There are many reasons why practicing emotional detachment can be helpful. You may have broken up with someone you love and need to find a way to emotionally detach even though you still have feelings or still talk to them regularly. You may be dealing with toxic coworkers at work, and the frustration may spill over into your personal life. Or maybe you dread visiting your partner’s extended family for the holidays because you don’t share compatible political ideologies.
Removing someone from your life entirely isn’t always possible. Sometimes, there are certain relationships where they still need to be a part of your life—at least for now until you can turn the situation around. In such cases, setting parameters around communication to protect your energy becomes even more essential. Learning how to emotionally detach while maintaining clear boundaries is key to finding peace.
WhatItMeansToDetachFromSomeone
Detachment from someone means becoming less attached to their behavior and feelings, reevaluating your perception of your connection to them, and adjusting the level of emotional investment you have with them to a place that feels manageable.
“Emotionally detaching from someone involves taking a step back from your relationship,” licensed psychologist Lauren Napolitano, Psy.D., tells mbg. “Maybe this person (a friend or family member) was once a cherished member of your inner circle, but you’ve learned that the relationship is no longer healthy for you. By starting to see this person differently, it allows you to detach—that is, place less weight on this person’s behavior toward you.”
According to licensed clinical social worker Noelle McCord, LCSW, detachment means choosing not to engage with this person’s behavior and not allowing yourself to be emotionally drawn into interacting with them.
“Detachment is refocusing your attention and energy on yourself, not on the other person,” she tells MBG. “When you put your energy and focus on yourself instead of trying to control the other person’s behaviors and attitudes, you’re in a better position to make better decisions about how best to engage in the relationship.”
Learning to detach takes conscious intention and practice, she notes, and is possible, though it’s a difficult skill to master because humans are wired for attachment. However, she adds, “There’s a saying, ‘detach with love.’ It means, ‘I can love you from afar or up close, but I won’t engage with the parts of me that hurt me.’”
When to Detach.
Before you choose emotional detachment, it can be helpful to understand emotional attachment — and how it differs from emotional detachment.
McWard defines emotional attachment as the goal of all human relationships. It’s a feeling of closeness and connection in a relationship with others. When you’re in a happy, secure attachment, you feel safe in the relationship.
On the other hand, she says, unhealthy attachment can manifest as anxious attachment (feelings of insecurity stemming from the other person’s needs and wants, characterized by intense fears of abandonment or betrayal) or avoidant attachment (feelings of being overwhelmed by the other person’s needs and wants, characterized by a desire to withdraw from the connection).
As an antidote, detachment is about working with the relationship and accepting it as it is rather than working on the relationship and hoping for change.
You may feel like it’s time to break up with someone when you feel anxious, emotionally drained, and overwhelmed rather than emotionally regulated around them — all signs that you need to take care of your mental health. After you’ve expressed that their behavior or attitudes have negatively affected you and there’s been little to no change, your only option is to focus on taking care of your well-being in the context of that relationship. This is done by consciously choosing to break up with them.
Signs It’s Time to Break Up
Below, McCord shares some key indicators that it’s time to break up:
You notice that a disproportionate amount of your mental and emotional energy is being used up when you focus on what they do, say, think, or feel.
You feel extremely drained or emotionally reactive to their behavior.
You have repeatedly addressed a problem or concern, and you feel like you are being ignored, rejected, or routinely made promises that are not kept.
You feel that certain issues in the relationship are stuck as if there is no resolution or path forward.
You feel like you are constantly being held accountable for their behavior, making the relationship seem frustrating and boring.
The connection has taken on an obsessive quality and seems more negative than positive.
You feel less happy around them and more anxious, exhausted, and stressed.
You realize that they are unlikely to change certain behaviors that make you feel uncomfortable or that fundamentally conflict with who you are as a person.
You begin to assume the worst about their behavior and how they interact with you.
Being around them has become toxic or unhealthy in a way that brings out the worst in you.
How to Break Up With Someone.
As you try to untangle the parts of yourself that may be affected by the relationship, know that breaking up doesn’t have to be done in a state of anger, resentment, hostility, or even involving the other person—especially if previous communications haven’t addressed your concerns.
Napolitano notes that emotional detachment has similar, subtle roots to the so-called quiet resignation phenomenon. “In quiet resignation, you’re not alerting your boss that you’re doing less work, but you’re [stepping back] from the pressures and pace of work,” she says. “It’s very powerful to change your approach to the job or relationship without making a public announcement about your decision.” This allows you to intentionally withdraw while protecting your space versus needing to leave the situation or banish it from your life forever.
Here are some tips to keep in mind as you begin to break up with someone in your life:
- Explore your options carefully.
Before you reach the point of emotional detachment, communication is an essential step in determining your course of action. Talk to the person in question, your friends, or a therapist about how the relationship is affecting you.
“Getting feedback from others will help you ensure you’re making the best decision for your well-being rather than impulsively cutting someone out of your life,” Napolitano says.
- Redefine your relationship to suit you.
If you decide it’s time to break up, work on negotiating your emotional and physical availability to a place where you can share space with them without compromising your boundaries.
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Emotional detachment will feel less accessible. “[It will feel like] not seeing each other as often, not responding to communication as quickly, and not taking the ‘bait’ if you’re upset by this person’s behavior,” Napolitano says. “It’s a slow process of moving someone from your inner circle to a more familiar one.”
- Remove them from the emotional pedestal.
If you’re looking to break up with someone you love, like an ex-spouse, a favorite sibling, or a best friend, it will be a painful process—but remember that distancing can still be done emotionally.
Napolitano recommends embracing these people and your beloved memories with tenderness while understanding that they may now have a different set of behaviors and values that no longer match yours. Objectifying the way you view them allows them to stay in your life, even though their presence shouldn’t loom large in your life.
- Put up a barrier so you can continue living your life.
Emotional detachment can also look like “putting someone or something in a space or container where you don’t feel the need to respond to what they do or who they are,” says McCard. “It’s the ability to maintain that you can still be okay and do the things you need to do in your life, your job, etc., despite what the other person is doing.”
An emotional barrier acts as a buffer to add space to the relationship so you can expand to a place where you can interact with parts of them that don’t cause you anxiety or judgment.
- Feel your feelings.
Maybe you’re looking to get over a breakup, an unrequited crush, or a Hinge fling that you’re still seeing. Don’t minimize your feelings by not allowing yourself to grieve. It’s normal to feel disappointed, and the longer you deny your feelings, the longer you’ll dwell on them.
Allow yourself to grieve that it didn’t work out, and reframe the relationship so that you can talk to them without feeling upset. This might look like texting them less about your problems, not hanging out as much, and limiting how often you see them on social media.
- Define the relationship by what you have in common.
Maybe you’re looking for an emotional break from a toxic coworker who wants to drag you into workplace drama. With people you’re forced to interact with regularly, McCord suggests focusing only on the aspects of the relationship that relate to those shared interests or responsibilities.
For other things, “create an emotional barrier between you and the other person about everything else. Your focus remains firmly on doing your job and doing it well, and you give up giving attention or energy to the other person and what they do or don’t do,” she says.
7.Focus on what you can control.
“This will be different for every person in every situation. It might mean recognizing that the choices someone else makes or their actions aren’t your responsibility or don’t require your approval,” McCord says. “This might mean that you no longer engage in certain aspects of the relationship because doing so hurts or harms you in some way,” she says.
She notes that this might look like setting boundaries around what topics you will and won’t discuss, taking away the need to want a certain outcome from them, or reducing how open and vulnerable you are in choosing to be with them. It might also look like limiting communication within the relationship. “But in all possible iterations of this, the focus is on you and taking care of yourself, not on changing anything about the other person,” she says.
- Reset your expectations realistically.
When you’re looking for something in a relationship that you haven’t historically received, McCord says that emotional detachment can feel like there’s no longer a hope, expectation, or desire for that response or engagement. “I describe it as no longer having to go to the hardware store hoping to buy bread and milk,” she says.
- Love them from a distance.
“If you have a family member who has toxic behavior (perhaps they abuse alcohol, perhaps they have very different politics than you, etc.), you may find yourself arguing with that person over the years,” says Napolitano. “You may even beg them to change their behavior. Emotional detachment involves recognizing that this person is unlikely to change quickly and that it’s better to love them from a distance than to fall into a pattern of fighting with them.”
If you see them every day, they don’t need to know that you’re detached from them because this can be conveyed through a subtle, nonverbal shift in attitude.
McCard adds that you can still keep the other person in your mind and heart with kind thoughts and wishes while maintaining a distance. “It’s a way for you to care for them without having to engage with them directly.”
