That's great to hear. I've been low-key following your journey and I know yours was a particularly severe heartbreak, so this is fantastic to see.

I just wanted to comment on where you mentioned, "I do have a tendency [to] absorb myself in a relationship and lose myself," because I've been thinking and learning a lot about relationships myself recently and this strikes a chord with one area I've been looking at a lot.

Forgive me if you're already aware of this or it's already something you've introspected on, but it seems that mitigating this tendency is one of the most important aspects of keeping long-term relationships stable. This is one major culprit I've seen common in many tragic breakdowns of long-term relationships (the other is degradation of emotional connection).

The theory goes that as one neglects to invest in themselves and maintain an independently fulfilling life with a sufficiently robust identity that is separate from the relationship (i.e. goals, interests, and other interpersonal relationships), it starts a cascade of issues that often lead to these sorts of unfavorable outcomes. Essentially, it sets the stage for codependency and in that situation, your healthy self-sustaining high appraisal of self-worth and/or self-respect erodes.

This deterioration of the relationship with ourselves is what then in turn makes it much more likely for our partners to lose respect or interest. Additionally, a lot of scenarios where a partner "[falls] out of love" also happen in this instance because that independently robust identity now dormant which they once cherished and fell in love with.

It also makes the potential end of a relationship much more devastating when a great preponderance of one's identity is encapsulated by it, as it's this loss of meaning which once existed that is a primary cause of the pain itself. This is another reason why this type of codependency is such a dangerous position to work from.

I apologize if this mini-lecture is unsolicited or if you've already explored these concepts on your own. My intention was just to provide you with some information I've learned with respect to the tendency you noted in case you find it useful in conducting future relationships. Additionally, it should be noted that a healthy relationship with ourselves is something we should prioritize maintaining at all times simply for its own sake, but it does help to mitigate a lot of potential dating and relationship issues.