Missing the Other: Life After the Discovery

One of my readers wrote me to ask me if I ever missed my Other and if so, what did I do. Below is my answer to her, but I'd really appreciate responses here from anyone who might have more applicable advice. Because, unfortunately, I don't know how far my answer to her question will take her.

Hello,

I can answer this but I don't know if I'm the best person to. The answer is, magically and inexplicably, no-I never missed my Other. I was afraid the missing would come, terrified really, but it never did. And this is not because I'm anyone special or have magnificent control over my mind, but because everything I could have missed at all about him was easily taken care of and represented in my husband.

I don't know how much of my blog you read, but if you read this post you'll see what I mean. In there I do my best to describe the moment when suddenly everything changed.

I was musing with husband about this the other day. We have always both believed we were meant to be together, but when we met we were both sort of broken in different ways. The people who met weren't the people who were ultimately meant to be together. I was supposed to be a girl who loved him desperately and stood with him as a strong partner tied together with a common passion and purpose. He was to be a man who was strong and unbreakable yet loving and kind. Neither of us were this. I think we both craved the thing we thought we were meant to have.

So in the therapists office, I think there was a huge inner change in my husband and I think the real me felt the real him in that moment. I don't know any other way to explain how I would be looking at him and suddenly feel like a veil had been lifted off my eyes and fall in love with him right then. And he was able to look at me and see that suddenly I did love him for real-and see it in my eyes in a way he never saw there before.

So no, I never had a moment of missing the Other. But that is only because my husband and I became what the other needed. If we had not, if we hadn't gone to counseling and powered through just on will alone without changing the things about us that were broken-our 11 years of bad habits and quarrels, I think it would have been very different.

And that is what I think the key is. What ever you might miss about the Other is something you really might be missing from your spouse. Dissect that and see what you can come up with and then work with your husband so both of you can become what you were meant to be to each other.

Maybe that was more than what you were looking for. I certainly don't think you're alone in missing him-so don't feel alone in this. I think my case is fairly unique and I thank god every day for this blessing.