Some of the hardest heartbreaks aren’t tied to a relationship that properly existed, but to one that lived mostly in hope, fantasy, or anticipation. There was no shared history to mourn – and yet the sense of loss can feel profound, confusing, even embarrassing.
These one-sided attachments take a powerful hold by protecting us from truths about ourselves we tend to ignore, but continue to face every time we are not fully received by someone new.
The way through may not be forgetting them, but discovering what this attachment has been trying to spare us from.
