He admitted that none of those things excused his behavior.
He wrote that he had confused protecting his pride with protecting our marriage.
Then he wrote one sentence that made me put the letter down.
I spent eighteen years asking you to forgive me before I had even admitted what I was doing.
I looked at him.
“Why did you keep going after you realized I was suffering?”
His eyes filled with tears.
“Because every time I stopped, I would have had to face what I had done.”
“And you chose to keep hurting me instead.”
“Yes.”
He didn’t argue.
For the first time, he did not tell me that I was too sensitive, that I had misunderstood him, or that I was responsible for his pain.
He simply admitted the truth.
“I can’t ask you to come back,” he said. “I know that.”
I folded the letter.
“Then what do you want?”
