The last paragraph is the part that keeps making me cry... I'm glad that you're feeling some of what my T said with regard to C, but I understand that it's hard. It's like, "OK, now I'm supposed to put my trust in someone who I haven't known for that long when I've just been hurt by someone I've known for much longer, who I trusted and who had also made some promises to me..."

One of the big things about this response to me was that T *didn't* make promises. He said he didn't intend to leave, but acknowledged that the relationship would most likely end at some point. That somehow makes me feel safer--at least at this point--than someone promising not to abandon me (MC). Though I guess T has told me that if I got attached to him like I did with MC, he wouldn't just drop me, that we'd work through it. And he said early on that it would be unethical to abandon me--though I said that didn't really help, that it just made me feel like, "Great, now I'm stuck with you." But when he said that, he didn't know me that well, and I think now he understands where my brain goes when someone says something like that...

I guess that's another thing about the e-mail--how he seems to really understand me now and know what I needed to hear. Maybe not what I *wanted* to hear, but what I *needed* to hear, if that makes sense. Like of course part of me, like you, wants him to say he won't abandon me. But...at this point, would that truly reassure me? Probably not, because it would be hard for me to believe him. Instead, he's being realistic and saying most relationships don't last forever. But that he's going to help make me feel strong enough to get through those things.