I've stopped financially enabling my A and mostly have a good handle on detachment, now I'm wondering how "with love" comes into this. Might be I'm just letting his negative attitude get to me (what a shocker that would be!) and I'm actually doing ok with this part as well... I'm not sure. Recently our interactions have consisted solely of him asking me to do something for him (= enabling) and me saying no, then him being mad at me. I'm proud of my progress and very, very grateful I found Alanon :) I'm finally letting him do his own life while I do mine, as much as I'm capable at the moment, but now I'm thinking that maybe I haven't really been very loving in all this. Maybe its just that I don't really have much in the way of positive feelings for the whole thing that's going on between us now, because at the moment disease is big an ugly. I feel some degree of wishing to control comes into this too - the thought that if only I will be loving enough while remaining detached, he'll see I mean well and won't blame me for doing what I do and we'll have some sort of mutual non-negative normalcy in our dubious relationship... Writing this down makes it clear to me that this indeed has been the case, and I've been projecting as well... Because it might very well be there's absolutely nothing I can presently improve upon that would make him change his mind about me and my choices and understand me. I suppose this confusion is all part of my disease, and I must simply continue to mind my own business and stop being impatient - that need to know "what's going on" is strong. I suppose I can't get to any better answer than - he's an A with all it entails. Maybe you have some ESH on the subject of "detaching with love" vs. simply "detaching"... The nuances in difference between the two are pretty lost to me. Thank you all for being here.

I think for me sometimes the best thing to do was work it backwards .. yes .. detaching with love is the end goal .. for sake of sanity sometimes just detaching is a far healthier response until I am able to get some better tools to deal with the situation at hand. Sometimes I need to look at the situation from a distance and figure out what my part is before proceeding.

My daughter and her college. My part of her college tuition is to send an email to my mom and let her know what the final total is. However HER job is to communicate that amount to me. It's been driving me batty and I have had to sit on my hands a couple of times .. and remind myself it's still not legal to eat my own young. This is a learn on the go process for me too. So next semester I have already let her know since I did the first one .. she's having these conversations with her grandma .. not me! LOL. I'm ok with that and that for me is detaching with love .. I'm not angry .. there is no ill will .. anything she needs to ask me I will answer .. however the work is hers to do. She did all of the work for her scholarships, grants and so on .. so I am incredibly grateful for that one.

I couldn't do that with my XAH .. to me he was mentally impaired on brain damaged level which translated to he's an idiot and I know better .. LOL .. yah .. not so feeling love there. Trust me I didn't know much better and I don't have the "issues" he has, .. sooo .. I have learned not to expect to much from him. The less I expect the less I am disappointed and the more I accept this is who he is which is on him. I'm still working on the detaching with love with him .. I prefer to detach with a sledge hammer .. sigh .. still working on that one. The sledge hammer with him is a good for me .. so that for me is an example of just detaching. I would do more damage and I would suffer more frustration explaining how it all worked.

This has helped me in my other relationships. Learning to accept people where they are and to allow them the dignity and grace to learn the lessons they need to learn. From time to time I have to gently shove people out of my hula hoop .. however .. I think that just goes with testing boundaries and do I mean what I say. People are human and will always test that avenue.

Hugs it gets easier. Yes .. minding my own business .. I forget who actually said this quote .. if more people got busy minding their own business they would have less time to worry about other people's business. I find that truer today than ever.

S :)

Thanks for your ESH, Serenity. I chuckled about sometimes wanting to eat your young :D What a thought! Lol. Oh, I'm glad I shared here today, my mind seems to have gotten clearer now. More will be revealed, I'm sure.

For me, I found three different types of detachment, vis a vis the person, the scenario, the relationship, etc.

First, there was simple detachment -- period -- and I detached because of or due to survival. I had to. I had to detach just to survive.

Second, there was detachment with compassion and understanding. I got it. Really got it. I mastered acceptance and truly understood what acceptance meant. I was able to detach and allow the person to do what they chose to do, wanted to do, had to do, etc., and I accepted that there was nothing I could do about it. I had compassion for the other person as they had a disease. I understood -- what that disease really meant, and did. When I was in it -- I had seen and been through it all -- so now having compassion and understanding, I was able to be healthy around detaching.

Third, there was detach with love. I didn't have to be in love with the person. I didn't even have to love them. It was love as a state of mind, a state of feeling, that I was able to be there for the person, in a caring, loving, supportive, healthy way -- and yet not be "in it" with them. The way a doctor shows compassion, and feeling, and to some extent love for a person, a patient, yet is able to keep doing what they need to do as a doctor. Detached love as some have called it.

More to follow. Gotta run. LOL.

Detaching with love for me came with acceptance of alcoholism as a disease. Still some sadness of course, but not a hurt. That acceptance came with time and attendance at both the rooms of aa and alanon. Its all a process, we don't ever arrive in my view, rather we commit to always being in the state of arriving. Keep coming back.

there are just SOME people and SOME crimes they do where "detachment with love" wold not only be unrealistic for me but an insult to me as well.....NOW!! that said, I am striving to detach w/out hate....detach w/out rancor, resentment, revenge...leave them to karma and move on.....I am human with a human finite mind and capacity of forgiveness......I was in a support group for folks who suffered my type of crime and she said (she was psychologist who ran the group along with her husband who was nearly as good as she) anyway, she told me, "no worries" forgiveness is a by product o recovery...the BIG thing is to come to the place where you can forgive YOU for being a helpless, defenseless child.......detach with love is for the "every day" human crap and the disease, well??? there is AA and help for them....they CAN reach out...they CAN want to get better....the operative word is WILLINGNESS and DESIRE to be a better human being....I have more compassion than I used to because addiction is a bitch...BUT...the large numbers of us who "get honest" and get our rear ends into recovery, we "get honest---willing---open" and we are willing to do anything to manage our issues, if not send them into remission, at least my stuff I am managing because I am in SOME sort of therapy, program, self discovery EVERY DAY.......Just saying

Hey Aline - I was told by my sponsor that I can detach with indifference....until I could detach with love. I agree that time in recovery and working the steps took me from indifference to with love. For me, in your scenario, detaching with indifference would be to avoid the calls and requests completely. I view your actions as detaching with love as you are answering, listening, responding kindly...

It's difficult when you're in the moment - love doesn't have to mean deep, want to hang, etc. As we learn to keep it simple, love is mutual respect and kindness. In my world, I know better than to give out cash to mine when they are active...if they are broke and need gas for a job, I'll go to the gas station and put gas in the tank. If they are broke and hungry, I'll take them to feed them. When this has happened, my sponsor suggests it's no longer service if I deliver a sermon during the outing! Yet, compassion and service does include doing for others what they can't do for themselves and these are examples where I was able to take action without enabling.

Working the program has given me the tools and ability to forgive and accept that which I never felt could be or would be forgivable. The miracle of a spiritual journey is we are given all that we need to let the past go and live in the present. Being in recovery on the other side forces me/us to work out our resentments/anger as it's the number one offender for relapse. Other people may be able to hold onto these or work on them at a slower pace but for me, I had to truly work on these hard and fast...my morning prayers request includes, "Please keep me sober, sane, serene and of service." The order is for a reason - if I don't stay sober, the rest are irrelevant to my journey.

You're doing great - what I found to be true is the more I said No and stuck to my boundary, the less they asked - they finally believed the answer was going to align with my boundaries so they went about their business of getting what they wanted from others or going without...keep doing you, keep it simple and you've got this!!

Thank you all for your ESH. I can see that it really boils down to acceptance + trusting my own judgment about my motives. Hugs

Loved your share el-cee, thank you... I also used to think that loving someone meant taking care of them, doing things for them etc., and it got me to craziness and loss of myself. Funny, now I remember telling my ex-abf that my love for him is evident because I do x, w and z. He told me then that he didn't think loving someone meant taking care of them, necessarily. Sometimes an alcoholic is saner than a co-dependent, I've had several of these realizations since beginning recovery.