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D ear Levi,

I don’t know how to start this, or where it’s supposed to go. The therapist said I didn’t need to make sense, but I needed to be honest. So here it is. My honesty.

You broke me.

And I hate how cliché that sounds, but it’s the truth.

You shattered something I thought was unbreakable between us.

For so long, I carried the weight of our life…

our kids, my job, the appointments, the emotional labor you never saw and I did it gladly, because I believed we were a team.

Even when we drifted, even when I was exhausted, I believed you were still with me.

But you weren’t. You were with her.

And I felt it, you know? Long before I knew the truth, I felt the distance growing like a void I couldn’t name.

I blamed myself at first. Thought I wasn’t enough.

Maybe I was too tired. Maybe I’d stopped being the version of me you wanted.

Maybe if I’d been more… more at tentive, more sexual, more everything?

Maybe you wouldn’t have looked elsewhere.

It took me months to realize: your betrayal wasn’t about me being less. It was about you not seeing me at all.

I hate you for that.

Yet I still love you.

That’s the part I can’t wrap my head around.

That love and rage can live together in my chest like warring beasts, both tearing me open.

You’re the father of my children. You make Violet laugh until she snorts.

You make Liam feel safe enough to talk. You know how I take my coffee and that I can’t fall asleep without the fan on.

You’re my person, even when you failed me in the worst way.

And yet, I don’t know if I can ever fully let my guard down with you again.

When you say you want to rebuild, I believe you want to try.

I do. I’ve seen the changes. The presence.

The effort. And it scares me how badly I want to believe this version of you is the one I get to keep.

But I’m afraid. Afraid that if I let myself love you again completely, I’ll be opening a door to another fall I won’t recover from.

You’ve made it clear that my comfort, my peace, my safety?

They matter to you. Whether it was setting up the GPS tracker on your phone, giving me full access to your emails, or doing whatever I felt was necessary to rebuild the trust you shattered, you did it and I want to thank you because I see the effort. I see the remorse. I see you.

So I’m here. Writing this. This means something, doesn’t it?

I’m not writing to forgive you. Not yet. But I’m writing because I need you to understand the storm you dropped me into. I need you to hold it without trying to fix it or justify it or minimize it. Just… hold it with me .

Because despite it all, I want to see if there’s still something left in the ashes worth growing.

– Sloane