(Plz don’t kill me)....should I send this letter

Doctora, you are right in that you are grieving, the loss of a dream, the loss of an agreement, the loss of a fantasy partner, and the loss of a decade of your life.

And I think what we are all sensing is the anger and frustration that you rightfully feel due to those circumstances.

And yes, he let you down... he broke promises and commitments. But that's only half the story. And I think this is what I am reading into from other's posts, soft advise towards a little less focus on him and what he did or did not do, and a little more focus on yourself, your future partner, your needs, your boundaries, etc.

I don't have a "dog in this fight", but if I am to be blunt as a neutral third party, it seems that there is still too much focus on the other, and not enough on the self. Yes, a person is more than their attachment style, and I can understand if there is a deeper connection and attraction built on core values and shared interests. I have been there, done that. But what I realized, is that someone can be a great "person" but not a great "partner". And I had to eventually accept that fact. Luckily, I only spent a year in that situation, and not a decade, so I have deep empathy for your plight and likely the deep feelings and frustrations around the fallacy of "sunk costs" for the time invested in your relationship. But now, there is only the future.

And to be honest, I would wonder if you have really connected to that anger and frustration? I feel it and know it is there, but have you really taken the responsibility of the anger that also exists towards your self? I am not saying to be hard on yourself, but it seems there is a little too much deflection of that anger onto the "other" maybe in an attempt to not acknowledge the anger and hurt from your inner child, towards your adult self that did not protect her. And that's an important discussion to have with her, as you broke her trust and did not protect her needs and boundaries for all those years. And she needs to know that she can trust you, into the future.

If a person is repeatedly trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, where does responsibility for frustration land? The square peg? The round hole? Or the operator of the situation? ;-)

Don't waste your time trying to teach a cat to bark... you'll only end up frustrated, and you'll piss off the cat, too.

The classic Buddhist principle that the root of human suffering, is in our "expectation" of others... is so true.

I'll repeat what I said a few posts back:



And second, that anger is at yourself, from your inner child. And that is healthy, too. Angry that you let yourself down, angry that you believed the bullshit for so long, angry that you lowered your expectations and boundaries and standards and settled for something that wasn't meeting your needs. You lied to yourself, and you kind of knew it all along. But you fawned and gave in and tried to play the "peaceful buddha" in order to bring calm to the situation, in hopes that THEY would magically change. You tried to be the martyr, and now you pay the price, because you were not TRUE to yourself.



All the best.