hope you love her, cause you're stuck with her now

[MichelleLT]

Just for journaling, his e-mail response from last night (I didn't read it til this am)

I know that you did some therapy and have been doing your own work. Do you think it helped? Do you feel that you had been able to communicate to the best of your abilities?
In my opinion none of it did. If you feel the need to retreat during any argument, It almost sounds like what you told me about Neal was about you. You stated that every time a disagreement came up he felt it was a fight... I am quoting you.. and then you say you recoil at conflict.... Could you also be referring to yourself? I am asking because now i am confused.

Perhaps you misunderstood me. I didn't feel unappreciated, actually the truth was I felt greatly appreciated. I also felt very loved; however you are correct in saying I felt no passion from you.
I am sorry that you feel abandoned. In all honesty do you really feel that I didn't fight for passion? Do you feel i didn't put any effort in? Did I not tell you that of all the relationships I put the most effort into this one because it meant the most.
As for my reasons for leaving. Do you think it would be fair to you if I stayed with you while I my passionate feelings for you had all but completely dissolved because of my feelings of rejection?
This may seem very gruff and totally mean to say but I have done my best to communicate with you how i felt about things and us.
I had brought this up on numerous occasions and you saying that i didn't communicate to you how i felt is a bit ... absurd.

My withdrawal began due to the "moods, work, finances , health, house etc"... but they also had begun when I started feeling like a friend and not your lover. I attributed all of my feelings to those things that you felt and that's when i began speaking with MY therapist about it. That's when i realized something else was wrong. I tried working through it and realized one of the most important things was missing from my relationship. My partner did not physically desire me. You and I again talked about it. Your response was "then let's do something about it. All we do is talk about it but never do anything about it. That's when I said to you "it doesn't work like that for me. Talking about that gets me upset and it's difficult to become aroused when I'm upset" Then it went right back to nothing again.

The conflict within me was another reason. This conflict was between my feelings for you and yours for me. You loved me deeply. I loved you as a dear companion and friend.
I realized that I wasn't in love. I felt like an old married couple after 2 1/2 years. Yes I did consider going to couples therapy but then i asked myself one very important question...
"Am I in love with her? and If i am not then why try to save a relationship that has lost all of its passion?...
Michelle... for 8 months I worked on my own personal garbage, thinking it ws keeping me from falling in love with you. Apparently I was wrong.
I wanted to love you and fall for you but as time went on I fell away. IS that fair to you ? Or would you rather I come back and live a lie?
Which leads me communication...

I did try talking to you numerous times about our issues with sex... You asked what I like... I said Lingerie. So you went out and spent 140$ on Fredrick's when afterwords you said that it was "outside your comfort zone"... Was that my fault? I had spoken with you many times about how you fell asleep on me so that made me feel rejected. Your mom actually cleared that up. She said "Michelle was an easy baby all i had to do was rub her back and she would fall right to sleep." I nodded to myself thinking "yup". I had also given you numerous pointers that sex needs to be given and received from both sides. Each person needs to give as much as receive. Because most of your experience has been with men who do nothing but take, I felt the only way i was going to get you to initiate was to ask you ... So I did
Where's the spontaneity in that?.. That got old very fast

Next for communication. You had told me that any time we spoke about something you retreated because of your reaction to conflict... I got more out of you the night we broke up than all those nights that we tried to talk and you shut down. How is that fair to me regarding communication. I tried to talk things out the beginning but i lost my patience very quickly because I felt like I was the only one who ever initiated sex or conversations on issues.
Now... why didn't I decide to go to counseling with you? Because I thought it was my issues that were clouding our issues. So I worked on my issues.
As for you backing off and giving me the space I needed, I did appreciate it but I thought you were trying to avoid me going into a depressive tailspin... Perhaps you were...

That goes right back to fairness. How is that fair to you that all of my issues become your burden?
You are right about one thing. I wasn't all fair to you. I didn't give the ultimate effort that you deserved. i could have but unfortunately I gave up when I got frustrated.
But honestly... Would you want to be with someone who didn't love you as much as you loved them? Where is the fairness in that?

I am sorry that I hurt you. I never intended to. I did try to the best of my abilities and that is the god damned truth.