The best ways to detach from a loved one

When your relationships begin to flounder, it might be time to tap into the practice of detachment.

by: E.B. Johnson

The people that we love add color and dimension to our lives. They offer us perspective and support, and they bolster us emotionally when things get tough. Sometimes those relationships are more of a challenge than a benefit, however. Just because we love someone doesn’t mean they are good or healthy for us. It’s possible to be surrounded by toxic or poisonous people. In those moments, we must find the strength to detach and move forward safely toward our own dreams and ambitions.

Love is no excuse for suffering at the hands of another person. Whether our loved ones engage in abuse, or we just grow apart and away from one another in conflicting ways — we can only move forward toward happiness by getting serious about protecting our wellbeing. Do you and your partner have misaligned values? Do you find yourself fighting and avoiding your loved one? Or neglecting your own needs in the name of their life’s journey? It might be time to detach and see to your own hope and happiness for a while.

Love is never an excuse for suffering.

Many of us have developed this idea that love is something which means personal sacrifice — whatever the cost. Terms like “ride or die” elicit dreams of standing beside the people we love, even as they drag us down into misery and chaos. While this ideal might be noble in theory, it’s quite toxic in practice. No matter how much we love someone, it is never an excuse for suffering. We deserve to be happy, but that often requires that we detach from toxic loved ones.

Detaching from someone doesn’t necessarily mean burning bridges or removing ourselves completely from a person or environment. When we detach from someone, we simply remove the emotional bond and responsibility we feel toward them. It implies a state of neutrality, rather than a state of absence, and once we accept that it transforms our lives and our relationships.

You can detach from someone slowly, and you can even do it without removing them from your life entirely (if that’s not an option). However you choose to go about safeguarding your mental, physical and emotional wellbeing, there are a few basic techniques that can get you started without detonating the world you’ve come to know and find comfort in. Look to your future with joy and understand that you deserve to be loved and valued. Once you’ve accepted that, you’ll see the reality of where you stand.

When it becomes necessary to cut the cord.

There are different levels of detaching and different reasons behind our need to put some space in-between ourselves and a loved one. Sometimes, we might have to detach completely from someone who is abusive to us. At other moments, we simply have to get a little space from someone we’ve become overly reliant on. It all comes down to our unique needs and situations.

Abuse in any form

Abuse — be it emotional, sexual, or physical — is never acceptable and always a sign that it’s time to detach. We cannot “fix” abusers, and we cannot change them. They are the only people who can change themselves, but only after extensive work and considerable effort. It’s not an overnight process, though it’s one that’s often promised to us that way.

Misaligned values

The values that we hold are important. Our values guide us and help to point us in the direction of the people and experiences that bring us joy and fulfillment. When we fail to align our values and our integrity with those who fill the space in our lives, we can find that we begin to move in vastly different directions. Values and integrity determine what direction you’re taking toward your future.

Growing apart

Our need to detach doesn’t always come down to some toxic trait or tragic mishap. Sometimes, it simply comes down to a natural growing apart which can result in pain, misunderstanding and confusion. Even when our relationships start out like a fairy tale, people change and the things we want changes as well. Maybe there’s no abuse or uproar. Maybe you just need to detach and pursue the things you’re better suited to in the current moment.

Different needs

Part of building a workable and long-lasting partnership requires that we align our needs across a number of planes. When it comes to a romantic partnership, we need to make sure that our physical, emotional and intimate needs are all within similar realms. Failing to do that can result in a major disconnection, and dysfunction that results in toxic behavior on both sides.

Dependent moods

Have you become completely dependent on your partner? Do your moods exist entirely around their own moods, or their perspective on the world around them? When you discover that you’ve become overly dependent on your partner, friend, loved one, or spouse — it’s time to detach and create some space for yourself. This is not to say you have to cut them out forever. But it does mean you need to rediscover your independence.

Neglecting your dreams

Consider the state of your future goals. Are you over compromising or turning away from the truth paths of fulfillment (in the name of your relationship with that person)? You might quit going to pottery class because they tell you that you’re no good at pottery. Or you might drop that dream of finishing your college degree because you’ve become convinced that you have to sacrifice your happiness in the name of theirs.

The best ways to detach from a partner or loved one.

Ready to stop neglecting your needs, or accepting less than you deserve? You can detach from a loved one, even if it seems like the hardest thing in the world. Open yourself up to reality and commit to creating a life that brings you joy and authenticity. Then you’ll find the courage that you need to move forward in faith and confidence.

1. Swan dive into reality

Before you can do anything about your toxic relationship or your toxic loved one, you have to have a full understanding (and acceptance) of your reality. You have to stop sugarcoating the truth, and you have to take off the rose-tinted glasses. Embrace the way you feel, embrace the actions of the other person and the impact they make on your everyday reality.

Think of this step like ripping off a bandage. There’s no use tiptoeing around the truth when it’s only leaving you alienated, unhappy, or in danger of losing who you are. It’s time to swan dive into reality in order to cultivate the acceptance you need to detach. Stop running from the truth. Drop the excuses and shine a light on who the other person truly is.

You don’t have to confront them or make a dramatic scene. Simply watch them and take note of their behaviors and how your emotions respond to them. Look out for manipulative and abusive behavior. Look out for instances of belittlement or undermining. Keep track of these instances and carve out a day each week to reflect over their actions and your subsequent physical and emotional reactions to those behaviors.

2. Examine your motivations

You really need to understand your own motivations when it comes to hanging on to someone who isn’t good for you. Toxic or unhealthy relationships happen within an equation. On one side, we have the actions and behaviors of the other person. On the next side, we have our own behaviors and allowances. Put them together and you get a heady brew and the nasty results that disrupt and upset our lives.

Examine your motivations. Once you’ve found the courage to identify the other person’s shortfalls, have the courage to look for your own. What items in your past are feeding the allowances that are causing you to hold on to this damaging person. Do you feel you have something to prove? Are you looking for love and validation?

After answering questions like these, we can look to our pasts for the reasons behind these self-limiting beliefs and behaviors. Past pain, relationships and trauma can go a long way to inform the way we connect and bond with others in the right here-and-now. Don’t just look for blame on one side of the equation. Relationships are a complex formula that require a number of ingredients in order to be successful or a complete failure.

3. Lean slowly into personal space

Personal space is priceless when it comes to detaching and learning how to stand up for ourselves. The more personal space we cultivate, the more time and energy we have for ourselves and our own personal care and fulfillment. When we lean into personal space, we get back in touch with our individuality, our dreams, and the authentic paths to joy that can bring us back to the futures we were always meant to manifest.

Find a way to lean slowly into your personal space, even if that just starts with 15 minutes in the shower with the door locked every morning. Use this time to really be present in your own body and focused on your own thoughts and emotions. Build up a routine of “me time” that allows you to get back to the root of who you are.

You can also increase this time and fill it with pastimes and experiences that you enjoy. Take a class, get back into that sport that you enjoy. As you spend more and more time with yourself, you’ll get back in touch with all those strengths and skills that make you feel confident and self-possessed. You’ll also make new social connections, and through those connections come to see yourself in an entirely new light outside of your toxic relationship.

4. Focus on the people who bring joy

When we start focusing on the people who bring us joy (or the people who encourage us to be better) we can find that there’s not a lot of time and energy for those who aren’t good for us. This is because our lives come with a finite amount of space in them. The more you fill that space with people you love, but people who don’t return that same love or value — the less room there is for those who would truly honor a relationship with you.

Rather than committing all your energy and all your efforts inward on a person or a partnership that’s unfulfilling, look outward to people who make your life better. Lean into your support networks. Open up to those people who want the best for you and listen to what they have to say.

Value these people. Be grateful for them. Understand that — no matter what facet of your life they inhabit — they have so much more to offer you than pain, brokenness and unhappiness. Stop chasing all the wrong people so that you can make space for the right people. Focus on what you want your relationships and your social circles to look like, then take action to manifest those circles by really giving yourself the people you need around you.

5. Master the gray rock method

While you can lean into personal space, it’s not always possible to cultivate this into a total emotional and physical detachment. If the toxic loved one in your life is a permanent or inescapable fixture, there are still ways you can protect yourself and detach from their ability to do you harm. Primary among these is the gray rock method — a technique which removes power from the inescapable bullies in our lives.

The gray rock method is one which involves becoming completely and totally emotionally unresponsive to the prodding of a bully or toxic person. More often than not, a harmful individual seeks power over us by attacking us through our emotional responses. When they don’t get the response they want, these individuals usually move on and set their sights on a new victim or “target”.

In order for you to engage in this tactic, you have to remove your emotions and your responses from this person. Limit your interactions with them when you can, and (if possible) avoid them all together. If you can’t, give them minimal or short responses and never feed them info that is meaningful to you. Think of yourself as a gray rock. Boring, bland, and completing without anything interesting to offer the person who would use it against you.

Putting it all together…

As much as we might love someone, it might still become necessary to detach from them emotionally. This might come down to natural divides, or it might come down to abusive and toxic behavior that undermines your overall happiness. However it happens, it’s up to us to protect ourselves and the happiness of our relationships by taking action in the name of our needs.

Rip off the bandaid and swan-dive into reality. Until you accept the toxic and harmful person for the effects they have on your life and self-esteem, you’ll never be able to move forward effectively. Examine your own motivations and look for the deeper reasons behind why you allow them to treat you poorly or with contempt. Sometimes, toxic people take advantage of us because they are able to capitalize on unresolved pain from our pasts. Get some perspective and lean slowly into your own personal space, away from this harmful person and the emotional hold they have over you and your psyche. The more space you get, the better equipped you are to set some boundaries and protect yourself. Focus on the people who give you joy, and when all else fails look to the gray rock method to safeguard your mental and emotional wellbeing. When we commit to these techniques, we can detach from their poisonous behavior and find better ways to build the futures we’re dreaming of.