Unmet hopes

After leaving my hometown this week and returning to my adult world, I went to therapy.
I talked cried about this relationship haunting me and I tried to make sense of what was happening to me internally.

As I recounted the entry I wrote when Robert and I broke up, I realized that I never really let-him-go because I always expected he would come back one day to explain everything to me. To know the inner workings of my mind and heart, it's important to be honest about my expectations about Robert and me.  My fantasy/expectation had always been the following possible scenarios:

1) Robert finds me one day and comes to me to apologize.  He wants to say sorry for how things ended, and he is also incredibly regretful that we even broke up.  He offers a really good explanation that has to do with his incredulous love for me and wanting to protect me from whatever it is he couldn't tell me about before. For example, maybe he had cancer but he didn't want  to know because he knew I would have dropped everything to be with him and take care of him.  Because he didn't want me to give up my plans, he had to break up with me in a cold-hearted manner and disappear until he got better.  He has now realized that it was not the right thing to do and is so sorry to have done that to me.  Over the years, he has also matured and grown in a lot of ways. He realizes that life is unbearable without me and wishes we could try again.

2) I am living my life and having a good time when I unintentionally run-into Robert.  Hmm.  I suppose what happens subsequently is an exact copy-paste scenario from the scene above.  He apologizes. He is regretful.  He still loves me. He still wants me back. But what's different is that he's too embarrassed to have shown-up at my door to apologize.  Still, he has always wished for another chance with me but has been too shy/embarrassed to act on this impulse.  Nevertheless, he wishes for a reconciliation and is sorry for our breakup.

3) Like scenario 2, Robert and I run-into each other, perhaps at a large social event with a bunch of our mutual friends.  Because we're in such a large crowd, we are cordial to each other and I am not overtly emotional or shocked.  I play-it-off very well and appear cool, calm, collected.  We hang out as a group and as the group dwindles, I continue to remain very rational and level-headed.  I say that it's good to see him, that I hope he's doing well, and I ask about him and his family.  I say nothing about the past so that I can look like I don't care that much.  I press for no details and I am able to seem casual and light-hearted.  He realizes how cool I am and is surprised.  He sees how little pressure I place on him and is reminded of his love for me. If he wasn't already in love with me then, he will fall back in love with me and want to be together again!

Hmm.  Now that it's written out, these scenarios sound kind of embarrassing.  They all have the same ending. They're just different versions of how he and I would act prior to reconciling. In my heart of hearts, I have always waited for Robert to show-up one day and to offer me some sort of release and closure. Umm... And also an opportunity to be together again.  I have been so sure that it would happen one day.  I have been so sure that I have been in waiting-mode for the past 7 years, just passively awaiting the day he comes.  All because I have been so sure that he will inevitably come.

But he hasn't come.  And I'm just now starting to realize that he may never come.  When I started dating a few years ago, I did it to spite Robert in my head.  I did it so that I can tell him (in my head) that I am capable of dating other people, and to threaten that I can be with someone else if he doesn't show up soon.  I didn't want to be with anyone else, much less even go on a date with somebody that wasn't him. But I did it so that I wouldn't always be in Robert's shadow.  I did it so that I could also tell myself that I can make comparisons because I don't know anything else beyond him.

Heck, the only reason I even had sex with someone else was so that I can say "Ha! Look! Robert isn't the only person I've been with now! I am capable of doing this with someone else!  Also, with someone else in the picture, my feelings for Robert will surely lessen so that it isn't so intense anymore!"

My approach completely back-fired though because I then started dating non-stop until.... now.  And now, I am dealing with multiple griefs because in truth, I never let Robert go. And because every relationship has been about him in some way, shape, or form.

How unhealthy that is.