The other gap is your waiting. Most of us wait for the other person to make a move. But this relationship is clearly something you want, so you may have to take the initiative. The more you wait, the worse it gets.

It is possible to be too sensitive to another person in a time of grief. You may sentimentalise the grief. Outside, you try to be patient and understanding, while inside, you’re boiling for some action. This is like yin and yang. You need both, and in this case the yang side — the active, impatient, initiating part — may need to come to the foreground.

So have a heart-to-heart talk. Tell him you’ve been waiting for his grief to tone down, but you’ve waited long enough. You don’t have to give an ultimatum, but only encourage him to find vitality with you. I think that if he knows that you are aware of his grief and that you understand it because of your own feelings about your divorce, he may have the common ground he needs to set aside the intrusive quality of his grief. If not, he is hanging onto his suffering excessively, and you may have to go on with your own life until, perhaps, he understands. You know when you have waited too long.

In short, you do two things: you acknowledge the grief you both have, knowing that it will never completely end, and you acknowledge your desire to start life afresh. One of

the great strengths of human beings is that they can do two things at once, without having to make sense of it all. — Beliefnet.com (Concluded)