At one point I had a moment of insight.

If everything I do, and all the love I give, is mistrusted and rejected, why should I continue to give?

I am not going to beg him to please accept my love if he doesn’t want it, or is unable to accept it.

I’ve been trying for years to make him see me for real. If I haven’t succeeded by now, then I never will. If by the age of fifty he hasn’t reached the kind of emotional maturity I need from a partner, then he never will.

I don’t want to waste the rest of my life banging my head bloody against this wall.