When Should One Detach with Love?
A few examples of how I have applied this concept across a broad spectrum of relationships
This essay began as a long reply in a back-and-forth comment thread between me and my wonderful new friend and mentee Priyanka Priyadarshini. In the short time we have worked together, her stories have gained much depth. She makes me very proud and I am very fond of her.
Two days ago ILLUMINATION published this story of hers.¹
Priyanka’s story poses many questions that too many people have to wrestle with, such as:
If you love someone and they don’t love you back and you are still loving them?
Let me tell you,
It is not LOVE. It is WORSHIP. [I commented that it might be infatuation and referred to this great piece, Infatuation, Five Devious Syllables by Ulf Wolf]
How does it feel to love someone endlessly and not receive even an inch of it?
What could be the reasons people remain in unrequited love and how to cope with it?
Priyanka lists and expands articulately upon these reasons: 1) Self-doubt and low self-esteem, 2) Hope, 3) Denial, 4) Excuses, and 5) Illusions.
Priyanka states:
People don’t understand the simple fact that trying to love someone excessively or sacrificing everything to be with them will likely have negative consequences and won’t necessarily lead to the love you hope for.
If you or a friend or a loved are or may one day be faced with this, I urge you to read the entire essay.
I commented:
As many of your points dance around, one who stays in unrequited love is a codependent who does not have enough self love to maintain autonomy. One can detach with love from the other person. People think they need to stay attached to respect the love. That is problematic thinking and too much self-sacrifice.
Priyanka replied:
This self-sacrifice point is very strong. That’s what most people should understand. There is no point in sacrificing one’s self for something worthless.
I thought worthless sounded a bit strong and decided to show that without explicitly saying so. I shall now expand upon my lengthy reply.
About three years ago my ex-wife upset me terribly. I don’t remember the conversation we were having — I was probably talking about my mental and emotional state, and she said to me with a not-nice and rather mean and unsympathetic tone, “why, because you’re still in love with a dead girl?!”²
I told or more likely yelled at her don’t speak to me unless it may concern the kids. I didn’t talk to her for a while. I considered never talking to her again unless it would be about our kids. Rama advised me to weigh the positives and negatives of the relationship. If it’s a net positive for me, maintain relations. If it’s a net negative, then detach with love. I forgave her for the comment and we have a very good ex-spouse and co-parent-based friendship. I often stay with her and the kids at their apartment when I visit NYC. Sometimes on the phone I even tell her that I love her (she knows I don’t mean in love).
A couple of months later I used the same analysis to break off relations with my father. Even after I forgave him I still maintained the break. I didn’t speak to him for almost two years. I explain why I picked up the phone and dialed him in January 2022 here:
That was a one-time call necessitated by the circumstances. I still do not communicate with him unless we are with the rest of the family.
I applied the same analysis last June that resulted in my ceasing being an editor for all the Illumination Integrated Publications (net energy drain) but maintained a Medium friendship with Mehmet which is now very much a high vibrational energy gain and I enjoy building bridges between people through his essays.
So you see, Rama’s advice to me applies across the spectrum of all types of relationships.
Looking back through my profile for the story about me calling my dad, which I had thought occurred in the summer of 2021, I came upon a poem of mine with which I shall conclude this essay.
Diana C.’s genius self-reflection 50-in-50 challenge contained these two prompts:
14. How can you actively train your capacity to receive and give love?
15. How can you liberate your fiercest, loving nature?
I responded by publishing this dizain³ poem that begins with thoughts about self-love.
I must unconditionally love me Unleashing infinite capacity Love without judgment — full into-me-see Tough love with strength of full veracity Soul and animus in complicity Mother states love for her children thusly Yet she can’t see past codependency I never asked her to father son choose My mark of Cain transcends such lunacy When we howl at the moon we all just lose
You can find the decoder ring here.
Notes:
¹By the way, this further demonstrates the value that Illumination Integrated Publications provides as a platform for the growth of writers and its readers, which apparently has once again been questioned by elitist publications with unscrupulous motives. See this Illumination Bulletin and this essay by one of its fine staff members, The Sturg. “Once again” refers to a 2020 attack that I later exposed in my J’Accuse… ! (the title being an homage to Emile Zola’s role in exposing the Dreyfus Affair) as scapegoating and actionable defamation.
²I still and always will be and today is the three-year deathiversary. St. Patrick’s Day is no longer fun and games for me. I published this haiku terza rima sonnet on Tuesday in response to Ravyne Hawke’s Moody Monday prompt from this week's set:
Today is Tuesday Feels like a moody Monday Why is that you ask? Somewhere over the rainbow Grief pockets stand in my way
Magical fairies St. Patrick’s Days of my youth Now wear the Claddagh Eternal love and friendship My patron saint is Lindsey
Deaths on every day Christmas, Chanukah, birthdays How to honor all Amidst all such joyful noise Say a prayer for the dead
Lori replied yesterday: “It can definitely be difficult to find joy during a holiday when you lose someone so close to you on it, as you did with Lindsay. It can now be a day to honor her and that love.”
As it so happens, I shed many tears a few days ago but then I decided to turn today into a celebration of her life and our love. I scheduled a call with her soul via my channeler, Anne, and now I am looking forward to the rest of today. Our call is in an hour. We are connected at some level all day every day and especially when I sleep she gets to chat with my soul (Marcus). When I connect to her through Anne, she is really present with me for 24 hours and she can experience some of my senses — smell and taste what I smell so I usually take her out to dinner. The last time we pulled her in was two weeks ago. Something really magical happened that day with another Medium writer, Brooklyn Muse (editor), as the messenger. Out of the blue, she sent me a song and said it was from Lindsey. I wrote a haiku terza rima sonnet about that as well.
³One ten-line stanza. Ten syllables per line. Employs the following rhyme scheme: ababbccdcd
In Rama I create, with soul energy surging through my body, inspiring me and breathing wind into my sails,
