Dean being vulnerable and feeling grief

For the past couple months we've been working on relationship issues as my years of burnout have so caught up to me that I had to go find myself and put me first and that led to this weight loss and stuff.... (I've had a major caregiver transformation that I'll post about later). Well my weight loss and transformation changed a lot of our relational dynamics. So we've had to do some readjusting. In this readjustment period some things have come to the forefront for him and he's actually expressing them to me.

Like his artistic side - I am not artistic, I don't really 'get it' except through him, but apparently when you are an artistic person you SEE the world differently, you notice beauty, you see it and hear it, you are tuned into it. Beauty is even seen in sadness or despair sometimes; an artistic person SEES the beauty in everything. That is Dean. Well now the grief of losing this part of himself has come to the surface. He's really feeling it! He's really missing it and longing for it. He's longing for a connection to that part of himself that he lost. It's heartbreaking to witness. 

Because we are working on our relating to one another, he's been focusing more on his emotions, feeling them, not hiding them, sharing them with me, and being vulnerable. This is amazing to witness and share with him. It's helping both of us a lot! It's also hard on both of us. It's hard to see him struggle with vulnerability and trust in this way but of course it just makes me love him even more (if that's possible) because he's strong enough and brave enough to go there. This is affecting intimacy in a very positive way.