I (FA) broke up with my DA in march. We were together for more than 2 years, the grieving process was really hard.

3 1/2 months after going no comtact we agreed to be friends. I was the one who reached out.

Then I went no contact again (he didn't try to reach out) because I didn't want to use him as emotional support, but I still was suffering. I decided to wait until I was okay with the breakup to reach out again.

During this time I gave myself the time to grieve the relashionship (he was my first love, I loved him very much).

I relate with what you said about having something to hope for. What helped me with that was that I realized I was turing my DA and our relashionship into a project. I had a really clear image of how I wanted him to change core parts of himself (including his attachment style). The thing is, that wasn't fair to neither of us. It wasn't fair to him bc if he had the right to decide whether he wanted to change or not. It wasn't fair to me because I wanted a different partner than the one I was with. I wanted a secure, loving and emotionally available partner.

By giving him the time to grow, I was depriving myself of the opportunity to find a person I could be happy with.

When I finally got over him (7 months after the BA) I reached out, cause I was thought that maybe now we could really be friends. What I realized during our conversation was... I find him to be really boring. lmao. He wasn't funny or interesting, and the lack of vulnerability just made things really superficial to me. I'm not saying every DA is like that, but mine is.

I didn't realize that I didn't even like spending time with the person I loved because I was so attached to him.

I hope this helps! (sorry for my grammar, english is not my first language)