Yes, LMN, it is unsettling how little we know, sometimes, the partner we thought we were most intimately connected with.
We sometimes hear others say that past behavior predicts future behavior, but that is not the right approach for me. I thank God no one assumes that of me, for I am very very different from the person I was even just two years ago.
And we sometimes hear others say that when someone shows you who he is, believe him. But that doesn't work for me, either. Because in my life experience, I can say that there have been periods of time when I behaved quite differently from my more standard self, and I have witnessed friends do the same, and sometimes we went through periods of being just crazy or deluded or angry or rebellious or indifferent or selfish. And they were passing phases--months or a couple of years-- those times did not define us. The energies passed through us, affected our personalities and decisions, and then moved on. If someone had said that my behavior, for example in 2005, was a predictor of future behavior, well, they'd just be plain wrong. I was off the charts crazy for several months that year. But I'm not now.
But I do think that unless we consciously evaluate our motives and our deep unknowns which are trying to make the way to the top, then I think we will know so little of who we are that we will not even know how to share ourselves in close relationship with anyone, and everything we are running from in ourselves will get projected--blamed--onto the partner. That's what addicts do every day. But we can also do that, if we don't get healthy.
Addicts run from themselves. They do it for years. Then they get clean and they think they are ready for relating. But they aren't. If they want to be, they have to do the work. They can't just say, "But baby, I love you, let's move back in......" They have to do the work. That means counseling with a therapist or a pastor or working on the self in a Step-Study group or having the courage to live life on their own, using no one as a crutch or a safety net and for maybe one year being solitary and self-sufficient and sober as a whistle. No one to blame. No one to exploit. No one to run to. Drugs are a mother. Drugs are a womb. And addicts who get clean need to learn to stand on their own. And that is so hard when they have an anxious, hypervigilant codependent hovering in the other corner of the room.
All I can share is that I know from experience that being on one's own for a while and making one's own way, having one's own friendships, one's own hammer and screwdriver and cat, is actually an amazing way of becoming ready for partnership. I never would have believed it, never would have chosen it. It can be lonely. But having walked away from an unhealthy relationship I could have forced by sheer will and betrayal of self to continue, I have to say I am finally not afraid of being abandoned again. And that fear is what kept me hanging on to men, thinking it was love.
So I'm glad the time away for you was good. And just want to wish you the best with whatever is upcoming. And to reassure you that if you don't know what you want, it's okay not to make any promises until you do.