About a year ago I left a 9 year hetero relationship to live by myself as a lesbian.
Definitely worth it 100%, and had an entirely transformative year of coming into myself. Lots of joy and good times and dates and sexy adventures as a lesbian.
Today at the one year mark I am finding that I have a sadness about my ex male partner.
I wish he had been able to see that I had to come out or die. I wish he had cared about that more than his own preference to have me be closeted. I wish he had been capable of engaging in the mutual support I had wished for us in going through the process of me coming out. I would have supported him too.
But he wanted to go no contact as soon as it was possible. Wanted me to move out asap and then never speak again.
My therapist likes to remind me that he would not have been capable of engaging in a mutually supportive transition process. That I would have made myself responsible for doing all of the emotional labor and regulation for both of us, and that he would have constantly pulled me to self-abandon.
But I am sad for the fantasy that I had where we could have still been family in a different form. Because that’s what I wanted.
But no contact was what he wanted and so that is what I did. And even though I guess it never could have been any other way… I still miss the fantasy of mutual support that didn’t depend on me killing myself with a lie.
I’m sad and I’m always going to be the villain in his story and another reality was never possible.