...quite a letter - he obviously thought about it a lot and constructed it very carefully. He paints a clear picture that he is hurting and he knows you are hurting. From a WH perspective I'm beginning to think that WH's feel a need to cope with the pain by trying to focus as much hurt as possible on ourselves so we feel as much pain as possible as we know we did a bad, bad thing. To my "head in the sand" comment from awhile back I think that is what this self-destructive intent could lead to.
I think you should reply quickly, and very carefully. Try to take some pressure off him. Acknowledge his pain - let him know you understand that he is crushed. Let him know you hope with all the hope you have that he can find a way to deal with it and working together you can be more successful at that than him working alone. Perhaps you should suggest the 2 of you spending more time together with quiet, reflective discussions with the theme - hey, let's take this 1 day at a time, this problem didn't happen in 1 day and we can't fix it in 1 day. Focus the discussion on your shared goals in the future, not on hurtful memories of the past. Find some common ground in the discussion topics, esp the ones that seems to help his self-esteem. He knows he made a bad mistake but thinks that its unrecoverable - its like he thinks he needs to just give up but something inside him hasn't allowed him to yet. Perhaps you can further spark whatever it is inside him that wants things to get better.
Pls remember my opinions are just opinions; I'm new to this but I've hurt more in the past 2 weeks than ever in my life. I'm just trying to draw parallels from my feelings to his. We do have a few.
As always, we're thinking of you.
Have a great day! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />
