Emotional Detachment After Divorce 2.0

Your ex doesn’t have to change for you to feel steady again. If a late pickup, a snippy text, or a comment in front of the kids emotionally hijacks your entire day, it can feel like he still has a remote control to your emotional life even years after divorce. I'm talking about how to take that remote back for good, without becoming numb, cold, or pretending to be “fine” all the time.

I redefine emotional detachment after divorce as a practice of keeping your side of the street clean: you manage your emotions and choices, and you stop trying to manage his. You’ll hear why negative emotions are not a problem, why detachment is not the same as letting things slide, and how you can care deeply about your kids and still stop needing your ex to show up a certain way for you to be okay. This is emotional freedom, not emotional shutdown.

Then we get practical with tools you can use in the exact moment you’re activated. We break down the difference between a nervous system response and a normal emotional reaction, why thought work won’t help when you’re in fight flight freeze, and how grounding or somatic regulation brings your prefrontal cortex back online. After that, we use a powerful coaching concept called “the manual” to spot the hidden shoulds and expectations fueling your suffering and to decide what to do next, including boundaries that protect you without trying to control him.

If you’re ready to stop spiraling, rebuild self-trust, and feel like yourself again after divorce, subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a quick review where you listen.

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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR EDUCATIONAL, INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND ARE NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING PSYCHOLOGICAL, COUNSELING OR PROFESSIONAL HEALTHCARE ADVICE. 

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Transcript

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Welcome And The Remote Control

Karin Nelson 0:00

Welcome to Becoming You Again. This is the podcast for divorcing and divorced women who want to stop feeling controlled by their ex's moods, choices, and opinions and start building an emotional life that's actually theirs. I'm your host, Karin Nelson. I'm a divorce coach with a passion for helping women reconnect to their own power, their own intuition, and their own peace, no matter what their ex is doing or not doing. In today's episode, I am talking about why so many of us, even years out after the divorce, are still handing our ex the remote control to our emotional life and how you can take back that remote control for good. Let's get started. Welcome to Becoming You Again, the podcast where you learn to step into your power as a woman in this world, where you learn to reconnect to your wholeness, your integrity, and bring into alignment your brain, your body, and your intuition after divorce. This is the podcast where you learn to trust yourself again and move forward toward a life that you truly want. You are listening to Becoming You Again, and I am your host, Karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast, all of you amazing women. We are in week three of the Ex-Files. In the last couple of episodes, I have talked about what happens after he moves on. I've talked about how to heal after betrayal. And today I am talking about the episode that I get asked about more than any other episode, which is emotional detachment. Four years ago, I recorded the episode titled Emotional Detachment After Divorce. And it is to this day the most downloaded episode in the history of the podcast. So today I wanted to give it the update that it deserves because over those four over these last four years, I have learned much more about why it is so hard to actually live this out and not just understand what I'm talking about like logically, but actually to implement this idea into your life. So let's first talk about what emotional detachment actually means. Because I think that this word gets kind of misunderstood. Emotional detachment doesn't mean you're just turning cold or you're just going numb or you're just pretending like you don't care about anybody else's feelings. It's not becoming a robot who doesn't feel anything because you're emotionally exhausted and you're tired of feeling

What Emotional Detachment Really Means

Karin Nelson 2:30

things. It's it's not pretending like you don't feel something when your ex does something that's infuriating or does something that would send you spinning or ruminating for three days. That is not what we're going for. That's not even possible. I want you to feel emotions. I want you to be a human. I don't want you to turn into a robot and just pretend like you're not feeling things. Like that is not the point of emotional detachment. And so if you pictured that that's what this episode was going to teach you, I just want to like set the record straight right now. That is not what I'm going to be talking about because emotional detachment is just a practice of you keeping your side of the street clean in terms of like managing your own emotions and you letting your ex manage his side of the street. Okay. We're gonna be like Taylor Swift in this and just learn to keep our side of the street clean and let him keep his side clean, right? Or not clean. He can do whatever what he can do whatever he wants with his side of the street, but it is not your job to try and manage that. And it is not your job to let him try and manage yours. Okay. Okay, so basically, like it's the practice of letting your ex's moods, his choices, his opinions of you stop being the thing that runs your emotional life. That's it. It doesn't mean you're gonna care less. It doesn't mean you're gonna stop feeling negative emotion forever because you never want to feel something negative again. It's okay to feel negative emotions. Nothing has actually gone wrong when you feel a negative emotion. It's about and it's not, and it's also not about like just feeling peaceful at all times, no matter what your ex is doing or saying. Like, not everything in life is happy. Not everything in life should feel peaceful. There are things that happen, circumstances that happen around us that we don't want to feel good about, that we don't want to feel peaceful about. And that's okay. That doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong. And there's my little Charlie baby, Kitty saying hi. Uh, that just means that like that's part of life. Negative emotions are part of life, and it's not a problem. But this episode is also about like not needing your ex to show up in a certain way for you to feel okay. But it's also this idea of like not needing him to show up or say a certain thing so that you can feel okay. Like these are very different things, and we get mixed up about them and about what detachment means. And so I just don't want you to think that it means you're gonna go numb or you're not gonna feel negative emotion, you're just gonna feel peaceful all the time. That isn't what it's about, but it is about learning to manage your own emotional life and not handing it over to your ex or anything else outside of you in order to do that. So if you haven't listened to the original episode, you might want to go back and listen to it because I'm not really going to like teach exactly what I taught in that. Like I said, this is 2.0. So I'm gonna like go kind of beyond that. But I'll give you like a quick refresher. And again, if you haven't listened to it, it's a pretty short episode, but I do recommend

Thoughts Create Feelings Refresher

Karin Nelson 5:45

go back and listen to that. So the quick refresher is it is not what your ex does or doesn't do, his actions, his behaviors that create your feelings. It's what you are thinking about his actions. Like his actions, what he does, what he doesn't do, that's a circumstance. Like he's late for pickup. He texts you something like really bratty or snippy. He brings up something from the marriage in front of the kids. And then your brain has a thought about that, about that circumstance. That thought is what produces the feeling that you are having in your body. Not him, it's what you think about. It's like the story that you tell yourself about that thing. And when you can actually genuinely like understand this concept, it can be truly life-changing because it means that you do not have to be like a hostage to whatever mood your ex happens to be in that day. You get to be the one that decides what you want to make his behavior mean. But here's what I wanted to add in this specific episode, the 2.0. And it's more about like you can understand this concept intellectually, and this episode is about actually being able to use it in the middle of like these activating moments and in your everyday life. So I'm gonna give you more tools to be able to use this in real time.

Nervous System Versus Emotional Reaction

Karin Nelson 7:20

I first want to talk about the distinction between a nervous system response and an emotional reaction caused by the story that's happening in your head, right? What I just talked about, the thoughts creating the feelings that you're having in your body, right? Because we can have both, right? Sometimes when you are experiencing a nervous system response, thought work alone is not going to do anything because your brain is like not even fully online in those moments. And I talk about this in lots of other podcast episodes. If you haven't listened to many of my episodes, you should definitely check them out. If you're not really sure where to start, besides the one that I told you about, the first emotional detachment, I have a podcast map that is free and it will take you through exactly like the 20 best first episodes to listen to. My episodes are not very long. They're like between, I don't know, 15 and 25 minutes at the most. So you can find a link in the description, or you can go to my website, Karin NelsonCaching.com, and get your free podcast map today. Which is kind of a funny thing to be offering this free podcast map while you're listening to the podcast. But if this is your first time here and you've never listened to any episodes, this is the perfect way to know exactly where to start. I have like over 270 episodes, and that might feel overwhelming. So this map can tell you exactly where to start. And I know in my map that I have put in there how to like what your nervous system is, when it's activated, how to re-regulate it. And I talk about all of that, and the map will walk you through that. So that was kind of a side tangent there. But I do want you to understand that there is a difference between when your nervous system is activated and when you're just having an emotional response. And learning to tell the difference between the two can be pretty useful because if you're having a nervous system response, thought work is going to be really difficult to help you out of that. But if you're just having a regular emotional response, thought work can be super, super helpful and useful. So one way that you can tell the difference between the two is if you're just having an emotional response, even if it's an intense one, it will tend to be localized to specific spots in your body. Like you might feel it in your chest, you might feel it in your throat, you might feel it in your stomach. But you can still kind of think. You can still kind of logic somewhere in there, right? You maybe aren't at your calmest, but your prefrontal cortex hasn't completely gone offline. And your prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain that's like logic, problem solving, it's still reachable. But a nervous system response feels different. It's almost like a full body intensity. Your whole system floods at once. You might have your heart racing, your chest is tight, your mind goes blank, you feel like you can't think straight, you feel like you can't speak or say the words that you want to speak and get those out. You might shut down, you might go numb, you might go quiet. It's it's hard to like actually think and feel and understand what's happening all at once because it's like a whole body thing. This is when you're amygdala, the like survival part of your brain is showing up and it is deciding, is this a threat? Because if it is, I need to get into fight, fight, or freeze. And it's really hard to do thought work in that state, rightly so. Like that's your body and your brain like showing up to protect you. They think there's an actual threat going on and it is just trying to keep you alive. Whether or not you actually need like there is an actual outside threat, it doesn't matter. Your brain and your body don't know that. So if you're in a nervous system response, we gotta, we gotta like ground ourselves and create some kind of somatic practice to get us out of that to be able to bring our back our brain back online, our prefrontal cortex back online. But if you're just having a regular emotional response, this is where thought work is really going to be useful.

Grounding First Then Thought Work

Karin Nelson 11:30

So if you're having a nervous system response, ground yourself, regulate your nervous system first, splash cold water on your face, run your hands under cold water or warm water, get your body back into the state where your prefrontal cortex is back online. And that's when your thought work is going to become accessible. So don't skip this step if you're having a nervous system response. You can even do it with an emotional, like just a regular emotional response. It's also very useful to get back into the present moment. But we want the thought work to be able to work because that is where all of our power lies in terms of emotional detachment.

Detachment Without Becoming Cold

Karin Nelson 12:10

Okay. So, like I said a little a few minutes ago, people often ask me, women often ask me, well, if I'm emotionally detaching, does that mean that I just don't care? Like, what about my kids? How do I like support them through the divorce? And if I'm emotionally detached, I don't want to like not be there for them. Again, this is not what I mean by emotional detachment. It just means that like you're not gonna stop advocating for yourself. You're not gonna stop noticing red flags, you're not gonna stop caring about your kids and how they're doing through the divorce. You're not gonna like make it easier for your ex to just walk all over you. All it is is you don't, you're not handing the um the remote control of your emotional life over to your ex anymore. You're taking it back and you're keeping it in complete control for yourself. So, like you are detached from needing your ex to understand where you're coming from, or to hear your side of the argument, or needing him to apologize, or needing him to not be upset, or needing him to appreciate your boundaries, or just stop speaking to you in that way. Like, you don't need him to do anything to create how you want to feel. Uh detachment is going to change your internal relationship to his behavior. And it does not mean that you are going to accept mistreatment from him. It does not mean that you're not going to set boundaries. It just means that you are going to understand that you don't need him to show up in any sort of certain kind of way for you to be able to feel the way you want to feel. Okay, so how do we take back that remote

The Manual Tool And Expectations

Karin Nelson 13:50

control? These are the practical steps that I'm going to walk you through. The next time you notice your ex like does something and you start to immediately feel a certain way, meaning your mood has shifted entirely because of something he said or something he did or didn't do, this is where we stop and pause. Okay. Pause and do a quick body scan. Where am I feeling this? This is when we check in to see, okay, what kind of emotional response am I having? Is it everywhere at once? Because if it is, then I need to do a grounding exercise. I'm having a nervous system reaction. Or if it's more contained, like, okay, my stomach is churning. I'm feeling some anxiety. Okay, that's an emotional response, right? So if it's full-bodied, we're gonna regulate. Don't try to think your way out of it. Just do a grounding practice or a somatic practice and get present. Then once your brain, your logical brain, that prefrontal cortex is back online, that is when you're gonna look for the manual. This is a concept that I learned from the coach that I just went through a training with, Carl Loenthiel. But it's really, really useful. And basically, a manual, we all have manuals for every relationship, every person that we have in our lives. And basically, like a manual is just meaning like it's these unwritten rules that we think everybody else around us should be living by, right? We have one for our kids, we have one for our parents, we have one for our friends, we definitely have one for our ex. Okay. So we ask yourself, like, what is the rule that I think that he just broke? Like, what do I have written in my manual, the thing that I think he should be doing or he shouldn't have done, right? Like he should have picked up the kids on time. He should communicate like an adult. He should have just said thank you. He should not have brought that up in front of the kids. Like, those are the rules that we have written down. It usually has the word should somewhere in there of like a normal, rational person would do this thing, and that is what I think right now. And I am ruling everything that all of his behaviors and actions by this one thing. Okay. So look for that. Recognize what that manual is in the moment. And then this is the key to a manual. Recognize that your way of thinking is not the way everybody thinks. This doesn't mean that your standard is unreasonable. It doesn't mean that you have to stop thinking that way. Right. I'm not telling you that your manual means, okay, now you can't think that anymore. Of course you can. Like it might be the thing that we all agree. Yeah, he should be doing that. Yeah, he shouldn't have said that. Like, it's okay for all of us to agree. And it's also okay to recognize that not everybody else lives by these rules. So it is a completely fair thing to want a person to show up in this way, but it's still your set of expectations, and he is not bound by those expectations, whether or not we believe that he should or shouldn't be, right? And so this is just to purely help you recognize where a lot of the suffering that you are feeling is coming from. It's not coming from whether he did or didn't do these things. It's coming from the idea that he should or shouldn't be doing these things, right? Uh being able to see the difference between the two is where you're going to find some relief from the suffering that you are feeling, from the pain and the negative emotions that you are feeling. Now, I really want to make this clear. This idea of the manual, this

Boundaries Without Accepting Mistreatment

Karin Nelson 17:55

theory, it is not to be used as an excuse for abuse or tolerating mistreatment of any kind. I'm not saying now that you have a manual, that means that you can just let people talk to you however they want or abuse you in some way because you think they shouldn't be doing this, but not everybody believes that. And so you're just gonna let them walk all over you. No, that's not what this is used for. It's just to help you see where you think someone should be doing something and to recognize the rest of the world maybe doesn't agree. Clearly, because he's not doing it that way, right? So if your safety, if your children's safety is at risk, or if you don't want mistreatment from someone, that is totally valid and okay for you to do. It's not a manual mismatch. Like again, you don't have to stop having a manual for people. It's just to recognize how those thoughts are creating suffering, suffering in terms of like your own emotional negative feelings that are happening inside your body. Doesn't mean you have to stay in a situation where somebody is abusing you or mistreating you. No. Make the choice, leave the situation, stop talking to them, block them, all of the things. You have full control over that. And that's a distinction that I really want to make here. So, how do we take the remote control back? Now you get

Taking Back Power And Closing

Karin Nelson 19:25

to choose. You get to decide what you want to think about the situation. That doesn't depend on him changing how he's showing up. You can decide does a boundary need to be communicated? Not to control him, but to protect you, right? Maybe it's being more firm on pickup time policy and putting it in writing in the decree. Maybe it's simply deciding out loud for yourself, I'm not going to let this ruin my afternoon. I'm gonna let this go because I don't care anymore what he thinks or says. I'm gonna protect myself and what I want to feel. And I don't have to focus on him any longer, right? Either way, the decision is coming from you, not from a reaction to him or what he's doing. It's you intentionally deciding how you want to think and feel about what's going on. So here's what I want you to take away from this. Detachment is never about caring less. It's not about numbing or letting things slide or letting him get away with shit. It's about noticing where you have handed your emotional life over to someone else. And obviously, in this episode, I'm speaking specifically about your ex, but it can be anyone, it can be anything. And it's just noticing where do I want to be in control of my own emotions and how do I bring that power back to myself? Because you truly get to decide emotionally how you want to show up with things. And you may decide, yeah, I do want to feel upset about this. I do want to feel angry about this. Totally valid and totally okay. Not saying, again, you it's okay to feel negative emotion. These are not bad things. Something that I tell my clients literally all the time that I'm reminding them, and I'm I'm reminding myself about this as well. Nothing has gone wrong when you feel a negative emotion. It's totally okay. But I want you to be in charge of your emotions and accept them and be intentional about like, yes, I am feeling this thing because of the way I am thinking about this situation. And it's totally fine. It's not a problem. That is where your power lies. And that is how we take power our power back when it comes to emotional detachment. All right, my friends, next week we are wrapping up the Ex-Files with an episode on high conflict co-parenting. And so make sure to check back for that one if that is something that you are struggling with. That is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. I love you all. You're amazing. I will be back next week. Hi, friend. I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening. I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life with weekly coaching, real life practice, and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to Karin Nelsoncoaching.com. That's www.k-ar-in-n-e-l-s-o-n coaching.com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts. And for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married, make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.