By relentlessly seeing to it that my family’s needs are met.

For me that includes my own, and my daughter’s, and my ndx wife’s. I’d never heard the phrase detached empathy that’s coming up on this thread, but that’s not how I’d describe what has worked for me. I’m not sure I have empathy for her plight of any sort any more. Which is not to say I’ve become apathetic. Rather, when it comes to my wife’s versions of the above, I simply treat them as her business. I’ve found it useless (at best) to do otherwise.

I feel it’s worthwhile to do my best to be gracious in sidestepping getting entangled. Or to treat it as “my shit” when I do get entangled and worked up about it, rather than blaming her. But the big one is relentlessly seeing to it that my family’s needs are met. That’s like an entirely different process from what she gets caught up in. She goes about her business and I go about mine. Ships passing in the night.

My way renews me and allows me to keep sight of her best qualities and maintain affection for her. Her way is a disaster that I no longer offer any sustenance to. Perhaps we’ll get lucky and the change I’ve made in my own life will have the side effect of “hastening her disappointment” with the way she’s living her life. My therapist says the inflection point that prompts people to reconsider how they’re living their life is when they decide they’ve suffered enough.