Ok so I guess I should respond to these epic letters you have sent me, but I don't really know how to do that. I'll just go line by line...

I never expected us to go this way either, nor did I want it to! However I don't share your perspective that we gave up. Neither of us gave up, perhaps we worked too hard to solve something which should have come naturally, hence the "unnatural" roles we played. Our plans were all conceived with good intentions, but there was never TIME to enact them because you were so impatient and I became exhausted with the perpetual regression. Yes I do realize that you sincerely wanted to make this work and you feel like you did everything you could to prove that to me -- you have proved that to me -- but you didn't allow enough time for the changes to take effect; you acted like it was going to happen immediately, but there was too much repressed trauma to break down first. To this extent, I never felt like you truly took possession of your own situation -- what I always referred to as "taking responsibility for your actions" -- so that I could re-center in my self and we could meet again in this "middle" that you are always proposing so abstractly. I see that you were (and still are) struggling to keep the faith, to maintain a positive outlook, but you still don't have one. You say you don't blame me for wanting to defend my own right to feel, my desire to preserve my own sense of self, my desire to maintain a balanced day-to-day, but it sure seems like you are passing judgement when you accuse me of giving up, of betraying you, of abandoning you.

I feel naïve, downright foolish, for opening up myself so much to you, but I certainly don't regret it. That was the only way! The only way I could show you that I was committed: that I would tell you everything, that I would make myself vulnerable, and sacrifice everything in order to make this work between us. I feel foolish, not because you don't recognize those efforts, but because I expected you to. You feel betrayed; well I also feel betrayed, so I understand. The "power" I wanted you to realize is in yourself, not external. You think you have something to teach me about myself? About how I am so stubborn in guarding my sense of self and unwilling to listen to outside criticism? I'm not saying you're wrong in that, only that it's ridiculous for you to tell me because I have been telling you that since the day we met and you were never able to process it. I know who I am, have had experience in how people react to me, and have calculated my own trajectory towards the kind of orbit I want to inhabit. I'm sorry you see this as narrow, and I understand why because in a sociological sense you may be correct in saying it's "unhealthy" in the same sense that it's not "normal," but I am quite at peace with this oppositional position I have placed myself (in relation to the world) and have been very clear that this has been my intention, that this is something I have been searching for, was reluctant to occupy, and now boldly and bravely carry with my as my intended goal. (Hence my obsession with the immoral ranting of Henry Miller.)

So what if the person you are with is angry, depressed, preoccupied with death, uncomfortable with their own inner workings, suppresses feelings into destructive outlets... do you abandon your lover? Do you accept all that volatility? Do you love those aspects of humanity without judgment or persecution? You have posed a profound moral dilemma for me and I can't say that I took the right path in deciding to share with you how I overcame these obstacles and offering strategies in dissipating the dark shadow of the existential parallax, but I have no guilt and no regrets about that decision. I feel no shame, and I don't think you should feel any either. To the extent that I could recognize and declare them, I felt a responsibility to share these observations with you thinking that you might view them through different eyes and step upon my shoulders to a higher plateau of thought. It's not that I intended to change you, but I did very much want you to be able to see the person you were and perhaps realize that there was so much more that you could realize. I believe you are now on a path towards that realization, and all of this suffering that is rising to the surface is symptomatic of this, but unfortunately you have mistaken me for working against you rather than in your (and our) interest.

I love so many things about you, but I see so little of them anymore since all you want to talk about is your problems with me and your frustrations with your self. I wish we could just have coffee, have dinner, do anything for that matter, without getting sucked into this horrible squabbling. It's like quicksand, and we are sinking, and whether you struggle with all your energy or I try to stay still we are still both sinking together, suffocating together. I have tried to tell you that I want to put all of this aside in order for us to be able to focus on LIVING, but you are obsessed and I can't take it anymore. Of course there's also the issue of jealousy and entitled ownership, my general feeling of a lack of emotional freedom, and the strange cycles of domestic interdependence that we have been falling into... but those things are also indicative of other, deeper underlying issues. My frustration is that you can't become aware of this, that I always have to remind you, and that we both feel helpless in changing these negative cycles.

I am aware of my lonely path, no need to remind me. I'm sorry you are filled with so much regret -- that you feel pathetic - and I encourage you to try to release that somehow. You can't change the past. You have to change how you feel in the present... this has always been your struggle, to be oriented too much towards the future while being trapped by the nightmares of the past, which causes nothing but fear. You doubt yourself continuously, even in these heartfelt letters, and I hope that you can overcome this to be at peace with yourself, and with this situation.

I am willing to change, I want to change, and I am open to what is to come. What will be will be, and for now that's all I can say. I find all of this talk about compromise to be so unsavory for some reason... maybe it strikes you as horribly wrong, but I no longer feel like compromising, nor asking you to compromise, but instead to let this relationship be whatever it can be from where it naturally settles. I want to realize more, continuously, and I wish the same for you. Let's meet there. I can't talk anymore about disappointment, trust (or lack thereof), support, or even processes of transformation. I wish to enact the change I want to see.

Devotion involves profound sacrifice, which I feel I have made and it went under recognized, so now I have to work towards overcoming my feelings of betrayal and cannot sacrifice anymore without fear of dissolving into something I have worked so long and hard to prevent. I don't know what will happen but I think I have some places to stay so we don't have to see each other if that is your wish.