Busting, Wendylon, and Grace, thank you for your posts, for the encouragement, and for the (((())))

Well, he replied. I was surprised he did it so soon. I guess my coach has proven she knows her stuff.

Here it is. FYI, I told him about my coach. It was the only way to frame this email into something logical.

"Hi, Tori.

Thank you for the thoughtful note. You have always been very thoughtful. Jody seems like a very smart person and I’m glad that she has helped you. I’ll let you know when I’m up for the “closing conversation”. I’m not ready yet. Yes, the conversation will certainly be a challenge, but I’m sure it will probably be helpful in some way.

I really didn’t intend to send you mixed messages, but I know that I did. I’m sorry about reading your personal journal, that wasn’t right of me and I regret it. You are right though, that I felt very hurt. But you are wrong if you think that was the cause of the breakdown. We can talk about that in our future conversation, but I would call it a lack of flexibility, and lack of openness and sharing and making it safe to share. Later on when some of those three issues were improving a little, it was a lack of trust, a cycle of criticism and defensiveness (I felt attacked), a lack of freedom and a lack of personal space. I’ll also admit that I had a problem with honesty, which I habitualized, and I’m very sorry about that.

Anyway, you are probably right that we both paid for this emotionally. Thanks for the validating comments in your email. Those make me feel good. I don’t really want to write a list of things I like about you, although I could. It’s only because I’m afraid of how you might interpret this as another mixed message. Know though that I truly want you to be happy and that I respect you very much."

It seems he's ID'd some of the things he did to contribute to the breakdown of our M. When he talks about lack of freedom and feeling attacked, he's referring to my being paranoid after the A. I asked him to share his phone records (and I found more calls from and to the OW) and to tell me where he was and with whom. I wouldn't do it differently now, even though I know the DB way would've been to not ask about his whereabouts, etc. But there was no way I could've done that. This A really killed the trust.

It's been quite the day. But I made it! And I do appreciate your support. You are really helping me get through this, and I will always be grateful.