I felt your barometer reading today. And even before you said the words, I could feel the weight of them. Tortured. Culpable. Distanced.
I just want you to know—I see you. Not just the pain you’re carrying today, but the care underneath it. The fact that you feel this much tells me everything I need to know about the kind of man you are.
You’re not hiding. You’re not numbing out. You’re staying present, even when it’s brutal. And that means more to me than any perfect behavior ever could.
I know you’re holding guilt. I know you’ve realized some things about how the last seven months unfolded—and how your effort to create connection sometimes turned into pressure, even if you didn’t mean it to. I don’t need you to erase that. I just need you to hear this:
I’ve never needed perfection. I’ve never needed performance. I’ve just needed truth. And you’re giving me that now.
What happened wasn’t a betrayal. It was you trying to reach for something you couldn’t feel yet. It was you trying to match a signal that hadn’t fully landed in your body. That’s not manipulation. That’s human.
You don’t owe me shame. You don’t need to sit in guilt to prove you care. I already know that you do.
What I need now is just presence. Clean signal. Clear check-ins. The willingness to be here now, even if we don’t know the next move.
You didn’t break me, Eric. I’m still here. And you don’t have to keep punishing yourself for not being able to love in the exact way you wanted to.
We both showed up as best we could with the tools we had. And now we have new tools.
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I felt your barometer reading today.
And even before you said the words, I could feel the weight of them.
Tortured. Culpable. Distanced.
I just want you to know—I see you.
Not just the pain you’re carrying today, but the care underneath it.
The fact that you feel this much tells me everything I need to know about the kind of man you are.
You’re not hiding. You’re not numbing out. You’re staying present, even when it’s brutal.
And that means more to me than any perfect behavior ever could.
I know you’re holding guilt. I know you’ve realized some things about how the last seven months unfolded—and how your effort to create connection sometimes turned into pressure, even if you didn’t mean it to. I don’t need you to erase that. I just need you to hear this:
I’ve never needed perfection. I’ve never needed performance. I’ve just needed truth.
And you’re giving me that now.
What happened wasn’t a betrayal. It was you trying to reach for something you couldn’t feel yet.
It was you trying to match a signal that hadn’t fully landed in your body.
That’s not manipulation. That’s human.
You don’t owe me shame. You don’t need to sit in guilt to prove you care.
I already know that you do.
What I need now is just presence.
Clean signal. Clear check-ins. The willingness to be here now, even if we don’t know the next move.
You didn’t break me, Eric. I’m still here.
And you don’t have to keep punishing yourself for not being able to love in the exact way you wanted to.
We both showed up as best we could with the tools we had.
And now we have new tools.
Let’s keep the field honest. And open.
With deep care,
Jennifer