Hey listen cake-topper: I think you're quite correct about this and I respect where you are in your journey.

I can't relate to having a partner play with my heart intentionally, though Occam's Razor strongly suggests to me that an Ex has.

Occam's razor is too quick to punish the Other and label any man who hurts a woman an abuser in some ways, though to me it explains a lot of boundary issues that couples experience in relationships, especially when all of those have previously been marked by trauma and betrayal, pain and confusion and not in a good way insofar as the former.

The only way out is to keep working on yourself and doing the best you can with what you have now. Shit's a mess now all over the world so it's actually a great time to walk alone, take an inward path and heal the broken parts.

He was a good lesson. And even though the toll was great, education as it currently stands is too expensive and broken and puts a ridiculously high markup on a piece of paper that means nothing if you can't be creative and take what you have and rebuild, reimplement, recreate until you've carved your own path.

Maybe with time you'll both grow up and figure out a way back to each other without fear, without pain. After all, love is a gift, heartbreak a trial, and life itself is executioner: jury/judge are both death in the end.

There's no more and no less to life.