There’s a particular kind of waiting that doesn’t look like waiting from the outside.
Life keeps moving. You go to work. You show up for your kids. You answer texts. You do the things you’re supposed to do. But internally, everything is suspended — not broken, not whole, just… held.
That’s where I’ve been living.
In the in-between. The upside down. In the place where love still exists, but certainty doesn’t. In a time that feels less like heartbreak and more like purgatory.
What makes this space so hard isn’t the pain alone. It’s the contradiction.
You can still love someone deeply while knowing their well is dry.
You can still care while slowly realizing you can’t fix this.
You can be steady on the outside while your nervous system is constantly asking, What does this mean? Where is this going?
People don’t talk about this part much. The part where nothing is clearly over, but nothing is truly alive either.
I’ve written before about the urge to be seen — and the discipline it takes not to require it.
And if you’re here, you might be judging yourself for it.
You might be telling yourself you’re weak for still loving. Naive for still hoping. Foolish for not walking away cleanly.
But this isn’t weakness.
This is what attachment looks like when certainty disappears. This is what love does when it hasn’t been given a clear place to land.
For a long time, I kept pouring — care, patience, quiet acts of love — without saying the words, without pushing, without demanding anything back. I told myself it was unconditional love. And maybe it was and still is.
But if I’m honest, it was also hope. Hope that, given enough time, something would change. Hope that love alone could be enough. And maybe it still can (there’s the hope again).
There’s nothing shameful about that. It’s human.
The trouble starts when hope and dignity begin to compete for the same space because there is a difference between loving someone and disappearing for them.
Love is about posture. Hope is about outcome.
And dignity is what keeps love from turning into self-abandonment.
Lately, I’ve been learning slowly and imperfectly that love doesn’t actually require hope to remain real. You can care without bargaining. You can stay kind without waiting to be chosen. You can hold the instrument without forcing a sound.
Months ago, when all of this began, she used to say something to me all the time.
Everything will be okay.
She said it again the day she brought up separation. I remember my body rejecting it instantly. My mind screaming, No. This is not okay. Nothing about losing the life I thought I had felt okay. Nothing about this felt survivable.
But I’m starting to understand what she meant. Not as reassurance, and not as a promise about the outcome.
As something quieter.
Whatever happens… I will be okay.
Not because it won’t hurt. Not because it’s fair. Not because love magically resolves itself.
But because I can remain myself through it.
If you’re here too… loving without clarity, holding on without guarantees… you’re not weak. You’re not broken. You’re responding normally to a situation where nothing is normal.
And if you’re starting, even faintly, to feel that exhale — that sense that you’ll survive this no matter how it ends — that doesn’t mean you’ve stopped loving.
It just means you’ve stopped disappearing.
Everything will be okay.
Not because this ends the way you want.
But because you do.
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