Finding and living compassionate indifference

[cardinal]

I see your reframing, D—I see how you’ve turned my expectations and my imagining them unmet into possibility. In my formulation, I thought I was removing a timeline, but there was instead the built-in assumption of the expectation not being met for a long time, or never being met. I was defeating hope instead of allowing space for it.

I partly blame the magic of good storytelling—character development, dialogue, etc—because I felt I was suddenly watching my dream happen to me and not me, real and unreal, on the screen. That feeling of longing was overwhelming. It rolled through my body, and in a split second I imagined reliving that same feeling in ten years, twenty, etc. I was both imagining possibility and at the same time spending energy foreclosing it.

I see how your edits instead make room for possibility, because who am I to say what could or could not happen?

I see this and understand it intellectually. I still feel, however, more—not so much resentment around this issue at the moment, I don’t think, but pain. Sadness. Fear too, that we won’t speak in this way again. It’s still there. Better to be open to the possibilities life may bring. Maybe this is the depression stage speaking! I do need to reframe my outlook.

I think there is some stirred-up resentment around the BD anniversary too, because what Scout wrote on May’s thread resonated with me:

You don’t have to be ‘in love’ with someone to refrain from destroying their life. ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you’ has no place in discussions of infidelity. If for whatever reason they love you and still want to leave you, they would do so in a way that did not hurt you. With honesty, with integrity, with regret, with sadness, with respect. With a fair settlement and custody arrangement in acknowledgement and reparation for reneging on their sacred commitment.

I don’t know if H has been with anyone else, but even putting that aside, it does disappoint me that H can’t show integrity, regret, sadness, and respect. And he seems to think he is leaving in a way that doesn’t hurt me (?). Here I suppose I’m running into expectations again, thinking he would approach things rationally when he is not. And he doesn’t have the best coping tools, so he’s probably doing his best. Is continuously reminding myself of this one way to recognize and let go of my expectations? Sometimes I get stuck feeling like I’m making excuses for him and not giving enough weight to my own feelings.

Bttrfly—I understand what you’re saying! Thank you. I need to check your thread for any chicken updates. I’m missing my garden meditation time since work has started again and I need to make more time for it. Thank you too for the reminder of the true nature of compassion and kindness. Now I’m wondering: How have I taken this detour in my path toward detachment? I think my focus has shifted more toward H lately because 1) BD anniversary has me reflecting and some days reliving that time a little; 2) I have been trying to understand some of H’s past behaviors in our R and how they affected me, so that I know what I won’t accept in a new R with him or anyone, and so that I can put down some of the blame that is not mine to carry; 3) I’ve been trying to figure out what I’m feeling in regards to H’s behavior now and if it’s a signal that I need to create or enforce a boundary. It seems accurate to say if I focus again on just myself, this last point will dissolve.

I think all this is tied to my ongoing acceptance that no matter who he was in the past or could be in the future, he is not someone who is a partner to me right now.

Now, I’m going to go spend some time with plants before work. My happy place. Thank you both for your guidance!