She said, he said ... now what?

I wrote to M. on Tuesday:

On Saturday when we talked something happened that I want you to know about. It was a profound revelation of an undeniable truth.

Within a second of you saying (you were going on a date that day) tears started rolling down my cheeks and continued throughout our conversation and turned into sobs when we hung up. The fact that they came to my eyes at the thought of you entering into a possibly "healthy" relationship revealed all the truth to me. I could no longer deny that for a long, long time, for much of our friendship, I have been using you as an object of my love addiction -- a "back up" plan if you will, a stash of some sort. Over the years, despite many "signs," I had pushed aside any doubts I had about the legitimacy of my interest in a deep and loving friendship with you. On Saturday I felt all the shame, pain, loss, and regret of the undeniable truths that revealed themselves in the stinging tears. I could only wonder how much pain and harm I had caused us both. I asked God to let me feel it all and I sat with it.

I am not at a point in my program to make amends, nor am I ready. There are more steps for me to take in my own life, more inventory, more to learn from slowly unpeeling the onion of all my dishonesty and mistrust with others and myself. But when the time comes, and my understanding is complete, I will owe you an amends. For now, I will simply say, I am sincerely sorry. There is no doubt I genuinely care for you and would never intentionally hurt you, or use you to hurt myself. Our disease doesn't live by intention though.

I am telling you this, first because I feel the need to apologize, to be honest, and second because I want you to know the truth.

Today M. wrote me a message:

I got your e-mail. There is no need to fret. You didn't do anything wrong. Your disease brings shame when there is nothing to be ashamed about. Nothing can hurt our friendship, nothing. Do you understand?

I'm relieved that he finally wrote, because I have been obsessing about his thoughts ... and now I am doing my best just to sit with my feelings about his response.