So D and I just had a very long talk, in two parts.

The first part was really bad.  He said he was worried about us, he said things were bad, he said he didn't know what to do and that things were starting to seem hopeless.  He said he is worried that we are just hanging on for the sake of hanging on.  We talked about breaking up.  But he said he still loved me.

Then I had to leave to get to my appointment at the car place.  (Rotten timing, eh?)

They took an hour and a half to give me an oil change and tell me that there are many many expensive things wrong with my car (goodbye, savings account  :(  seriously, the entirety of my next paycheck will have to go to the car and rent will come out of my savings, leaving me broke again.  dammit!).  I called my best friend L and she didn't pick up, so I called another good friend H.  And she listened to me cry and told me I was awesome and that if things didn't work out that I would still be awesome and then we chatted about things and she made me smile.  And then L called me back and listened to me cry and told me she loved me.  Thank goodness for friends.

I don't remember if I ever mentioned it, but over winter break when I went home to visit L we talked about the ED.  So now she knows too.  It was a much less painful conversation than I thought it would be.  I started out by setting boundaries (at the suggestion of new therapist): I don't want this to change our friendship, I don't want to talk about it all the time, I don't want you to worry about me all the time.  I've been like this pretty much our entire friendship anyway so really nothing is changing except that now I am not lying to you.  I told her she could ask questions but that I reserved the right not to answer them.  She asked one (does the ED have anything to do with my mother.  haha, I guess the fucked-up-ness of my home life was apparent in high school).  Then she told me that she loves me and of course it doesn't change anything.  I'm so lucky.  We haven't addressed it since, which is absolutely 100% fine with me.

Anyway.  So I talked with H and L, not so much the details about D and I, just that things were rough and I didn't know what to do.  And I think that helped.  I felt a bit better, anyway.

And then I got home and D and I talked some more.  And we established that neither of us really want to break up.  And we made a list of issues and what we could work on.  And I told him about the emails with M, just to make sure everything is out in the open.  I don't feel so guilty about them anymore.  (Also, I think I should clarify--M doesn't live near me.  He's on the other side of the US, in the same city as D.  I know him from my undergraduate days; we worked together on a club committee.  So it isn't like we are hanging out or anything.  Our only contact is email.)

D is going to text and email me more frequently.  I am going to make a list of good things every day (thanks to Kazehana for that idea, D and I both really liked it).  We are both going to work on our communication.  And we are taking an online course together and discussing the lectures each week.  We need to do more things together.

Also I am going to work harder on my self-esteem.  We didn't talk about that, but I feel a lot of our issues do derive from it.  I've been working on it in therapy along with the eating, but I haven't met with new therapist in a long time (winter break and all).  We have our first meeting of the semester tomorrow, so maybe that will help.

I guess we will see what happens.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.