Since then....

I haven't slept well for a few days. For awhile, I considered using the pain medications for numbing more than my incisions. That's not healthy, though.

Initially, it was a long, ugly phone call. I was shaking so badly I could hardly talk. My brain buzzed.

The message had been addressed to one of Ranger's roommates. A 23-year-old incredibly messed-up mother of two toddlers. The week before my surgery, this same woman had stopped me and told me she asked her pastor to prayer for me, that all would go well. "I know how much Ranger cares for you," she said. To my face.

Ranger gave me a very flimsy explanation. His story was that she had made a pass at him the previous night, but he'd refused her. This made her feel bad, so he wrote the message to make her feel better.

Okay. So, dear Diary, scroll down and read that message again. Does this explanation make sense? No. It does not.

"It's just my fantasies," he said later. That doesn't quite cut it either. You don't tell someone you hope they enjoyed you, in your own fantasy.

Repeatedly, I picked apart the message and pointed out how this didn't make sense. Over and over, he said, "I don't know what to tell you when you won't believe me."

Ranger and I have dozens of discussions about what it's like to have a partner cheat on you. I find myself facing my own advice. The question has been, what do you do when you know you aren't getting the whole story? Well, you assume the worst and decide if you can deal with that.

I'm trying to. I really am. All those old wounds that Ranger helped me heal have just been ripped open again. By him.

"You promised," I cried to him. "You promised I'd never have to feel this way again. That I was enough...more than enough...for you. You know how I've hurt. How can you be the one to hurt me like that again?"

I've lost track of how many times I've said that now. I've lost track of how many times he's apologized. For several days, I couldn't escape the words from that note. They drifted through my mind constantly, torturing me.

"All that you promised was mine, and mine alone," I said. "You've given it to someone else. The things you've said to me, they aren't mine anymore. They're words. Just words. For anyone. I'm not you're 'Beautiful'; anyone is."

He disputes this vehemently. His feelings for me have not changed. The next day, he pulled this roommate aside and told her nothing could ever exist between them. He told her "distance" was best. Do not even call, IM, or text.

He left out emailing.

I was with him when he got notice of a new email through his phone. It was her, through her cell phone. I happened to be looking at his phone when it came in.

"What's that?" my Spidey-sense tingling.

He stared for a moment. He clicked and read the message. All it said was that one of the other roommates had beaten a video game they'd been playing. "It's her," he said.

This happened eight days after the initial incident. We've been trying to work on this during that time. He's not only handed me access to all of his email accounts and his phone, but set his email to forward all new messages to me automatically, so nothing can be deleted and hidden. He's been very intense on trying to re-convince me that it's a mistake that will never happen again, that I'm his world, that he'll never risk losing me again.

But back to the emailing. This made me crumble. As I've been telling him for the last week, I'm not on sure footing anymore. It's up to him whether I find that footing again with him or not. And I have to see if I'll ever trust him again.

As I watched, he replied, saying, "Please do not email me."

In tears again, I told him that she obviously did not get the message. And I can't help but wonder why. I told him so. "If I hadn't been looking when that came in, maybe you would have ignored it. And it would have just continued."

Apparently, he went home and told her point-blank to stop emailing. He didn't know what part of "distance" she didn't understand, but he put a block on her number and address on his email server. And he said it to her in front of the roommate she's sleeping with now.

Oh yeah, that. Right after Ranger told her to scram, she turned her attention to another roommate, and is now apparently sleeping with him. She made Ranger feel irrelevant. He put everything on the line for that.

It's been an intense week-plus. Lots of tears. I don't like to cry, and I find myself breaking down in public, when I'm with Ranger. I'm not allowed to drive yet, so he's been driving me around to get my Christmas shopping done. We need the time together away from my insane, over-stuffed house, so we have the privacy we need to hash this thing out.

What's going to happen? I just don't know. He's desperate to reassure me that he means all the promises and that we can fix this. But there's a "trust hole" between us now. I don't know how to heal that.

Am I a fool for seeing if this can be worked out? Maybe. It wouldn't be the first time...but I've given lesser men second chances.

All I really know is this, as I've told him through many tears - I can't survive another blow like this. And I can't live a life of wondering. He's promised profusely to prove to his worth, his undying love, to me. To see how raw my pain is causes him great pain. To see me so sad hurts him. And it should, I told him.

I'm working on this a day at a time right now. We are. I'm being very open about my thoughts, pain, and doubts. And he's letting me, and listening.

We'll see. For now, I'm just so sad over promises broken...and a broken heart.