I dreamed about you last night. We were talking but I don’t remember the details. I woke up with you still there at the back of my mind.

Today’s run was beautiful: the PT exercises did some sort of magic bc nothing felt tired nor sore despite going all out for the FTP test yesterday. Today was a deceleration workout that I did along Carroll Creek. I felt like I was floating during the 30 sec surges. Between that, the quietness, and the snowy pre-dawn landscape, it was gorgeous. I would have stopped time right there if I could have. I exhale on 3 beats when I’m running, so the cold air made my breath look like the steam from a little locomotive as I followed the water.

I spent the entire run having the conversation below with you in my head. You were very present today.
………….

I am concerned about your calf. Not because of its effects on your performance, but because of what it might imply from a personal standpoint.

Please take this as my 2 cents…or $20, since I’m explaining in detail. 😅 It’s all meant as (a lot of) food for thought based on what I see from a distance. Since I can’t engage in a conversation where there is back-and-forth, I end up writing even more bc I’m trying to ****clearly**** explain my thought process - which then leads to the reader skimming what I wrote, and completely misinterpreting everything. 😫 I don’t know how to prevent that when I can only communicate in writing.

So I am writing it all out here in this app, where it can be read and re-read if necessary bc there isn’t a rush to erase it.

Please know that I am writing all of this from a sincere place of both love for you and profound concern.
…………

These are my pattern recognition spidey senses acting up. Also: ****NONE*** of this is a criticism of you, only observations.

1. The last time you had this injury was right before our situationship began, in May-June of 2024.

2. At that time, you were recovering from straining your calf. You postponed our first run together because of that injury, which is when I told you about muscle flossing. I brought the bands in for you to try; you liked them so much you bought your own. I also brought the Assisi Loop into work for you. Which was convenient, because this was around the time that Pebbles bit you on the wrist. You were able to use the loop on the bite wound, since I had already brought it in for your calf.

I vividly remember knowing exactly when KJ texted you about the bite that afternoon. Your entire demeanor changed as you looked at your phone. It was like you had instantly turned into an 80 year old man. Nothing had happened between us yet, but the change in you made me so sad.

You were getting hurt all the time back then…until you opened the door for me.

3. We then spent almost a year and a half running together…you didn’t have a single injury flare-up during that time. (I really hope you remember that 😞….that during your time with me, you didn’t get hurt. You pointed it out when we did the Frederick Half together: you’d been trying to make it to that race for years, but you’d always get injured. You finally succeeded with me….from a metaphysical standpoint, that means something.)

4. You hurt your ankle in pickleball the week before the GF, back in September.

• At the time, I was debating ending everything with you bc you were so incredibly unhappy. I felt that no matter what I did, I couldn’t make you happy anymore. I was going to give you two more weeks after the GF, and if you were still angry + I still couldn’t talk to you without somehow setting you off, I was going to peace out.

• I also felt that given a choice, you would still voluntarily choose the person that made you unhappiest: her.

• Back then, prior to being discovered, a part of me felt that, whether you consciously knew it or not, you had *already* chosen her and **that’s** why you were so furious all the time.

• Given the levels of your fury back then, I cannot imagine reconciling in a healthy way so much rage/hatred towards the person with whom you are now 24/7 , especially when she isn’t working on herself by going to individual counseling *now.* WHY is she not going to counseling???

• Her not going to individual counseling = deep rooted reluctance to fully change on her part, because she sees nothing wrong with her behavior. It makes me LIVID on your behalf: why are **you** expected to be the only one doing homework???? If she hadn’t been making your life a living hell, you wouldn’t have looked at me twice.

• I do not understand the marriage counselor’s persistence in only pointing to you as The Problem. You were assigned books to read about affairs. Did SHE get assigned any reading on How Not to Be a Control Freak? If she does not address her control issues **on her own,** she will ***always*** eventually revert to her baseline of maximal control. Mark my words. Yes, I am angry FOR you as I am typing these couple of sentences out. I will go to war in order to protect/defend the people I care about, and you are at the top of the list of People I Care About.

5. Ok, I am back to being calm. All of that to say: I don’t think the pickleball ankle injury in September was a coincidence. I think it was a manifestation of your rage over being trapped in your relationship making you physically snap: it was your body telling you something. I thought it then, and I still think so now.

6. A week ago, there was a shift in our current relationship: I stepped back, all the way back, to standing at the exit door. Because again, I was getting ready to leave. The moment I did that…you hurt your calf. I couldn’t help noticing the pattern immediately…I even joked about it at the time: that if I’m not in your life, you get hurt. The pattern is *screaming* at me.

7. I am bringing alllll of this up because you admitted recently that you believe you got sick every time you spent more than 7 consecutive days with only her, bc your body was manifesting your frustrations with the relationship. I agree - there came a point where I was expecting you to get sick every time you took a long trip with her: it was predictable. (You never got sick when the kids went along. When you traveled with the kids, the emails were happier, more detailed, with more photos. And you didn’t get sick or hurt.)

8. I think your body is STILL trying to tell you something that you don’t want to hear about things at home. Last year in PR for your Valentines trip, you caught that nasty cold with a fever that required antibiotics. This year, you re-injured your calf.

• Actually, I want to add more to this, because I went back through our emails and conversations because the pattern recognition spidey senses went into overdrive, and I was correct: the timing was exactly the same in both trips. It’s EERIE: in both PR and Roatan, both Valentines trips, you went on one run shortly after the vacation began, and were then taken out by your body: in PR by the malaise that required antibiotics, in Roatan by your calf.

9. When we were doing the nutrition coaching, you’d answer the stress question every time with a 0/10. I always wanted to ask you about that, but Alex wasn’t supposed to know about your life at home. That didn’t change the fact that I could *feel* your stress levels when I was in your presence, which would then make me wonder what you weren’t telling me. I would have scored you at a 12/10, but by then I was too afraid of you to ask what was really going on.

10. So given current events with your calf, I am asking another question that you don’t need to answer, but that I would like for you to think about: are you ***truly*** happy right now, or are you just trying to ***convince*** yourself that you are happy because you have no other choice but to stay?

This is one of my long-standing concerns with you: are you sure this isn’t a sort of hostage situation where, because you can’t leave the relationship, you have developed Stockholm syndrome? Stockholm syndrome is defined as “a psychological response where abuse victims develop a psychological alliance and positive feelings toward their captors or abusers as a survival mechanism.” As a survival mechanism. ***As a survival mechanism***

My fear with all the counseling is that, given that it’s mostly aimed at “fixing” you (and not her), it’s simply an attempt at forcing you to bend, to conform, to something that once made you extremely unhappy. I would feel calmer about this if you weren’t injured right now, but I cannot ignore that your body is STILL talking.

11. Observation: The week before the trip, you did *a lot* of pickleball during a week that had already been scheduled by J with heavy training.

I know pickleball brings a social aspect to your life where you get to interact with people outside your house, that you don’t get with running/cycling (they are solitary.)

But: given the dramatic increase in pickleball volume right before a trip where you would be under her direct surveillance for every second of every minute of every hour while away, I then have to ask: is that much pickleball during a heavy training week **only** because you enjoy it that much, or is pickleball also a distraction/escape from life at home? And thus you going to pickleball every day before this vacation was a subconscious way of “stockpiling” time away from her before the trip? You don’t have to tell me the answer to these questions; they are only meant as another thing for you to think about.