You're right on with what you said about trying to protect my T in some ways. I had started writing that very thing in my initial post, but it didn't make much sense to me when I went back to reread it. At one point, when I felt incredibly hurt by T, I wanted to hurt her back (yes, I know that's childish). It was startling to recognize that there was really no way for me to hurt her. I could leave, but at the time that would have just hurt me.

You're right too about not burning bridges - that's definitely not something I want to do. I suck at conflict in general.