After almost four and a half months of continuous communication, daily text messages, phone calls, dates, meeting friends and connection, after a sudden 24-hour silence, I received a message:

“I’m not interested in being in a relationship. I realize that I may have been confusing and misleading, and this is a hard thing for me to realize, but it is the truth.”

The blow to my stomach was like never before.

The disillusionment of this latest almost relationship brought forth what felt like every wound I had already seen and worked through, forcing them back into the light. Appropriate, perhaps, as I am just entering my Chiron return.

The wounds came rushing in:

Too much.

Comparing myself to other women, “Just try me, I am different, you will see…”

Too intense.

The wound of betrayal around someone showing up so consistently, pursuing with such reliability through both words and actions.

The wound of the almost relationship itself.

The wound of projection.

The wound of being adored, idealized, and elevated onto a pedestal before someone has truly come to know me.

The wound of being told I am different. That I am unlike other women in “xyz” ways. That I am beautiful. Intelligent. Captivating. That they love my voice. The way I think. The way I speak. The way I move through the world.

The wound of being seen as extraordinary before being seen as human.

And perhaps most painfully, the wound of watching that projection collapse the moment I begin revealing more of myself.

The moment I become a real woman instead of an idea.

A woman with fears. Needs. Desires. Boundaries. A history. A beating heart.

The burden of carrying the emotional labor required to make sense of what happened and create closure where none was offered.

And the list continues.

After almost three years of dating, I can count on one hand the men with whom I have felt a genuine connection. Men who showed up in conversation, in action, and in time. Men with whom I slowly opened myself, opening my mind, my thoughts, my heart, my body, and my life.

As much as I believe in love, I also believe what my Venus in Capricorn has always known: relationships are built on foundation. They are built on reliability. They are built over time. They are built for legacy.

That is what I need in order to open.

And yet, so many of these connections seem to reach the same point of disillusionment. Right before they become real. Right on the cusp.

The pain around this particular wound of the almost relationship has been tremendous.

And still, I have learned. Because this is my path in life.

I have learned so much wisdom around navigating these experiences, yet each one continues to show me there is more to learn.

I sit here exhausted. Feeling grief. Feeling betrayal and oh so much anger. Wondering if it will ever be possible.

Some of the lessons have been hard-won.

I have learned to define what it means, for me, to take a relationship slowly.

To say no to weekends away early on. For me, that is a sure opener of both the heart and the body, only to risk being scorched when the foundation has not yet been built.

The last weekend away, I specifically asked the man I had been dating for nearly five months, “What are your intentions with me and this weekend away? Because if I go away with you, I will open more to you. I will want to spend more time with you. And I want to know that you will meet me there.”

He replied, “My intentions, Elizabeth, are to get to know you more. And afterward, to spend more time with you, not less.”

It was a beautiful answer that I leaned into. And perhaps that is what made the disillusionment so painful when he slowly disappeared.

Other lessons I have learned have included to open my body slowly.

To abstain from sex until a relationship has demonstrated its ability to navigate some form of real-life challenge.

To lean in enough to see what attachment system surfaces.

New relationship energy is intoxicating. It is beautiful. It is fun. It is seductive.

But when it is not met with discernment, too much can be placed upon a container before it has the capacity to hold it. Too much emotion. Too much projection. Too many conversations about a future that has not yet been earned.

As I sit with the wreckage of another almost relationship, I find myself wondering, amongst many things, if one of the most painful dynamics in modern dating is projection.

Carl Jung spoke of the anima—the feminine dimension within a man. The part of him connected to feeling, intuition, receptivity, beauty, relationship, and love.

When that feminine remains largely unconscious, it is often projected outward onto women.

I have felt this projection more times than I care to count.

Adoration, fascination, the certainty that I am somehow different.

Until I become human and reveal more of myself. My needs, boundaries, fears, real desires of my own, disappointments, contradictions.

The sudden flip of once being worshipped and fascinating to becoming complicated is overwhelming to my nervous system as pursuit becomes retreat to the nearest way out.

And me? Well, I am the woman standing there who is left trying to understand what happened.

While not solely the reason for the curse of the almost relationship, I do believe they are part of an inevitable collapse of a projection that could never survive contact with a real human being.

So, while I can hold the image of many archetypes to men.

I am not an ideal.

I am not a fantasy.

I am a woman who wants to be seen and loved in her human form.

And perhaps the curse of the almost relationship is that so many never last long enough for two people to meet each other beyond their projections and discover whether love is actually possible there.

I’d love to hear your stories in the comments.

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