So, yesterday evening, I was kicking around in my head why I felt...well, why I felt nothing about xh lately. I'm not delusional enough to think that the "nothing" meant "no feelings". It just had me confused. I finally decided that, for whatever reason, my emotional guard was back up again. The "lack of feeling" was just that wall up to keep me from feeling hurt. Whatever.
My approach has been that I'm going to take care of me and my faults. "Me" got lost in the hell-hole of my last job, pregnancy, and him walking out again. I read somewhere--here, maybe?--that when you become the person you should be, you attract the right people around you. By setting appropriate boundaries, and not feeling guilty about it, the unhealthy or harmful relationships fade on their own. So...I figured...straighten my own head and own sense of appropriate boundaries out, and the situation with xh would resolve itself.
Anyway. That being my whole zen-ish attitude lately, I'm just having fun hanging out with xh last night.
The baby and I are running some errands with him. I'm feeling a bit tired, but nothing major. xh and I are chit-chatting...
I'm not even sure how the topic came up. It seemed almost random. xh just says, out of the blue, "Do you want to know why I haven't come back yet?"
(I'll just insert here, I've always assumed he would change his mind, sooner or later. Just wasn't sure where I would be at that point.)
I looked at him funny. "Sure."
xh said "I'm not ready to give them up yet."
Me: "You mean JD?"
xh: "And MN. MY, too." (MN he's had a crush on. MY is another casual FF he runs around in a crowd with. Never thought much of it...seemed like a fairly straight-forward friendship.)
xh: "I knew you'd ask me to give them up. And you'd have that right. I can't do that yet."
Me: "Well, JD, yes. But she's a threat." (I've snooped, and caught ILY type messages between the two. He's also stated he's more attached than he should be to her. I suspected on other time he was considering 'coming home', and he made vague statements about "not being able to let go" of her then, too. Said it wasn't right, since she was having a major healthy scare.) "MN and MY, I don't see why not. I think your friendship with them would have to change...like we've talked about before...but that doesn't mean they'd have to end."
xh: "No, I'd have to give them up. I'm not ready for it."
The funny thing about the conversation...neither of us was stressed. It was one of those gut-wrenching ones. I didn't feel pressure...neither did he...and I'm sitting her waiting around on him to call me saying ILY this morning.
I think it's pretty obvious by now we're not very good at staying permanently separated.
And I still maintain my attitude. I'm taking care of me right now. My finances, my self-image, getting back to hobbies and friends that I neglected. We'll see. It almost caught me off guard that he even said it.
