object permanence is not easy to do when your mom informs you your books, toys and clothes will of course go to the next younger cousin as soon as you grow, so don't get so attached to your things...

I had forgotten about all that. Naturally got attached to my things as an adult. Got attached to the people in my life. Got probably unhealthily attached to my H.

I remember, in the stupor of my H's MLC, foggily reawakening to those memories. Remembering how to let go. Going back to a place where there was not one thing in this world that I actually needed (OK food and shelter, but this house? You can take it, I'll be fine. That plate? You can smash it, your problem not mine. You leave me? I may want you, but I don't need you). I could offer help to my drowning H, but I couldn't control the result; it was never in my hands. So step back and let it unfold. Strangely empowering, like Marie Kondo-ing my life. I still have whispers of that feeling now, even after my H is back and my world isn't under active threat. Makes me hard to shake, I think. Or maybe just my give-a-firetruck-o-meter is broken.

[Treasur]

What a great way of looking at it, Osb.
I found my knee jerk reaction after losing both my parents and my h was that things carried huge significance for me..sometimes quite small things that smelt of them or had their handwriting on it....I held on to the things bc the people were lost and it felt unbearable.

I notice now that I have a quietly growing wish to have less, to slough off some of that skin and some of my old life with it. Hmm...Marie-Kondoing ones life is an interesting idea...I wonder if that is like another kind of Detachment from our old life or our ego maybe?

[heroIam]

To be very honest...….I don't think I'm fully detached.
Maybe it takes longer for some people and others not so much.
I believe it does take will and effort and some sense of unlearning since......most human beings are conditioned and programmed to not detach.



However the true detachment that’s inspired by Zen Buddhism means deep involvement in life – because there is a lack of attachment to the outcome.

[osb]

Treasur, I remember my grandfather used to ask me sternly, if ever I expressed a desire for something (ice cream? a necklace? a ride on a pony?), "Do you need that? Or do you just want that?"  And if I could prove that yes, I did actually need that, then we'd happily go off and get it (usually books - to him, those were ideas, and you can never have too many ideas).

My grandfather is long gone, but I thought about that question a lot during my H's MLC. And also as we reconciled (do I need this marriage? Do I want it? Or just want to not feel shame at its passing?). Decided in the end that I'd rather be with my H because I want him, than because I need to be married (or need my H). But that took a lot of Marie Kondo-ing, and hard grandfather questions inside my head.

[Treasur]

I suppose the Marie Kondo bit is also about Joy though isn't it? Often lost for a while as LBS and so important to reclaim. Some artist said, not sure who, maybe William Morris, that outpr homes should only contain things that we need functionally or that are beautiful....bit the same principle I guess.

I find books hard to give away...my then h did too...but with the advent of Kindle, I have fewer but the ones I do have matter a great deal. Ideas are definitely better than a pony 

[Mitzpah]

Detachment was kind of elusive in the beginning. It was a very strange concept for me - I just couldn't understand what it meant.

As time went on and I failed to detach (or at least, I couldn't see it), I found that I was learning to get out of the way of hurt. I learnt to look the other way, I learnt to hide myself when h. was around, I learnt not to ask questions of my children when they came back from being with him and gradually, very gradually I managed a kind of detachment.

Nowadays, I see detachment more objectively - when my s25 was born, he was in hospital for heart surgery and I observed the doctors and nurses dealing with him. I now know that they were detached, they were doing their jobs without attachment. Once my son showed that he was going to make it, I observed these professionals soften towards my son, they would stop by his incubator and touch him, they would smile at me when I sang to him and explain the procedures. A doctor told me on one of the last days that the distance (detachment) I observed was very necessary for them in the beginning because they needed to do their best to save him but they could not get involved emotionally with a baby they weren't sure was going to make it.

So, I see detachment as letting go of the emotions, owning my own emotions and allowing others to own theirs, whether it be anger, sadness, frustration, despair...When I need a time out, I go to my safe place and deal with what is bothering me, sorting through what belongs to me and what does not.

I am, by nature, a private person and I think this helps me - I am also a conflict avoider, so I let go easier

I probably will never totally detach from my beloved, however, I leave him be and I am fully aware that he has to work things out himself. If I help him, it is because he has asked and I am able to help not because I feel obliged to. I am not a fixer anymore and that is the best thing that has come out of detachment.

[Anjae]

1. What does Detachment mean for you personally?  (In your own words or a quote that best describes your thoughts)
2. What did you do to gain a measure of it?
3. What positives did Detachment bring you? (Prompted by Thunder.  Thank you!)

1 - No longer be dragged into the MLCers emotional issues and other issues concerning the MLCer. Live my own life. Detachment means peace and quiet to me.

2 - I start by cutting contact with Mr J, getting further and further away from his and his MLC. Think my detachement come from it.

3 - Many. Peace, quietness, space, freedom, joy. Not having to deal with a crazy MLCer, not caring for the crazy MLCer.