Us? or You-and-Me?

I continued to spell out how I foresaw a solution of a new relationship, listing more examples of areas where our attitudes needed to be revised:
"Once we are both behaving as our true selves, at each moment, then who knows what change in the relationship will develop? Can we just lighten up please? I would like to stop all bickering, sarcasm, complaining, arguments, accusations, nastiness, and only say pleasantries to eachother or nothing at all. Behaviour between us in private and in front of our child and anyone else will be calm, relaxed and positive at all times. Also, let's give up on analyzing everything. Lets start with a clean slate where we both aim for a positive outcome for the other wherever it is within one’s power i.e.: neither will not purposefully try to make things uncomfortable or difficult for the other – that we work off the premise that neither will try to ‘destroy’ or ‘sabotage’ or ‘punish’ the other by, for example; - sending damaging emails, removing house or car keys or locking the other out, emptying out bank accounts, or having the attitude, ‘if I go down, I’m taking you down’ – any revengeful or vindictive behaviour...

Letting Go

Well... the plot I laid out in My Private Soap Opera didn't work out too well! One month later, to the day, he was not satisfied that his share of the Trade had been adhered to well enough by me, plus, he had broken my deal-breakers by discussing our (particularly my) sex life to others.

During this time, two quotes really struck a note with me: 'Promises are worse than lies, because you don't just make them believe, you also give them hope; for something you're not sure you can do.'
and 'Betrayal of the self in order not to betray another is the worst type of betrayal'.
So once again on this 22nd day of the month, during a precious scheduled time to myself (which was the major part of the agreements we had reached), I sat down and the following words flowed out of me, producing this letter which I presented to Him:

My Private Soap Opera

When was the pilot episode of this soap opera of my relationship?
This is not an easy question to answer... a reference point was earlier this year when I just HAD to come up with a solution to the very real problems in our relationship which were getting worse - and without having defined or clarified them, even within myself, I took the symptoms and tried to find remedies for each. This was the best I could do at the time. I had not yet gone through the painful months of analysing and distilling the emotions, all the reams of reading in books and online, trying to find some sort of root causes.
After a very late night tearful and emotionally draining discussion, where I broached the subject of what I needed now in my life and maybe we should consider trying it out, and we did... for a whole month, then all hell broke loose...