“We may think rebelliously: ‘How can they expect me to detach from my own wife or husband? Our lives are bound together and I am involved, whether I want to be or not.’” (ODAT, 10 May)
I happen to be married, but I would not say our lives are bound together. I have many independent aspects of my life. He, his. Then there are joint aspects, generally with joint responsibility.
Exactly how affairs are divided up between the three domains (his, mine, and joint) can be varied. If something does not work very well when we insist on doing something, we can separate that area.
There’s a great deal one can do to detach, practically, even within a marriage. For instance, I do not have joint finances with my other half. I run the household and bill him twice a year for his half.
Then, there are the practices of patience and tolerance; there is the tool of making a polite request if someone’s behaviour is particularly intrusive; there is the passive resistance to going along with certain schemes.
Emotionally, however, detachment is on a separate scale than involvement. One can be thoroughly emotionally tied up in a situation occurring across the globe and entirely detached in relation to the person right next to you.
Then there’s leaving altogether. There’s always a way. History teaches that.