Dear gemsandrubies:

I hope you feel better as you are reading this. It almost always makes me feel better when I understand a situation better. Some people feel better if they don’t understand any more than they do, but long term understanding feels better and improves our mental health.

This is my current understanding based on your original post alone. If you are up to it, we can communicate about it and understand more:

You and your ex fiancé had “an instant, undeniable connection”, a connection that as meaningful as it was led you to see her partly, keeping yourself blind parts of her. What you saw was the “kind, patient, supportive, and present” woman who “took such good care of us”, a woman who saw you exactly as you were (“seen by exactly as I was”). What you didn’t see was.. well, I don’t know what it was that you didn’t see.

We do that, when we have hope, when we want something or someone too much, too intensely, too desperately, we see what suits us, we close our eyes to what doesn’t.

If the connection she felt was as “undeniable” as it was for you, she wouldn’t have denied it as she did. If she was kind, patient, supportive and present with you while living with you, all those things (her kindness, patience, support and presence) had a short time limit.

It is possible that the “whirlwind” nature of your beginning relationship with her was an exception for you, but a pattern for her. Possibly, your former best friend who is now dating your ex fiancé- was your ex’s next in line whirlwind ride. There are people for whom staying in one place and with one person feels like death, and the whirlwind movement to someplace/ someone else feels like a breath of fresh air, it feels like..  living again.

anita