I said, "You know me, John. I'm a sensitive person. I can't take a lot of conflict in my mind and in my heart. It stays with me. I can't eat, I can't sleep. I keep running arguments in my head over and over; it doesn't end. When I was fighting with Kaia, I ultimately moved out. I couldn't work when I was fighting, and if I didn't work, the kids couldn't eat."

"That sounds completely miserable," John comiserated.

Nodding, I said, "I was miserable. I hate causing grief and discomfort for people. Kaia knew that about me. So she started going to my Dad, my Mom, my brothers, telling them all this stuff about me, making me feel even worse. I just wanted to disappear; I felt like I was disappearing from reality."

"Had you really done the stuff she was accusing you of?" John asked.

I grimaced. "Some of the stuff. It's hard to know what she was talking about exactly. I didn't realize she was reading my emails, my text messages, my journals, because I didn't have a lock on my devices. I would never read her private materials without permission, and it just didn't occur to me that she would."

"You hadn't had many girlfriends before you got married, had you?" John said, smiling coyly.

"I didn't; dating wasn't natural for me. I just fell in love and told them everything about myself," I admitted. "Kaia read stuff in my journals but it was all mixed together with fantasies, fiction, scenarios, but she treated it like a true confession. But because she never came to me about what was real and wasn't, I couldn't know."

"It's hard to trust and share after you've been burnt, I know that." John took a deep breath.

"She was tracking my phone by GPS without my knowledge too; I only found that because my Mom told me." I groaned.

John asked, "So why did you go back to her, if she betrayed you and cut you open like that?"

"While we were split up, I'd wake up in the middle of the night twitching, wondering if I could change anything. If I should try again, if I just said I was sorry for everything and tried to be nice all the time. Because it was my night self, my dream self, it felt like reality, the deepest core of me." I explained.

"Sure, that makes sense," John said.

"I was drinking a lot, too much. You remember how sensitive I was to alcohol in college. I was blacking out more and more, and then I wrecked my car, restrained and sedated by the police and nurses at the ER. They sent me back to my apartment from the ER in a taxi the next morning. I was locked out, because my keys and my phone were in my wrecked car, at the towyard." I felt ashamed just recounting all this.

John looked at me with tears in his eyes. "I'm so sorry, buddy. I hate that you went through all this alone. I should have been there to help you."

"Thanks, John," I said. "I walked a mile back to the hospital and got a taxi to the impound yard. I found my phone and keys, and I called Kaia. I told her what happened and asked if she wanted to get back togther. It just felt like I had nothing, and she represented my home, my kids, my whole life."

"I guess she took you back?" John asked.

"She did. I moved back in, lost my driver's license for awhile, and the TV studio made me go to rehab for two months. I still have to go to AA and get randomly drug tested three times a month. And that was it. I don't drink anymore, I live at home with my wife and kids, and I have a few friends I talk to online." I felt exhausted just telling this whole story.