Hi Angela,

I just wanted to give you another update that is an evolution of my thinking and the thought process post the last email.  I hope you keep this and the other email confidential and just to yourself, as this is all deeply personal.

I understand that I may have lost you and that you no longer love or having feelings for me. I have to be honest with myself, I still have lingering feelings for you.  I wish I could move on quickly and forget those feelings or ignore them in the arms of another but I am not able to do that, I tried. Alex and I agreed to end our relationship 2 days after I sent you the last email.  She already knew that I was not ready to date, I was honest with her.  I knew that she was just filling the void left by you, she did not do that.  You are an amazing women on so many levels and it may take me some time to find someone as amazing as you, but I know that I will one day find someone whose smell I like as much as yours. I have a lot to offer the right person.  I didn’t realise how much I loved you or how hard it would be to get over you. When our love was strong there was no greater high.  It was an amazing ride.

My personal development continues each day.  I have focused on the physical issues like job and weight etc and now I am looking at the emotional issues.  I am letting you know because you were the catalyst for this massive change, you have brought about something great for me. None of this is meant to annoy you or be an attack on you (I’m trying to write with love), its about me and my personal development. It may help you understand why things fell apart and why two people who loved each other were not able to make it work.  I have finally come to the realisation that most of our issues were caused by me.  It has taken me a while to realise this.   You were so loyal and willing to fight to save what we had.  Thank you so much for that.  You are such a great woman.

I have tried to look at myself and my behavior in our relationship. You were significant enough in my life for me to want to do this.  I lost you and that was devastating for me. I knew I loved you and I never stopped loving you, but I was not happy with some things in my life and it impacted our relationship.  I was just confused and I really needed this time.  It was a difficult that we me met you were incredibly busy and I was battling my worst investment performance in a long time. Not ideal for either of us.

After I sent you the last email,  I spent the day in the sun down at Bondi after having a great dinner party for friends the prior night, I was flat and just wanted to read in the sun and relax.   I have read a significant amount over the past 6 weeks.  I came to a significant realisation about myself and the impact it had on our relationship. This realisation is why I am writing this email.

Our relationship started with you not interested and me pursing you.   I am certainly not your type physically or in the looks department, and I guess you must have seen some of my good qualities (that or it was my deep and sexy voice) over time as we courted each other, to spurn your interest in me, it was a slow start, but that is not bad, it was probably a good thing.  I think I was obsessed with you. I thought the world of you.  There was so much about you that I admired.  I spent my time thinking of things I could do for you and things I could do with you and about having a future together with you and what we could create in the future. What had really happened though was I was so obsessed with you, partly because i had spent so long chasing you that I kept looking to get your validation so that I would finally know that i had you and that you were not going anywhere.  I think I couldn’t believe my luck in having such a great girl who appeared to be everything I wanted.

I was doing all these things for you and because of a lack of confidence I was hoping that one day you would come to me validate me and say something like “Michael I think your fantastic and I’m in love with you”.  I was longing for more love, more commitment, more reassurance. The thing is I actually think you said these things to me. I even recall you wrote it in an email to me from the US. You may have said and felt that way but I would have still, because of my insecurity I needed more affirmation (this was not your problem). I was looking for you to give me more positive affirmations and validation about how you felt about me, but I am not sure it would have registered.  I should have been more comfortable in my own skin and confident of your love.  Because of this unmet need of mine, I was getting more and more frustrated.  My obsession meant that I was doing more and more things for you in the hope that one of them would impress you enough to make you give me the affirmation I needed. This situation made me feel more and more anxious and frustrated.  The result was that when you then told me things you were not happy with about me or we disagreed on something,  I was already not getting the emotional fulfillment I needed and then on top there was what felt like criticism.  It would not have mattered how lovingly you delivered the criticism I would not have taken it well because I was getting myself down trying to win your love. I see now there was no malice in your delivery of these comments, it was just an honest attempt for us to have a better more fulfilling relationship.

I should have sat back and patiently watched our relationship blossom, but I rushed things.  I put pressure on things and I grew increasingly frustrated that the woman I loved did not settle my anxiety or need for affirmation, however it was not your role to do that.  Please understand there is nothing that you could have done that would have relieved that. Even if you were aware of this issue then,  what ever you did to try and alleviate the problem would not have been enough.  That is why there were fights, where I should have said nothing, given you a big hug or just accepted that your point of view was different to  mine, but I was already frustrated and had little patience or tolerance left. I thought my love for you would be enough.

I obsessed about you because you were so good in my life and I latched on to you to compensate for other things that I was less happy about in my life. You have great friends, a great job, your fit, your happy.  I  had areas of my life that were not fulfilling, though I am now getting to that place now.

I hope this all makes sense to you.  There is nothing wrong with you and you did nothing wrong in our relationship, yes there are some things I would have liked to have been different in our relationship, but I I have really looked into myself and spent the time trying to be a better person and making sure that the heartache is not without a positive end result, and me being a better person. I know that when I eventually find another that I love that I will not make the same mistakes.  Its just a shame I had to lose you to discover this.

I am really happy with my plan and my progress. Here is a summary:

If the new job plays out it is paying $100 – $150k more than what I earn now in base plus a revenue share (i’ll use some of your tactics to get the best deal I can, Open High?) its in the city and I have a team of analysts. That is what I need to be more engaged.  There will also be more travel.The company is Japanese owned with offices all over the world.  I’ll even try and get 6 weeks holiday a year.

I have lost 16 kg now and its still coming off. So I look a lot younger, I feel a lot better,  I fit in all my old clothes.  Helps with my confidence.

I am starting to think about places I want to travel to and countries and cultures I want to see. I want to ensure that I see 2 different places every year. And I am hoping to do it as economically as i can (if the hotel is clean that will suffice, another of your influences, I was so impressed with Love Lane, George Town.)

I have read many of the books i have accumulated to read and I have passed many on.

I am de-cluttering my life of possessions and things I don’t use.

I am allowed to ride again so that will be great.  I have plans to race again next year.

I am trying to accept people for who they are and not judge. (thank you)

I will have an investment property by the end of the year, hopefully sooner.  That will alleviate some of my anxiety over that.

I am not saying no to any social activities that come along and I am organising a lot more.

I hope you don’t get annoyed/dissapointed that I am making these changes now and that I didn’t do it while we were together, please be happy for me that I will be a better person and that you contributed to making me a better man, for that I am grateful to you. I am not idolising you or romanticizing our relationship either now that it is over, there were issues that we had but nothing that was insurmountable, I feel guilty that I threw it away because I had things that were not right in my life, many of which were not hard to fix.  We shared a common vision for what we wanted in life and we had similar values and we like each others smell (I really liked your smell). I finally thought that I had found my intellectual equal and that we would produce some very smart children and even if we didn’t we would re-assess and still have a great life but travelling a different path (maybe that year off travelling, cross country across Vietnam on a scooter?).

I needed to have a major event like this to make these changes. I have to be happy that good came out of our relationship for me in terms of personal development.  At the moment I still miss you.  I don’t know what the universe will deliver to me next in life but I am nearly ready and hopefully will be in a great place to accept what ever comes my way.

Michael.