Well. Yes. I suppose that perhaps instead of just accepting the premise, "there is no place for me in his life as he is choosing to build it" I should have questioned it and it didn't necessarily have to lead me to the conclusion, "it is best for him if I let him go so he can have the happiness he is seeking and has chosen" and perhaps things would have gone differently across these years if I had instead responded to the premise with questioning instead of conclusions. Perhaps it would have been better if I had instead asked, "how can a place be found for me in his life?" or "what place is there for me in his life in some other role?" or even the most basic, "is this really what he wants?" or more specifically, "would he choose this if he knew the price to be paid for me leaving him and disconnecting at the 5d level if there's no place for me in his 3d?" 

And maybe things would have been different if I had asked questions instead of drawing an if-then conclusion to guide my actions. But different doesn't always mean better -- and maybe the lessons we each had to learn about the nature of the bond and the strength of it would have remained undiscovered on those different paths. 

I would have had to be a goal oriented soul rather than an experience oriented soul to have asked the questions that could shift the goal instead of drawing a conclusion to help me shape my wandering path around the block. And then I'd be someone else and not me qua me. I don't set goals because I'm not motivated by seeking a telos, I seek experiences so I wander trusting in the Universe to get me to where I'm meant to be and I choose my path guided by passion and curiosity and wonder and my personal ethical code (including the stoic streak in me that tells me, "you don't have to like this but you must accept it no matter how deep it hurts.") 

And you have to remember, part of my ethics is that I hold free will to be sacrosanct because it's the only thing that gives any meaning to anything on this plane of existence. Only what is chosen and given freely creates meaning out of what is otherwise random chaos of intersecting causes and effects. Nothing coerced or forced or demanded has meaning to me -- only what is chosen and freely offered from the heart has meaning to me. 

And, at the time(s) that I have genuinely believed that there could be no place for me in his life as he has built it, it's always been because I can feel inside me his choices about who/what he wants to build his life around. My certainty that there could be no place for me in his life has always rested on the foundations of his certainty in who/what he DID choose to build his present/future life upon at that time. At every juncture that I have believed it and sought to let him go, it was a time when he genuinely felt in those times that he had met the love of his life (and there are as many loves and ways to love in this Universe as there are things we can love for their isness -- both of us are capable of deep real love outside the bond without it decreasing the value and isness and strength of the bond stretched between our souls, whatever it is and however we created it between us) or that he knew his vocation to mold his entire life around and it somehow excluded me. My certainty it was the right conclusion to a true premise was always predicated on his certainty at that time on choosing a life path with no place for me in it. Somehow, his uncertainty in himself and him questioning his choices always seemed to grow in him AFTER I drew that conclusion acted on it in ways that I did whatever I felt needful to let him go to build the life he chose while I went wandering off cutting contact points and stifling the bond.  But at the times that I made my choice and accepted "there's no place for me in his life as he is choosing to build it" he has always felt himself certain about having found the love of his life or the career path he must pursue no matter the cost.

And I wasn't going to argue with that certainty in him that echoed down the bond into me because free will is sacrosanct and who am I to tell him he's wrong in his choices and his own emotions and his own truths?  I never acted based on his words or anything anyone shared of his private life, I always acted on that conclusion from what came directly from him in the 5d down the bond. 

And then, over time, the premise and conclusion started to ossify in me like unexamined premises always seem to do. I started to see them as his Truth (with a capital T) rather than an if then dependent clause. I accepted it as his Truth so deeply that it took me many years and a lot of choices we have both made for me to even start asking, "if it's really his choice not to want any place for me in his life, then why is it every time I pull away from him to give him that choice he starts examining then rejecting the choice he had previously been so certain about?" 

I feel inside me that my healing from that bad premise has brought me to the point I am ready to ask, "is there any truth in the idea there is no place for me in his life?" and more importantly, "what do he and I need to do to create a place for me in his life so our life paths can twine together?" And I've been trying to do that, to focus on examining these questions and the choices they guide us to make. Only, sometimes when it seems like he's choosing things that confirm that old way of seeing the premise as his Truth, sometimes I fall back into the old rutted mental pathways of just blindly accepting I'm no part in what he wants to choose for his life. 

I'm trying not to just blindly believe that premise is his Truth. I am trying. It's just, I'm not very good at it whenever I get signals from him that seem to me he IS choosing to build his life in ways that have no place for me in it. 

I'm working on it. At least, I'm working on trying to sit in the headspace that questions IF that premise is his Truth and concludes that if it isn't we need to figure out what choices would carve out my place in his life for us to have a shared life path. 

And I don't know if that's enough... But it's where I'm at in my questioning of that idea and what I can try to do right now with how little there is available to me to try to work with at this point. 

Yes, it could all be sorted by me finding out from him what it is he DOES truly want built into his life moving forward and where he would choose my place to be in that.... But I don't have ways to know that now. And for a long time he didn't know that himself. As certain as he has seemed recently, he may not yet know those things. So since I can't have that sort of certainty to help me discard the idea completely, I'll stick to starting out by trying to approach the premise with questioning it instead of accepting it as his Truth.

And. He does get to questioning himself and anxiety ridden and broken up from his deep inmost self every time I try to quiet the bond and make me give him up while believing there's no place for me in his life.... And that's a recurring pattern in him that rings true every time. And I should consider the why, the consistency and the causality or synchronicity in that. 

This isn't really an answer or a guide, just some swirling thoughts and questions in me around my past acceptance of the idea, "there's no place for me in his life as he is choosing to build it" and the cause and effect ripples that created/creates when I act on it to try to let him go and leave him and deaden the bond between our souls. 

I still can't shake from my heart the feeling we've over complicated this and the swiftest way to cut through this Gordian Knot would be shared presence where we could hug and let our truths just shine between us at such close proximity there's no space between us for lies or fears or overthinking or wrong assumptions to grow. 

I don't know how we get from here to there, but I still have the unshakeable feeling that would simplify out nearly all the thorny unnecessary complications sprung up between us....