Falling Down 100....Getting Up 101

[RosaLinda]

"I sent out a message and I expected that it would be returned. Because someone who cares about me would return it, even just to acknowledge it. I am not sure I will ever totally get rid of the expectations completely. The large ones are gone but the small ones, like a reply or any acknowledgement, are going to be difficult."

Looking at my own sitch Portia, I can see that most of my heartache has been caused by my own expectations (well except for the heartache caused by the mental picture of him boinking RT) that my H would act, if not like someone who cares about ME, at least like a normal caring human being. Even the boinking (I never heard that term before coming to this forum ) hurts because that is not how a normal caring human being acts when he's already in a relationship. 

But my dear friend, I truly believe that our partners' words and actions are not in the least indicitive of how they feel about US. Your SO claiming that you have just been living together as "friends" for almost 20 years is just so much barf, just typical MLC rewriting. 

""Yes, nice life. Like a fish in the bowl who can't remember one end of the tank to the other and so it is always new scenery for them! When this situation isn't giving me heart palpitations, it makes me laugh with the absurdity of it all!
I may not have been a great partner but I was a damn excellent Best Friend. And he still shot that away!"

The fish analogy made me laugh! You were more than an excellent best friend Portia. As Nero said, you were the one he chose. I think this is harder for you because you have no contact. Having to watch my H moon over his Tramp hurts, but I also get to see some good sane moments. You don't get to see good OR bad moments. We won't know the truth until he comes out of his MLC tunnel. That is when he'll look around, blink a bit from the bright light illuminating his actions, and say " oh crap I left my PRIZE Portia for this user OW who just wants a financial fallback in case she is not able to reconcile with her own H like she hopes. Why did I ever hook up with this loser?" 

You may or may not still want him at that point, but you know that it's inevitable Portia.