I am so sorry you live like this, tending the garden but not being tended you yourself in your relationship. There's something so poignant & symbolic about the garden, the young trees alive and the annuals passing away no matter what humans do, that being their nature. Like the annuals, we only have one life. To me, Object Constancy is what babies learn playing peek a boo, but which damaged adults ( like me) struggle with: that when someone is physically gone, they still keep you in mind and you still keep them in mind. I think of the cruel way you are treated as " splitting" .