Partner left after 9 yrs - Finished with ow!! wow

[Dawn of Hope]

Hey, Ali,
I had an insight about your sitch, then lost the thread of it, so I had to come back later when I remembered.

Have you thought about the fact that you have been working hard on yourself since he left, so you have moved forward in your life, in your personal development, in your attitudes and insight...and he has just been spinning and spinning and has made NO progress (especially because he has been depressed, which IMHO slows down emotional advances; I have seen it happen to me), so you are way ahead of him now? He's going to need some time to catch up with you, so don't you DARE go back to drag him forward to where you are now! He needs to catch up with you at his own pace!

Besides which, he just got out of another R, and it's completely normal for him to need some transition time! So try not to overanalyze every breath he takes; just accept that it's going to be three steps forward, two steps back for a while now. STAY DETACHED!!

Think of it this way: Do you REALLY want to be a rebound R for him??!?

I hope this doesn't come across as harsh...I am very happy for you and want to see your R succeed! I just hate to see you pulling him out of the oven before he's completely "cooked"! He's reconnected with you, so now he will NEED some space to process that. It's actually good that you are so swamped for this next little while, because you need to give him that time away from you anyway, and hopefully you will be too busy to get completely worked up about his pulling back! Stop fussing and relax...concentrate on all the work you need to get done, not on him!

Just my 25 cents (inflation!). Use whatever is helpful; forget about the rest. Way to go Ali!!!

Peace,
Dawn