How To Detach From Our Partner
Since we love good people who are suffering from addiction, we don’t have what some would call a “normal” relationship. Addiction adds a whole new element to our relationships that, frankly, most people just don’t understand. Because we love someone suffering from addiction, we need to learn how to detach with love.
And what exactly does “detaching” mean? And how do we do it? Most “normal” relationship advice just doesn’t apply to our relationships. Addiction calls for something different.
If you’re familiar with the world of addiction or codependency, you’ve probably heard the word “detach”. But, like many “self-help” words, it can be very hard to understand exactly what detaching means, let alone how actually to detach.
Does it mean you need to leave your partner who is suffering from addiction? Is there something cruel or manipulative about detaching? So many of us feel like we’re being disloyal if we choose to remove ourselves from our relationships emotionally.
To help you understand detaching in a simple way, I have included two comments from some wise women in a small group I led.
Here’s what one woman from the group said:
“You know you’re detaching when you are caring less and less and are starting to realize you deserve to be treated better than this.”
And another woman said this:
“For me, detaching is surrounding yourself with an immense amount of self-love and respect to the extent that I no longer allow my partner’s actions, words, or behaviors to affect my mood, security, or plans. At the same time, I can show him love and compassion and still not sacrifice my own principles or self-respect. It means letting go of resentment toward your spouse and owning your own behavior.”
Detaching is when we make the choice to react to this disease with self-care and self-love.
We give back any unnecessary responsibilities we have taken on—we stop helping them solve their disease. We get busy living our lives and helping ourselves heal rather than preoccupying our lives with fixing the ones we love. This may even mean we allow ourselves to fall out of love with our partners and dare to dream of a life without them.
Detaching when you love someone suffering from addiction means removing the emotional charge we all feel when being baited by this disease. Instead, we take a step back, take a deep breath and repeat: not my problem to solve. I’m going to focus on myself.
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Let me know in the comments: how do you detach? What tips do you have?
Detaching gets easier and easier the more years you spend loving the addicted person. For me, I spent the greater part of the last 7 years of our marriage trying to get him help with his addiction (pot), including contacting rehab facilities to see if he would qualify. I tried repeatedly to talk him into in-patient detox...I knew that was the only way for him. He tried maybe 2x in our marriage to quit (cold turkey) and he became violently ill. Suffice to say, after the last failure of quitting, I stopped begging him to get help. I removed my emotions from the situation and started to think about my son's life without a drug addict dad in it regularly. Seeing that his life would be better and healthier without having an addict dad helped me detach. It has been 4 months since we divorced and 2 months since he moved out. The last 2 months gave been the best 2 months I have had as a mom. Loving someone who cared more about their addiction than their own child brought me great sadness and shame, but letting go of that person and knowing that I am not to blame for their addiction and behavior has been so liberating. I still struggle from time to time (we were together 17 years), but my head is cleared of the "abuse fog/loop" I was in and I can quickly snap back now. ❤️
I love this it’s so timely for me. Made it through another horrendous long wknd! He is a bringer. So now for the next couple weeks we go through the mood cycles aaaagh I’m really sick of it. When he has been sober for a few weeks he is the best guy. I am getting better at detaching from his problems and focusing on myself but I feel very lonely doing it because as the article says people don’t understand why we are doing what we are doing. My home used to be a place that everyone just dropped in and felt so welcome. Now it’s so different and sometimes I feel so lonely and resentful. I’ll have been married to him for 25 years this summer !!!! Since the pandemic I have been doing so much self care to remember who I am and it’s been good. But it’s exhausting.