Free therapy... growth can be very ugly, but it's so worth it on the other side of thelearning...

Discovered I've anxious attachment issues. 

It's in the worst sort of way,  in my own opinion.  

Although I don't feel this in a cynical way,  I have always felt (about relationships)

as though when you expect nothing,  you're not disappointed. 

(I believed this mindset was neutral, turns out it's just another protective measure to disassociate- just in case😳) 

Turns out that unhealthy mindset equates to expecting everyone to eventually leave, so I attract avoidant personalities.

That's why I've struggled to feel 'heard' because I've attracted those who world rather not hear.  

Here's the rub: with my mindset being that if you have no expectations,  you'll not be let down,  

I've incorporated some advice I got before my (first) failed marriage:

Always let them do what they want, 

their priorities will be revealed through their actions.

What I didn't know was that through that I was teaching them how to treat me, how to live like a bachelor with the free emotional labor of a wife.  

I think people expect me to be resentful, bitter perhaps,  for a decades long marriage ending, but I don't think that'd be fair, because the truth is that he didn't ask for my illness, and he was honest about not having the capacity to live with it.  That being said, 

two things can be true at once and 

although I can intellectualize all of the blah blah blah,  

I can also be forever betrayed by the way HE chose to cope with MY chronic illnesses. 

Let them do what they want,  their priorities will be revealed through their actions. Ouch. Very unkind. 

Forgive and forget are not the same.  

I've forgiven because to do otherwise only hurts me. 

I work hard to remember that.