Wow Heather, there you go again, showing me something that I had been doing without even thinking about it! I did the same type of thing for so many years. I made my life all about making my W's life better! I stayed in jobs I hated so she could be a stay at home mother that she said she always wanted to be (which is now one of the reasons she is leaving the M! She now says she should have worked and I should have "made" her!). I put off things I wanted, to give my W what she wanted. I always thought that this was what a "good" H does for his W. Not only didn't my W appreciate it, she resented me for doing it in the end. I remember when she wanted to go back to work after 15 years as a stay at home mom and she had to reactivate her licence. She was having so much trouble getting everything together, using the web site, the whole process. So what did I do? I took over of course. I "helped" her get her course credits together, wrote the letters she needed to send, filled out the web forms, etc. In the end I would have been much better off if I had just let HER deal with her own stuff and worked on doing for myself.
Listen to Heather, MM. Heck, listen to everyone that has been trying to help you. Right now what I see as the biggest thing holding you back is this insistence that he hasn't made it clear that he just doesn't want you in his life, at least not in a R. Everything he's been doing says he doesn't want a R with you. That much you can see, no matter what "words" he says, his actions are VERY clear. Maybe what you are seeing as him not totally pushing you out of his life is his only wanting you in the business. Maybe he doesn't want to lose a good BUSINESS partner so is trying to have a friendly R with you. Maybe you misinterpret this as his leaving a door open for a romantic R? You really need to get past "but he hasn't totally said he DOESN'T want a R with me in the future...". It's holding you back. Someone saying "Maybe once I get past "X" I'll be able to think about maybe, someday, at some point, IF at that time I feel like it, having a R with you" is NOT worth spending any where close to the energy you do on holding onto hope. Like I said before, DBing is about getting on with YOUR life but leaving a small window open for your S in case, once they get through with their MLC, they may want to reconnect. Your are not only leaving a window open, you are leaving all the windows and doors open and tearing down the front wall and putting up billboards saying "You can come back now if you're ready!!". Like Heather says, it's a very painful thing you are going through. Being rejected by someone who defined your life for so long. But, by not moving past it, by prolonging the process, you are making it hurt more and longer than it should. Not only that you are ensuring that he will never be able to reconnect as he see's what you are doing as "pressure". I know you don't see it that way and if he wasn't in crisis he probably wouldn't either. But he IS in crisis and he see's any R talk, any action that could be in any way seen as chasing as pressure and will run from it. MM, his saying maybe at some future time I will be able to think about a R with you is the same as him saying "I never, ever want to have a R with you, not now, not ever". When you accept this you will be much better able to move on with being the best MM you can be!
