Dear Julia,
Your post moved me as I’ve been through something similar but that netted me something I hope you can avoid: hours into months that have stretched across years of misdirected energy (because he kept coming back, but wasn’t healthy or able to give what I deserve, and I stayed in touch, for my part, hoping in the end for his wellness, which you mentioned wanting). Perhaps sharing my experience can help you ease you toward more peace. You wrote “I wish he could overcome his numbness because the range of real emotions is so profoundly beautiful and I want those for him even if he ultimately isn’t sure he wants them with me.”

These are loving and wonderful sentiments. Can you tuck them away, feeling warmed by knowing that they are in your heart?

And then invigorate Even More loving and wonderful sentiments for Yourself in gratitude that you and he were able to experience this feeling of love together and in the secure knowledge that you deserve healthy love and wholeness. Now. A man who is not there is not there. You can expend a whole mess of energy toward hopes and wishes for him and “us” that deserve to go into your joy and growth and community with others in the here and now. The more you can let him go, holding gratitude in your heart and also the knowledge that you deserve more and all we know we have is the Now, the more you can manifest the fuller version of this love (e.g., with a ready partner) that you sound ready to generate and receive. Beware the wondering-wishing-hoping burden == it surreptitiously and easily would steal your energy and focus away from actually creating what you want and deserve. A man I thought I wanted to spend my life with and who felt like the “home” I’d never felt before is the person who caused me to learn this. He too told me he hoped we might be together and that he was scared of hurting me. I wish that I had chosen to invest in what I want and deserve elsewhere from the first moment when he revealed that he’s damaged from childhood (many of us are, I have been, lord knows, but what we choose to do about it is what matters) and trapped in false beliefs about love. We cannot EVER overcome someone else’s trap for themselves.

If you find it hard to tuck the love into your heart and focus on yourself, and move on, then look into your own childhood wounds. They are where we almost always will find our answers as to why we do not move on from a particular person to instead celebrate that we deserve full love and that we can manifest it in the world with those who are ready.

You ARE worth full love. The fact that you mention his reactions making you question your worth suggests, to me, that you can use this painful event to invest in unearthing and caring for your own childhood wounds (majority of us have them), which may be connected to questions of being worthy of love, being good enough, working hard enough to save someone so you could get back what you need, someone being a yoyo of connection and distance, etc..

I hope this might help you or others sidestep the unnecessary suffering and phenomenal waste from wondering-wishing-hoping with energy that is best applied toward celebrating your own life in community with people who can reciprocate and meet you where you truly are.

Your partner has to want to and actually have taken steps to show he has been healing so that he reciprocates what you offer. You probably know this. Anything less than that (belongs in the therapist’s office and) cannot yield a healthy romantic relationship.

Best wishes for peace and joy. Live.