I never seem to mean as much to other people as they mean to me.

I'm sick.  Late in the workday yesterday, I started to get a sore throat and by the evening I was really tired and achy.  I had a passing thought that it would be really nice to have someone who would take care of me when I was sick.  But it was quickly replaced by the way my ex-husband was always more concerned about catching whatever I had than making sure I was taken care of despite the fact that he expected me to nurture and care for him when he was sick.

And then I started running through the important relationships at various stages in my life:

• the first best friend in elementary school who so easily abandoned me when her parents got divorced, 
• the second best friend in middle school who disappeared when I started questioning my sexuality, 
• the college dorm friends who moved on without me the semester I studied abroad,
• the college friend who seemed to enjoy the time we spent together but never initiated and so eventually faded away, 
• my closest friend since moving to Alabama who has me so low on her priority list she didn't even find time to provide me any support at all during or after the divorce, and 
• the ex-husband who after 19 years of marriage could so easily discard me without an attempt to address any issues or explain what happened.

I thought my ex-husband was different, at least in the beginning although I think the imbalance in our relationship goes back a lot of years, maybe even before the wedding.  Although, if I'm honest, I never expected any of the other relationships on that list to go the way they have either.  Would I even recognize a more balanced relationship?  Or would it feel too unfamiliar?

Would I know how to respond to a partner who wanted to take care of me while I was sick?

My husband didn't like my independence and the fact that I didn't need him (his words).  He said I was too strong.  But wasn't that just the result of him not stepping up and being that safe emotional place to land?  Wasn't it the result of that imbalance I had sensed under the surface for many years?  If he wasn't going to take care of me while I was sick (to use a concrete example of a larger issue), what choice did I have besides independently taking care of myself and tapping into my strength?