Hope your day went better, and that you were able to hold onto that greater sense of peace.
I believe in dreams having meaning as well. Yours held an excellent meaning - what a great message about the role of detachment. Protective to the person and hopefully, purposeful for the other in terms of space/time for work to get done.
You have lots of positives in your sitch, Jo. You've had 4 little ones that bind you together, you have the health and political interests, and he is definitely very attracted to you. I would guess that he got scared and began to screw up b/c of that.
You are wise to back away for now. While you sit tight, try to keep the self-care going. I wish I had a friend who was a massage therapist! That sounded great!