Thank you so much for this post, DnJ. The distinction you make between hope and expectation is one I hadn't been able to make in such a clear way before. I need to work on letting go of expectations while holding on to hope. I logged in because I thought I had more to say in response to your words, but now I'm feeling overwhelmed.
I'm returning home tomorrow, and I'm not ready to face H again, to face the situation. This trip was filled with memories of old H and old R, and I don't want to see new H—it feels like I'm foolishly returning to an environment that just opens me up to be hurt by him over and over again, which, I suppose, is why detachment on my part is so necessary. I was able to let my guard down a little while I've been away, and now I have to put it back up. I don't remember what detachment from H feels like in this moment, but I suppose re-entry will be h*ll and then I'll slowly remember how to feel a kind of compassionate numbness toward him again.
I am also thinking I wish I could be anything but numb with him. I think we had two different experiences of our SSM over time, but we didn't really talk about it, and when, during/right around BD, I told him how much I did desire him, it made him angry. It's too late, etc. I worry he doesn't see me as a person who is capable of desire now, and that's a 180 I can't enact with him, which is hard for me to accept. Is the idea that, in observing other changes I make in myself (becoming the best version of me for me), he might eventually believe there would be possibilities for change in that area of the R as well? I wish I could do more than truly apologize for my part in this aspect of our M, which I did.
