If you ever want to know what your expectations for someone should be, watch them and record what they do. Those are the expectations you should have. They should not be what you think they should do. Right? They should be what they actually are doing. When you can separate the expectation from what someone's actually doing.
It becomes easier to see them for what they really are it becomes easier to detach with love it becomes easier to fall out of love with the potential Welcome back well come back to another episode until the wheels fall off on that page. We've had a lot going on here lately. He's crazy. It's the holidays right so that's already like insane just nuts like we've got one kid upstairs so they're out of
school right now. Yeah, one upstairs is like almost 10 o'clock and she is deeply involved in the game of something that requires a lot of yelling the Sims.
ROBLOX up there is really good at Roblox. She builds really cool houses. I love it.
Man, we've
got other kids away.
Yeah, we've we've we've been trying to navigate getting things done with the kids around full time. And it's tough. So like, I've had a glimpse of what it's like to be a stay at home parent recently. Man. Respect. That's all I gotta say. Respect are working
from home parents. Yeah,
if you're working from home, respect, Ooh,
man. It's a totally different ballgame.
You have all my respect that is so much just so mentally taxing, trying to get things done, and then not feel like a neglectful parent the same time. Yeah,
it's really you have to wear a lot of hats. And it's really interesting. Like it takes it takes an emotional toll on you after it does. You can't focus on one thing, like when you're at work, you can focus just on that, or you can be on your phone and whatever do you kind of kick back at you can kick back when you're at home? You can't do that? No, maybe 10 minutes. And that's about it.
It's a lot. It's a lot. But we've been incredibly busy. We released our course, our course we you guys have probably heard us referenced this course. And so start off by saying we take a ton of pride offering free resources. Fr EE, we always have the podcasts we've got website, we've got blog articles, we've got the community, we've got community calls, Zoom calls, what you got one coming up, actually, this week, you would have already had the call at this point by the
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It's I've always liked writing, but I've always been hesitant to share it well.
Anyway, this is another free resource for everybody. And you get a little bit deeper into what will we put in like some behind the scenes stuff in there too, which is kind of Yeah, it's
got all kinds of cool stuff. It's, it's got it's kind of behind the scenes stuff. But it's also got stuff related to you your empowerment and your recovery actually dedicated to helping educate people. So it's right. I'll write an article every week. It'll also have some fun things as well, like, yeah, this week, that was Monday morning. It was a holiday recipe in there for some stuff. I'm still picking out of my teeth. It's so good. So good. So good.
You did a great job with that. I needed to post up the video on Instagram stories. But
anyway, so if you're not on the newsletter, hop on the newsletter. But yeah, but our courses, our first paid resource. Yes. And if you head over to help, I'm just I'm so excited about this course we've been working on it for ever forever. And it is completely different than anything else out there that you'll find it as comprehensive as it gets. Yeah. So
we have the perspective from me, the spouse, you as the addict, and then a professional therapist is involved. Yeah, we
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Yeah. Yeah. And you can also go go to to photo comm to if that's easier. It's
available through our website as well. Yes. Okay. Very cool. But it's awesome. We're super proud of it. Again, like we pride ourselves on being a free resource for people but for anyone that wants to take their recovery to that extra level. Once a little more care a little more individual perspective.
Do you want me to tell you what's in it, please. Okay, I was gonna do it later, but we'll say what's in it rock But okay, yeah. Because then we'll talk about this isn't what we're talking about in the episode. We're letting y'all know that there's something else that we're talking about. But this is Oh, you're gonna want to stick around? Yes. Yes. You want to stick around to actually list.
It has been requested. So in the course we we focus are we touch on trauma bonds, relationship dynamics, like I said earlier, from the addicts perspective,
yeah. Addiction, addiction education module,
like what is abuse? Yeah. You talked about that. Self awareness, managing triggers, building a healthy self boundaries, you know, what are boundaries, how to set boundaries, where we have a formula for boundaries, what communication looks like making life changing decision, and even a maintenance section, there's worksheets exercises, and then like we said earlier, the ability to chat with us while you're working on it. Yeah.
And it's research backed. We have clinical architect to put this together, we've got a clinical perspective for each and every module, right? It's amazing.
And what makes it different is that it's from people with experience as well. Yeah, it's just
experience of people. And you know how, with clinical perspective,
I speak, you know, a lot of people can relate to me, and I think,
oh, yeah, we're not in there dropping $5 words, like we're there to relate to people.
i It's, I'm the majority of the course. So you're gonna hear from me and what I have to say in my stories, and how I got through things. I mean, it's, it's just a really good course. And we're
super proud of it and happy to share it with you. Okay, we're super excited. But anyway, so what's this episode about? This has been requested, we've actually done this before you go. I
feel like I've had coffee but I haven't detaching
with love or two, possibly the most confusing concept in the realm of spousal and partner recovery. Next to boundaries, I would say this is the this is the one that people really really struggle with. Boundaries are included in it. So yeah, we get a lot of questions about this in the community where I think it's so it's such a paradoxical concept detaching with love. It's paradoxical love means getting closer, it means bonding, it means, you know, giving, but
to do sharing your lives together to tattoo with
loves a little confusing, yeah. But it is, it is something that is required. As part of your recovery, as part of your recovery as part of your empowerment this this has to happen at some point for Paige, this happened naturally over time. You weren't even really aware of what this concept was when you were doing it? No, it has always been fascinating to me, because I think psychologically, there's, there's something there's absolutely, but I do think that you can also make decision to do
this. It's just it's tough. Either way, it's really tough to become educated about it, you can start practicing. Okay, and I am keenly aware that something like 90, about 94% of our audience is female just pulled that out of your book. 92%. But it's gone up. And I want to say it's not quite you looked at that. Yeah. Yeah. It's like roughly 8% of our audience is
men, you know, state stats, you like your stat man.
So I'm a stern, man. Nice. That's good. All right. So I'm aware that I'm talking to mostly women, but stick with my little tiny male brain here as I tried to come up with an analogy that used to tell me I had a small brain that was a joke from Barat and was honest, you still said it, I think in I don't want to say out loud here, but I think women are usually smarter than most guys, but
we are emotional emotionally
are blown out of the water for sure. For sure, but anyway, yeah. Anyway, so I'm gonna I'm going to relate this as best I can to like, a concept that I understand that I think a lot of people can also understand, Okay, talk football for just a moment. Sports for just a moment. Okay, I don't leave stick around. Okay, so I am a I am a fan of a of a team called the Dallas Cowboys. Please don't turn this off. Please don't turn
this off. Okay. If you're a fan and someone's I promise, we're not the weird annoying ones. Like we're not the ones that like oh, you know, we were born and raised very realistic, like understand like, like, they're they've been trashed for a long time. Yeah. And that's part of the story actually. So at one point in my life, they were winning Super Bowls, and they were like kings of the world and I fell in love with them. absolutely fell in love with
them. They had shown me something so amazing when I was a little kid. And I sort of thought like there's more of this to come this is what it's like to be a fan of this team. And for the next 25 years, you
know what they did? l just l after l after just has disappointed me they're just good enough to break your freaking heart and I used to get so worked up watching them and I would be like upset for days after a loss like really upset like so invested the point where you're like, you're in it and like you get visceral reactions like you get angry you get worked up stress you name it. I don't do that anymore. I detached with love. Yeah, do I love them any less? No, still
love them to death. I just changed my expectations of them, which is where we're gonna run conversation I think expectations have so much to do with your ability to detach from someone or something in this case, because my expectations were, they're going to be great. They showed me they were great one time, they're going to keep being great. But reality was
they were patterns were showing you sorta, what garbage
Would you just say by sort of Spanish for garbage?
I didn't know that. Oh, I learned something new today. Sounds like I took German in high school
and President German clever, so yeah, okay. Well, anyway, they've been trashed. And they've shown me that they're just pretty good. They're not great. They're pretty good. And I should expect them to be pretty good. If I expect them to be high caliber Super Bowl winning team. Yes, then that's on me. Yes, at some point,
I'm like, really?
Where's that come from? Oh, being overly optimistic, only looking at the positive, discounting all the negative? We're gonna talk a bit about that. I think we can learn something from this analogy. And then just keep that in mind for a moment as we as we go. I
couldn't think of something similar for females or something else, please do because I don't know. And not necessarily females, because I love I love football. And I like sports. So yeah, you do. You've always been good. I couldn't think of anything, but I thought that was interesting. And I thought it went really well. Okay,
so preface the conversation with that. So go ahead. Take it from here. Okay.
I was gonna ask. So when a good question would be when do you start detaching?
That's a loaded question. I think that the best answer, though, is you need to detach when you seem to care more about another person's well being than they do.
That's huge. And that's what naturally happened with us. Honestly, yeah. Because I was like, I care too much. And he's not doing anything. So I'm just gonna start detaching. It's
difficult, but I think a lot of people know what that feels like to care more about someone's well being their future than reaching their potential dangerous word potential, then they do right than they do. Right. That's where we start is like, when do you do this? You're probably there.
Yeah, you're probably definitely absolutely well, I detached still. Like I'm, that's, we'll get to that in just a moment. Yeah, that's an it but I do want to tell you that. Yes. So another question. I think that's big is like, does it need to be communicated with your partner that you're detaching? Do you have to say like, say like, Hey, morning, just let you know, I'm gonna detach, like, sir, I'm gonna go do that. No, you don't have to tell them what you're doing or
why you're doing it. You know, only boundaries need to be communicated. But say like, I you need to go do some self care or something. He's like, I'm gonna go to the gym. That's you're detaching a little bit, but you're not telling them? Oh, yeah, I'm doing this because I need to detach from your apps. You know, it's not like that. It's not how you go about it. Right? It's just an action that you take.
You don't necessarily have to spell it out for them. Right. Right. Okay, kick us off here. Okay, so I just kicked it off. Well, this is your episode. Like the outline was real. You You wrote you write the best episodes. So yeah,
but it's like this one's all over the place. So detaching is important in all relationships. This is not just for the relationships that we deal with.
Yeah, like you see this present and not just relationships addicts alcoholics, but even in with your children. This
happened This is healthy, detaching is healthy, it's it's a part of being interdependent with your with people.
Another term for detachment that you probably are very aware of, and very much understand is tough love. Tough Love is very similar to detaching with love.
And it's not tough love in a way of screaming, nagging, yelling, telling somebody what to do. No, that's not tough love. No tough love is allowing people to have consequences for their actions natural natural consequences reaction. Yes. That is that is like that's kind of what tough love, I guess is yeah, in my opinion.
A lot of the times partners of addicts alcoholics get thrown into this bucket with this label called codependency. Yes. And codependency I think, what's the literature that's out there on it, we cover this better in the course. But the literature that's out there on codependency does do a pretty good job of describing the types of personalities that are present. And but I just, I don't like the term at all. I don't like the label at all. I think it's whatever, I got my own
opinions about it. But either way, generally what you have though, is someone who is so invested in the relationship that they're doing the work of two people, it's one sided, there they are. They're doing everything, they're doing absolutely everything and they're receiving very little back, right. It's
so you're you're overcompensating and you're trying to do everything to make this relationship work. And that's not an interdependence relationship.
No, and it's, it's difficult because you lose your identity and doing this lets you do you become a shell of your former self Um, if you find yourself becoming someone that you don't even want to be like you didn't get in this relationship, so you could be someone's mother. Yeah, you didn't get this relationship so that you could parent them. Right? You didn't get in this relationship, because you wanted to look, look out for someone or
look over someone. 24/7. Yeah, you fell in love, because they showed you something just like that team showed me something all those years ago. And then we held on to that a little too tightly. Yep. And as things start to veer away, we held on to that a little too long. So then what do you do about it, you detach with love, this is the first step in empowerment is
detaching with love. So difficult, though, because the concept in itself, like let's put the cards on the table here, and like what's really going on? In so many ways you are preparing yourself for some type of a separation, or just becoming independent, well, whether there'll be an emotional separation, or physical separation, and many ways you are looking at the reality of your relationship. You're removing any expectations that you used to have, and you're replacing that with the reality
of what is yes. And coming to terms with that reality involves grieving. Yes, it involves a lot of times depression, it involves anxiety, it involves a very, very dark time in your life, as you grieve your relationship as you grieve the person that you love, as you grieve the dreams that you had. That's what detaching with Love is like, this is serious business, right? This isn't something that you hear about today, and that
you're doing this weekend. This is a process that takes place over the course of years, sometimes, sometimes shorter depends on how bad things have gotten. Sometimes it's easier to detach, when you can just give yourself permission, but you've got all the experience in the world to be like beat down, you know, emotionally by somebody for a long period of time. It's like it's sort of easy whenever they make it easy for you. But sometimes it's not so easy.
Sometimes. I was kind of what they call it like a sad alcoholic, like the sad type where it's like, I wasn't really I wasn't, I was a fun drunk kinda and like, on the surface, I was pretty great. But if you lived with me, it was totally different. So to do this, like, you're gonna feel the judgment coming from people around you. You might feel like, oh my god, it's just the wrong thing to do. Am I giving up too soon? Right?
It's I can just tell you that from an alcoholic and addict perspective is that generally addiction is progressive. It gets worse over time. Yes, seldom ever gets better. I've never actually seen it get better. I've never seen someone I've personally never seen someone just learn how to control. Alcoholic type drinking or addict behavior. They don't just figure it out moderate. Over time, we test the bounds over and over and over. And that
takes years. Yes. But in the newsletter, actually, I wrote this. I wrote like a blurb, which call this blog to newsletter still new for me, but about how codependency and addiction are very similar. Yes. And they are, as an addict, here was my MO I would, I would use drugs, alcohol, understand that it was bad for me, because I would have consequences of some kind. We're out of money, I would miss something I would get yelled at like some stuff would
happen. And I would conclude not that I couldn't use drugs and alcohol, I would conclude that I just haven't found the right mixture or the right amounts. And I would try and try and try and try codependents do much the same thing. When they're when their efforts to change, somebody have failed. They don't conclude I just can't control this person. What they do is they just try harder and they try different things. Oftentimes, when people find us that's what they're doing.
They're like, Oh, well, they probably have the answer. They know how to fix them. Yeah, they know how to fix this person. But but we don't, we don't like there is no magic bullet solution to fix somebody or make them want the life that you want for them. But if you care more about your well being they're welcoming they do. It's time to begin to detach with love. Right? This is for you.
Yes. That's why you need to shift it like the detaching with love. It's not necessarily like detaching with love and loving them. Like you do love them. You always have compassion for them. But it's shifting it to love and yourself. You're doing this because you love yourself. It's an act of loving yourself. And that can help you to like shift your mind. Yeah, so we're gonna go through the stages. There are some stages.
Just want to say them. Okay, so the first one is acceptance, like you said earlier about, you know, looking at your relationship that it's one sided and having that grief period that goes along with it because it is difficult to look at reality sometimes. Yeah. Part two is going to under be understanding your role. And this is difficult as well, because we do have a role in this. This is the codependency and understanding that we cannot
fix another person. But I take this as being a relief because you're only responsible for yourself. Like you got to let go of that control. And then sometimes when we take on their emotions, our self awareness becomes cloudy, because it's we're taking on so much of their stuff. We don't know where our emotions are, your focus is so so on, then you're not looking at yourself, and you have to be self aware in order to make
changes. The third step is going to be minding your own business, which is one of the things that I learned in therapy. Because I'm an empath, I take on your emotions. So I would always say mind your own business, mind, your business, mind your own business, and that would help me detach from whatever it is you're going through. And then I could focus more on me, it was just too much to take on your stuff. The next step is setting
boundaries. Figure out what behaviors you don't like, write it down, then figure out what the values you like write them down, and then go listen to our boundary setting series.
Boundaries, protect your values, when your values are being violated. That's often what causes the anxiety and the hurts and the everything else. So boundaries, boundaries serve to protect your values. Yes,
yeah. And so setting boundaries is a form of detaching with love. It is honestly like everything a part of the recovery. Everything in your recovery is detaching with love, you're finding a healthy balance for yourself. I almost
think detaching with love is almost just a better name for the entire process.
Because it's not just as simple as you do this and that, you know, it's like all of it. It's shifting your, your focus on yourself instead of on the other person, right. But still having compassion for the fact that they are struggling, it just means that you can't fix their struggles. Yeah,
this isn't like fixing a washing machine like you don't look up like how to like, I can look up how to fix a washing machine. Yeah, figure it out. Yeah, and a YouTube video, right? It's not like a 123 tasks like this is very much like we're giving you the steps. But this is going to be very individual. It's why it's really
difficult to talk about this topic. It's different for everyone. And it's all the articles that we've looked up. They're all difficult. I mean, they're all They're all different. Yeah, yeah, they're very, you have to like start living it to truly understand what it means you're right about that. Alright, so once you've set boundaries, another part, the next part is going to be focusing on self care. And we talked about this all the time.
A lot of people talk about it, and it's like, okay, well, what is it, you know, so journaling, exercising, eating healthy, you know, it's doing something uncomfortable, that benefits you in the future. And our course actually goes into depth on self care, which is really awesome. Because we get a lot we get into detail a lot about journaling and other things that you can do for self care and why it is so important. Like we really go
into detail on that. And the biggest thing that I can say about self care is that that is the only thing we have control over in this life,
your reality, your reactions, your responses, and how you treat yourself,
yes, your self care is like you're trying to control somebody else in their behaviors and change them. You are letting out so much energy that doesn't serve its purpose, put that energy towards yourself, and you know that that's all that you have control over is what you do. Yes, it's hard. But it's so empowering when you do it. So empowering. And then the next one is going to be empathy without enabling. And it's all of this. We are all such black and white thinkers, right? Like,
that's the most common cognitive distortion that he says, everyone has that? Yeah,
we all pretty much have that. Because that's how our brains function. So when you're learning all of this stuff, it's going to be so gray, it's going to be it's going to teach you how to embrace the gray area. And that's where empathy with enabling, without enabling comes into play, detaching
with Love is a gray area concept. Yes. So oftentimes, our brains work in this character categorization system where it's like two files. It's either black or white. It's either left or right. It's either good or bad. When we get when we get this third option, there's kind of gray kind of in between the two. We're like, wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, no, no. Because we never really been like, that's just how we're raised. how our brains work
is how we learn. It's how society teaches us as well. So
when it comes to this third area, it's like, wow, it's weird. Like there's more options. But once you figure it out, it's incredibly empowering to know that like, you can carve your own path, you can walk your own way you can do whatever you want. There's no rulebook that says, you have to follow that path or this path. You create your own path. Yep. And this is kind of the path that no one really discusses. And because you have to be empowered to do
it. There's not really a there's not a tried tested method. That's like, Okay, we're gonna do this or do that. Like everyone knows how to be in a relationship. Hollywood's taught us how to do this. We naturally fall in love with people that we know what love looks like. Yeah, we also know what divorce looks like. We know what separation looks like. But what about the in between? What about this weird stage where like leaving is not an option for me right
now. Right? But I am with someone that breaks my heart every single day. What's What do I do? This is what you do? You detach with love. It's the middle ground that bridges the two Yes, right. If you're not in love, and you're not You're not separated. This is how you protect yourself and your esteem and your soul. And your mind in between the two. Yeah. So that you can get to that place maybe
one day safely. Or maybe maybe things come back the other way, like the differ us where you detach, and I was like, hang on timeout. You're not going anywhere. Yeah, I got to figure this out. Right. And I did. But we've been transparent about this. And we're beginning that's, that's the more rare case. A lot of other people will have to go the other direction. But there are also some people that stay in that middle area for a long time. Yes. Like, they're pretty comfortable
there. Yeah, that's cool, too. Yes.
Yeah. And I did not detach, to change, you
know? No, it was never a conscious thing, where it's like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna
do this. And maybe he'll change his ways. No, it didn't it that's not what it was about. It was literally to take care of myself and our daughter and to become more independent, and be okay, without him.
A word on that quickly. Yes, I think a lot of folks do that. So many times, spouses partners, like as part of their effort to fix this person, fix this alcoholic or this addict. They will throw out these ultimatum type things. A lot of times, these ultimatums come in the form of punishment. So people will detach, and they'll feel really cold about it. And it will be sort of cold because it feels uncomfortable. Detaching doesn't mean like when
you come home. And they like you don't tell them that you're detaching. Right. So they just come home one afternoon after work, and you're sitting there and they come and start talking to you. And you just go quiet and leave the room. Right? That's not really detaching, they're gonna look at that and go, what's your problem? Right? And you're gonna have to explain it. And then things get weird,
quick. Yeah, you detach internally, it's something you do inside, it's a really painful process that you have with yourself. As you're sort of letting this person go, even though they're right in front of you, right? You're looking at them, like, you've broken my heart. So many times, you're gonna keep doing it. If patterns tell me anything, this will keep happening. And you start to let go inside. Yeah, it's so difficult, though, that that third option? Yeah, it's tough. Yeah. So
the last step is going to be developing independence, which is a form of self care, too. But it's more of like, starting a new hobby, going out to eat with friends, or even alone, maybe you want to get in a book club or go to family get togethers without them, do what makes you happy and brings peace
to yourself. And then let's say that you want to start saving money, you know, make sure you maybe say maybe get a side job start prepping or, you know, in case you do have to leave at some point, that's okay to do that on the side, you're developing your independence, so that when the time does come, or if the time does come to where you're like, Okay, I'm at a place where I can't do this anymore, you're ready to, you know, push forward and do whatever you need to do make a
very difficult decision decision. But it's important to develop your independence and not be reliant on your partner all the time. I agree with that. And that's hard. It's hard to be you know, it's hard to say that, but I, whenever I was detaching from you, in my head, I was planning, you know, I had a career, I had a job, I had a great job, I was like, Alright, I need to get another bank account, I'm gonna get a separate bank account. If this happens again, I was very close
to doing it. I was thinking, Okay, I have to have a car payment, I can do this I or I have to pay for my car. My car was cheap. It was good. I was like, I've got that I can go get a small apartment with my daughter. I can do this. I've caught this. I didn't plan it. I didn't tell you that I was doing it. But in my head, I was starting to plan it. And that was part of my detaching to be prepared to become independent and not rely on you.
Yeah, that's the that's the elephant in the room. Anytime we're talking about this. That's so difficult to tell someone that their dreams and these this this plan they had, it's just not working out. And you have to get to a place where you're at peace with accepting that that's reality. And you're at peace with accepting that. I'm not going to get that and if I keep doing what I'm doing I'm still not going to get that and the fact
that probably more painful. So it's almost like a it's almost like a like I said almost like a pre separation. It's like yeah, but it's with it's internally within yourself. It's it's almost hard to describe until you do it but I will say this is that I do believe wholeheartedly that people get to this point. naturally over time. Yeah. Where you will get to a point where you feel numb, like you you're not hot or cold about it. Yes. You're just like I'm at peace with this. I I've accepted it.
This is what it is. Yes, but this is not what I want. And I don't love you any less. I still feel for you. I know that you're dealing with things. Yes, but I can't do this anymore. This hurts me Me too bad. This is not what I planned for my life. And while I love you, and I probably always will, I can't do this anymore. Yeah, and you walk and that's it to get to that place. That's like your rock bottom. That's like the codependence rock bottom right, but it
happens naturally. But I think that you can also just like an addict, like they say that we hit rock bottom when we stopped digging. And that's a conscious decision to stop digging, like, I'm considered a high bottom alcoholic, I didn't have to do what they said you have to do. I didn't have to lose my family, I didn't have to lose my career. I didn't have to wreck a car and go to jail. I don't have to do any of those things. I recognize it. And just just like I did,
people can do this as well. But you have to be convinced of the reality of your situation. I was convinced, absolutely convinced that no amount of drugs or alcohol were going to be possible for me. So if that wasn't the case, if I couldn't do it, then what was the option I had to go to treatment, I had to get sober abstinence, everything else. codependence
same thing. If you are convinced with the experience that you have up to this point, that this is what life looks like, then you have to make the decision. But you don't just up and leave something you don't just decide to go after however long history you guys have your families you have. There's a lot to unwind. And that doesn't happen
overnight. And then you're going to be in a really dark place while this is going on, which is why I encourage people to get with a community, which is why we built the community the Tufo community to get spouses and partners linked up with each other. So you don't feel alone in this darkness. Right? You've got us we're here as well, you've got tons of people that
are going through this. I just want you to know that you're not alone through it, and it will be painful, it will be the most painful thing you've ever done. It's like try watching someone die while they're still alive. That's sort of what it's like.
Yeah, but then it can be beautiful, too, because you are starting to really find your true authentic self.
There's nothing more powerful and more fulfilling than doing that. Yeah, it will always hurt to some degree. Yeah, but you, you will be so grateful that you didn't get what you thought you wanted. Yeah. Yes, that right there. At the end of it. It's it's ridiculously hard, though. And like, I don't want to sugarcoat it. And by any means, like we're talking about people's lives here. It's all about their marriages, families and everything else. There's kids involved, and there's, there's
finances and everything else. So it doesn't happen overnight. It's totally cool. And it's okay, if you go back and forth on this, yes, 1015 times, it's okay. It's a process. It's a process, it doesn't suck that decision you just make and do. Like you will have relapses as well, you will go back and forth, as you fall in love again with that potential. And then they show you that now really I am what I am. And then you have to get your heart broken again. And each time that happens, they
take a little chunk of you. And then eventually there's nothing left and you get to a place where you're like, Okay, this is what it is. This is definitely not what I wanted. But I accept it. And I'm okay with it. And my expectation has changed. Now. My expectation is not that you are going to make everything better, you'll go to treatment, life will be beautiful. You'll be happy. My expectation is this is going to keep happening. And I have to take care of myself. Yeah, that becomes the
expectation. And once that happens, it becomes easier. But the middle ground there is so hard. So freakin hard. Yeah, it's painful. You'll have a million questions and feel like oh my god, it's just it's awful. Yeah.
So we'd said earlier that I still detach with love. We had had people ask us to actually do an episode on how do I reattach when I've detached? Oh, yeah. Like when people were in, you know, sobriety? Well, you don't want to go back to how you were before. Yeah,
this is a this is something I think a lot of couples struggle with. In general. Yes,
it is. Healthy to detach with love within your marriage.
Yeah, a lot of times people will say, I just want things to go back to the way that they were. Yeah, I want things to go back to normal. But normal quote, unquote, normal is what got us here. So in fact, like, we should look a little harder at that. You don't really want that. No, you don't want you don't want that. No, you don't. There was a lot going on there. Now. Was it better than this? Maybe in some ways, but ultimately, there was something underneath the surface there
bubbling up to this point. So reattaching. Let's think about what a new version of this relationship looks. Yeah. It's almost like you have to re Introduce yourself. Hey, my name is Matt, how are you? Yeah, we get to know each other all over again, right with new truths about each other new styles of communication, understanding each other's values, understanding each other's boundaries, and it's a much different relationship. Things will never be the way that they were before. You can't unlearn
something like this. You can't unexperienced these things. You can't lie to yourself to the point where these things never happened. reattaching it looks like a totally new relationship. It does. Answer that question.
Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Like, what are examples of detaching with love and relationships. Here's
what looks like in our life. Here's an example from our life page is in our marriage. It's funny to this day even famous for telling me things a million times and like any guy, forget about it.
I stopped doing that.
Let's say that you had big plans to go. I don't know, into town and take some family photos and get a good lunch and like, Have the kids play in the park. And you've you've told them about this. So many times, like, like, listen, three weeks of family day on Saturday. Don't forget, yeah, today we've got the family thing planned. And you say it because you know what happens Friday night. You know what he does? Friday night, right? He goes out and he gets hammered drunk with his friends.
And he's useless all day Saturday, or he wakes up Saturday morning gets ready for college football, and he's plastered by 11. But you've told them a million times. The day comes and what happens? He's either hung over an absolute wreck, or he's high and drunk and acting ridiculous. Yeah. So what do you do? Typically? You lose your mind? Uh huh. Go crazy. Yeah, I told you, you always do this to me. How could you treat me this way you cry in
the bathroom? You, you consider that your whole life is ruined. Like you have these massive emotions and panic attacks and like, your life is ruined. Like you, you you're texting your friends and family cannot believe he did this to me. But when you detach with love, you do something a little different? Yeah. You look at them. And you say that figures. And you go to the park by yourself. You don't even say that? To your son to yourself, like don't say that?
Because that's gonna be like, No, you look at them and you like, yeah, that's about right. That's about that's par for the course rotation. The expectation is, this is usually what they do. And instead of your expectation being exceeding the reality of the situation, you just accept it. You're like, yeah, that's, that's right.
That's who they are. Yeah. You go to the park by yourself or with your maybe you bring a family member with you, your mother, somebody go on with your day, take the kids, you have a great day you enjoy that day, let them suffer or do whatever they are enjoy themselves and live in the misery that they've chosen leave people in the reality they've chosen for themselves that they need to be more normalized. I think in general, I agree leaving toxic people in the reality they've
chosen for themselves. Some will say, well, addiction is not a choice. And here I am saying well, kind of sometimes it is. Yeah, it's a little gray to well, recovery is a choice. So yeah. And so is this choices pick up in the first place. Yes. So yeah, I know. It's sometimes it's helpless. And it's compulsion, all that whatever. You can leave people. That's doesn't matter. You are being affected here. Okay. Yep. So yeah, that's, that's what you do. And this is what you did?
Yes. You started to do these things, right? I would want to sit at home in a hole and drink all day and be miserable and negative. And you're like, you know what, bye, bye. And you would take the kids and go and you shut the door and be like, Whoa, the kid? Yeah. At that time, I'd be like, Whoa, she just walked out
of here. Yeah, because I was tired of sitting in your mess. You
were but you weren't consciously doing this. Okay, now, somebody here this episode is gonna be like, Okay, well, I have to consciously consciously start making these decisions. You might already be doing these things without even realizing it. Because you just get to a point where you're like, Listen, I've got a life to live. Nothing's changed. For me. I still have dreams and aspirations. It's heartbreaking to think that you may not be part of them, but you are not going to stop me from living.
You're not going to stop my kids from enjoying their life. You could choose to be a part of this or not, but I'm not forcing you. That's the difference is you no longer force a square peg into the round hole. Every episode I swear, I think you said that. Do I really think so? Yes. And I am the square peg square peg round hole guy. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. I've gotten better at it. But anyway, like, what are some other examples of things you used to do with me?
I wouldn't wake you up when you needed to go to work. That's right. And I still I'm still like that I'm like, that's his responsibility. If he's late for work, or if he's late for doing whatever. There are consequences.
Its consequences are in you. It's not my problem letting people experience natural consequences. Remember, from the beginning of the episode, we let people experience natural consequences.
Yeah. And it's also whenever we were talking about communication and not arguing with somebody who is, you know, not being rational. Like that's a part of detaching when you practice not losing your mind on somebody when they do what you don't want them to do.
Yeah, not taking things personally is another big piece of it. And it's easy to say don't take it personally. But it's hard when someone calls you a really ugly thing. Or they're
affecting your life. They are affecting your life. Yeah. Like the tar is
emotionally abusing you or like verbally abusive lies. It's hard not to take it like personally, right? But do your best to understand that this person is dealing with an addiction, and it doesn't excuse The behaviors, but it explains why at two o'clock in an afternoon on Sunday when I've done nothing wrong he is screaming at me calling me names. Okay? Don't take it personally. You are not these things you are not these things just know that coming from me.
That is not true. Yes. They're saying things to hurt trying to hurt. Yes. They're not saying anything from a rational perspective ation detach from that detach from that but you know what? That's your opinion. And it's wrong. Yeah. And I can't help the fact you've got dumb opinions. Yeah. Leave it at that.
You're so good at that. It's like what we talked about with my pants today. Yeah. So you said you said Oh, I like those shoes with those pants. I was like, Oh, thank you like, yeah, their bell bottoms. It looks good. Like, no, these are wide leg pants. He's like, No, you're wrong. There's no bell bottoms. And I'm gonna say you're wrong until you prove me wrong. Prove me otherwise. Yeah. And he was so adamant about it. Like, he was like, these are bell bottoms. I'm
like, and then she showed me some pictures of my thing. I'm sorry. That's why like, You
did not say I'm sorry. You said. So ideally, you acknowledged it.
No, I said, I'm sorry. I don't remember that might have said and bypass either way. I
don't care. I don't care. Either way. I don't care if you apologize or not. But it's okay
to say that's a dumb opinion. It's a bad opinion. You've got there. Okay. You can keep it. Yes, totally fine. Do
not take what they say seriously, don't take it personally, even though it it sucks, because this is the person you married. But this is the reality that you're in. And it's better if you don't take it personally, because it'll help you see things clearly. Remember,
consider the source of the information. Consider that consider where it's coming from, consider the context are irrational. They're very irrational. This is not the person that you get started with. This is not the person with all that potential. This is someone in the grips of addiction. Yes. That's it. Consider going into another room or leaving the home altogether. Yes. Another good way to get away from this thing. And I think we've talked about personal communication
and stuff like it's okay, that's Dad, that's a part of detaching, you're just not going to put your energy into the mess.
But I think that the most important of all these like examples, you have to remove all the expectations of this person. Yeah. Expectations are resentment in the making. Yeah. When you expect someone to do something different than they have shown you, you are going to get resentful when they don't do it. This person is creating resentments every day, because we don't. It's weird that we don't expect us to do what we do, because we should expect it.
But you never really get used to someone relapsing or drinking like at your kid's birthday party, or like doing drugs at your mom's house like you don't get used to these things. But they are to be expected these, these they're showing you, if you ever want to know what your expectations for someone should be, watch them and record what they do. Those are the expectations you should have, they should not be what you think they should do. Right? They should be what they
actually are doing. When you can separate the expectation from what someone's actually doing, it becomes easier to see them for what they really are, it becomes easier to detach with love, it becomes easier to fall out of love with the potential and to let go and let them be who they are. And, okay, it's definitely not what I wanted. We can all agree with that. It's painful. Yes, very. But it's reality. Yeah. And accepting
that reality is important. Like your, your serenity is proportional to your acceptance. Yeah. And it's also inversely proportional to your expectations. The higher expectations are low your acceptance, the lower your serenity, the lower your peace. When your acceptance and your your acceptance of reality is greater than or equal to the expectations. Yeah, things are
all right. Yeah. But when we look at someone, and we think that, why are they doing that they're supposed to be doing this, they shouldn't be doing that. Let's not shoot all over ourselves. Let's, let's see what they really are. This is who they are. Okay, so what is it not, though, walk me through where this where this often goes wrong.
That's not punishing your partner. So kind of like, like what we talked about with boundaries, it's not to punish anybody. It's not to actually prove a point to them. You know, it's all about you, and what you want
you removing the focus from them and what they should be doing and what you think they should be doing. And you're putting it back on yourself. Yeah.
And it's not like completely ignoring them, which is what you said earlier. Yeah. A lot of people struggle with that too. Like, but it's okay. Listen, it's okay. If you're doing that and you're like, Oh, God, I don't, am I doing that? And it's, it's practice, like, you're gonna go one way or the other. You're gonna go back and forth until you find the middle ground that works for you. But it's not ignoring them. But also, like I said earlier,
disengaging with arguments. I mean, that's not ignoring but you're disengaging from the argument that's detaching. What else I didn't want to I wanted you to touch on that one.
Okay, well times people withhold physical intimacy, intimacy, sex, people with withhold sex. Yeah, as a way to punish the partner to let them show that something's not right in our relationship, right? Because a lot of guys are just like ridiculous horned dogs and like that's what a relationship is to them. And the only way that a lot of women can get across is just by like, Okay, well, we're not doing that anymore. No, oh, well, what's wrong, honey? Now they want to
talk. A lot of times people will do that as a way to withdraw from the relationship and to detach times when hearing these types of relationships. You're really not interested in being physically intimate anyway. Yeah. But except if you're doing it with the motivation that I'm going to change them. Yeah, that's not detaching. Right. That is manipulation. Right. That's totally different. Yeah.
Okay. Well, there was one note that I wrote on here. And I don't remember what you said about a movie script. Okay.
Yeah. So remember what you said? Yeah. So if I had to describe how to do this, play along with me here. Okay, play along with me, as I run you through this. You're so good at this stuff. I'm not i Oh, my God, can
you please,
I explained it well earlier. But now I've got to remember exactly how it all went down. But if I was going to describe to somebody how to detach with love, here's what I would say. Let's pretend for sake of argument that you are an actress or an actor, whichever one. And I wrote you a movie scripts, where you are in a relationship with an alcoholic or an addict, and they are physically, emotionally verbally
abusive to you. And in this movie, this is the kind of movie where you become incredibly empowered, you learn a lot about yourself, and you get super serious about taking a new direction and you move away, you move to a different state with your children, you get away from them totally. In this movie, how would you be acting? How would you act apart? You'd be really heartbroken. You would, you'd be questioning everything you did.
But you'd be committed to yourself and what you want in life, you'd be committed to your dreams. You would think about that person? How would you think about them? Would you be angry, resentful? No, I want you in this in this movie. I want you to be sad. I want you to think about them and be loving and compassionate to what they're going through. But also choose not to be involved. How would you play that part? If you are that actress? That's what attaching would love looks like?
And I would I want everyone to kind of run that movie through their head, you're the star of your own movie, you're the star of the show. I want you to be that person in that movie, I want you to think about who you would be. If you had to do this down the road. We don't leave to punish other people. We don't leave angry. You can leave and especially an addict or someone who's dealing with something like this with compassion with love, without resentment and understand they've got their own
crap going on. But I don't have time for that. Yeah, got one line. I
don't have to tolerate it. I don't have to tolerate
the abuse. I don't. And you can you can you can have compassion that they're going through their stuff and also decide I'm not dealing with this anymore. Exactly. I'm not doing this until you become non resentful. That is what the path of detaching with love looks like. Emotionally internally in your mind. Like mentally this is this is what has to happen. It's so difficult though. Yeah. Because again, it it's it's it's a paradox and it's it's not something that you just decide
to do today. You don't decide, alright, I'm going to emotionally and mentally in my own head fall out of love with somebody. Today, it's not falling out of love with sort of is it sort of is in some way.
I mean, I guess you're right, because I was pretty numb. At that point. You're not
committed to the future anymore. When you're detaching with love. You're not committed to all the DRI
detach with love. So that's why you're You're confusing me now.
Okay, so I'm confusing. You still detached to allow me to experience natural consequences? Yeah, we have. We also have a supportive, interdependent loving relationships. Yes. Where each of us support each other. Right? If, if something were to happen to me, you wouldn't be doomed. Oftentimes, these relationships are like, I don't know what I would do without this person. I can't imagine living without them. Like yeah, we all might say these things, but I know
that you would be okay. There's one time in our lives where that would not be the case right? When you started the task with love you came to understand that you you were strong enough to do this one way or another I Could be along for the ride or not. It was my decision. And you have to get to a place where you feel strongly enough about that. Like you have to be independently strong. You have to be that way. Yes. Sometimes this can even
serve two purposes for us. I know for for our friend Steven Christine. That detaching with love process got me sober. It got him sober, too. Right, but it serves two purposes. If we didn't, you still would have been okay, right? Right. You still would have been okay. You'd be heartbroken but you could also look back and say hard. You know what? I feel for him struggling alone. One day
figures it out. But I did what's best for me to do what was best for me, my kids, my family myself, you know, I had to do what's best for me. Yes, that's what attaching Love is like that's, that's a thing a better synopsis of the attachment love than the first time around. But it's still not something you're going to figure out like this week, this month, even like this takes time. Yeah, the concept takes time, you have to get to a place where those expectations
are realistic. And that means looking at the reality of a situation which is often really painful and it's hard to do honestly, sometimes it is because you're gonna want to you're gonna want to justify you're gonna want to, like, try to rationalize it. But now he was having a tough time as his mother just died and he's all these things that we do know reality is reality. Write it down. Same thing with sports. There was this great football
coach named Bill Parcells. He used to say, you are what your record says you are. Yes. So if you were a six and 10 team, but everyone said you were great. He would say you're not great. I don't care what kind of potential you have. Look at your record. That's what you are. Same with addicts and alcoholics we are record says we are. I got lucky. I got really lucky. We got lucky with timing. We were incredibly young when all this
happened. But I know that if this would have kept up any longer you were you were already detaching with love and reattachment for us did look like a totally new relationship, by the way. Yeah, it did. Like things didn't go right back to normal. And I'm glad because that wasn't a healthy relationship. Right. Right. That was a very one sided relationship. That was an abusive relationship.
That was not a good place. reattaching is basically building back trust. It's
rebuilding trust. It's rebuilding the relationship from scratch. Yeah, yeah. You start over fresh. You start over new. Yeah. So I hope that's helpful. For people. It's a it's a loaded concept. And it takes time, be gentle with yourself, as you're going through.
Yeah. And I'm sure we'll have another episode on it in like six months, probably will probably
well, that's fine. That's totally fine. I could talk about this all day. And I hope we do our part in finding better ways to describe this, explain this and walk people through this. And this this upcoming year, we're going to have a lot more guests on our show. And we're going to talk to people that have walked this and we're gonna get their perspectives and what it was like for them. There's
nothing easy about it. But I think what's cool about that is you're going to hear perspective, from not just to us, and you're going to hear what's like for maybe someone else to relate to in a different way, they're going to have their own take on it. But look at it from 30 different ways. It's still all the same, and the
bones of it. And we've got walked you through the foundations of detaching with love removing those expectations, understanding that this is who this person is, you know, coming from a place of love and compassion, but also walking away. It's like that gray area, it's so hard to get to the third options, like we're told late. There's a third way we can do this another way. Yeah. And you might stay in that spot for a while you might stay in this detachment phase. For
quite some time. You might not be ready to start this phase. Yeah, you were there. If I remember correctly, my memories a little fuzzy, you know. But I want to say about a year, roughly. Yeah, about nine months.
Yes. I think that when I started when I had our first kid. Yeah. When our daughter was born about the time when I started really thinking about it. Yeah, yeah. Listen, my
expectations are this. You're not meeting them. I'm walking. But you don't just do that overnight. Yeah,
I didn't tell you either. Oh, you just did is did
did it. And I knew I was losing you. I knew it. That's and it
was hard, though. It was like it sucked. It wasn't easy. But it was just natural. Yeah, that was very dark.
I think back on that time. It's like it's so dark. And I mean, dark, like So emotions are all colored. Like emotions have colors. That one is dark gray. For me. It's yeah, it's bad. That period of time in our lives where we you were walking away from me in so sad. But your head was up and you were still walking. And I was back there last night. I was like, I'm gonna lose her. I know, I'm gonna lose her. And that's what
got me sober. But I think the beauty in it is I know what would have happened, what that story would have looked like if I never did, I probably would have been dead within a couple of years. You would have been heartbroken. Sure. You would have had compassion for what I was dealing with. But you also would have been incredibly upset with me angry with me. Yes. But you would have carried on you would have moved on like, Listen, I got to I have to have to for me to do for my children.
That's another piece to like, consider the fact that kids are involved in this. Man, we've talked about what does to families what it does to children. You don't want this person influencing your children. Right? It's not healthy. Not healthy at all. So consider that as well. Maybe that's
motivation. Yeah. And then we start taking on those toxic traits too. And it can be passed on to our kids. Yeah, that's what was happening with me. Totally different episode.
We'll get there. Alright, so hope this was helpful. Yeah, hope this was in some way enlightening. Hope it was inspiring for some. I hope that it was okay. Rational Yeah, really at the end of the day is what I hope it was right. But thank you for being here with us. Thank you for, for always being there. I think that we do
this for you guys. And every time we hear from someone every time we get an email every time we get a message that someone learned something or someone's changed the behaviors or things are getting better, or it woke their spouse up and they're they're working toward recovery. Like, we can't tell you guys how much that means to us. Yeah, it's beautiful. Really, like it's it's insane to think that something good came of this. Yeah, this situation that I created. Well helps on our
recovery, too. Yeah, it strengthens our recovery as well. So it's like it's not it's beautifully selfish in some ways. You know, it's incredible. Thank you all for being here. And we love you all. Till next time. I am Matt.
Bye