Tex Mex and Steve (et al)
I don’t believe Travis felt guilty, so I don’t believe he was vulnerable to having guilt be exploited by the on the 4th. I also don’t think what was said on May 26th is irrelevant simply because no matter what was said or thought or intended, she ended up in his house and apparently in his bed on June 4.
I have no doubt at all that she would have killed him that day no matter what he did or did not do.
Plucking those next to last lines about “addiction” from a 2 hour exchange in which, for the entire duration up to the last few minutes, quite the opposite sentiments and realizations were expressed, explicitedly and repeatedly, is IMO not only to take those comments out of context, but to entirely miss why he said what he did AT THAT POINT.
Related. Here’s an alternative scenario to fear (or guilt) (or sex) being what opened the door for her on June 4, taking the full chat into account.
Fonseco’s testimony was dishonest and abhorrent, but I do agree with her on one point. I think self-loathing is part of what fueled TA’s rage on May 26. Whatever the told him that prompted his email to her, it related at least in part to their sexual activity, and according to the PP2 foreman, she either had already told TA she was going to her bishop to come clean about sex, or she did so at this time and his email was sent in response.
It’s not necessary to believe Travis would feel threatened by her going to her bishop to understand the rage he might have felt that the was posturing as a better Mormon than he, and the self-hatred he might feel about failing HIMSELF spiritually.
The Gchat put in a different context.
Just ten days before their Gmail confrontation, Mimi told Travis she was only interested in being friends with him. By all accounts, Travis plunged into a serious enough depression immediately afterwards that his friends were concerned for his well-being, even for his safety. Travis told multiple friends he believed he “wanted to kill himself,” and that he had f—ked up his life, perhaps irretrievably.
He wasn’t referring to “losing” Mimi. IMO, he was in part coming face to face with what he believed to be the consequences of his own behavior, including not expelling the from his life, for all the reasons why he did not.
Three days after Mimi denied him, on May 18, Travis wrote his “Why I want to Marry a Golddigger” blog. Excerpts relevant to the point I promise I’m in the process of making:
“I want someone to love me for the Gold that is with in me and is willing to dig with me to extract it. I heard someone once say, “Speak to the king within the man and within the man the king will appear.”
“Now obviously for this to work whether we are married or single we need to work hard every day to make the most of ourselves. It means that I must strive to spend my time laboring to be worthy of such a woman. Not only to be a man of ability but to the have the ability to see the women of ability.”
“I believe like attracts like which means we tend to gravitate to those like us.”
“I think all of us myself included spend much more time trying to find the right one, when we should be trying to become the right one. If you desire someone that is physically fit, the best way to accomplish that is to be physically fit yourself.
If you want someone to be spiritually sound, the good news is there are plenty of them out there. However because they are spiritually sound they are only looking for people who are spiritually sound.”
A good exercise to do is to take those lists we used to make in our adolescence of what we wanted in a spouse and update them and then rate ourselves 1-10 on how we are doing in those categories ourselves. It is an eye opener.
I realized the reason I wasn’t married wasn’t because the type of person I was looking for doesn’t exist but that the type of person I wanted wouldn’t be interested in me."
"I have noticed that some remain frustrated at their spouse for various character flaws that they have. What they usually don’t understand is those same character flaws are in them too. In fact that is usually at least partially what attracted them to each other.
If we want things to change in our relationship, we can not do it by taking a way the agency of another. We can only change things by changing ourselves.
…….Only by working on ourselves can we guarantee results, because then if nothing else we have bettered all our relationships because we bring a better us to the table.
Then by so doing we liberate others to do the same, we provide an example to others to follow suit."
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A day later, on May 19, Travis texted Taylor: “I physically can’t take it. I can’t sleep anymore. I need to get to the bottom of it with Lisa, “ and on May 24 that he had “made a mistake but I learned from it.”
Also on May 24, to another friend, he texted: “I have to get all of this off my chest, regardless of how she takes it. I’ll feel a little better; (my need to do this) is “just unquenchable.”
He sent like texts to other friends over those days, May 19-24, and wrote in his journal of the need to come clean with Lisa.
On May 21, Travis began trying to reach Lisa by phone to initiate that come clean conversation with her.
And on the same day, May 21, he sent the following texts to MariaM who he was almost certain was the :
“ I would have been your friend regardless. The dishonesty just makes things worse in the long run and is harmful to others. I hope whatever made you act as you did, the Gospel will help you out of it.
I knew almost from the beginning that you were being dishonest, and I think you know that. I was hoping you would come clean and then I could help you, but no luck. Anyway, I wish you the best and hold no grudges.
I forgive you, whoever you are, but you need to come clean. I need to know who you really are. Please just come clean and tell me the truth. All of it, not just part. You’ll feel better.”
Fast forward to the May 26 chat. In proper order, thematically, Travis first essentially challenges as a lie the ’s stated need to go to her bishop. He moves on to calling her out as a liar more generally, and demands that she tell him the truth, including that she is not sorry. It is the who continually diverts the texting back to sex, not Travis, including by calling herself a *advertiser censored*, and it is she who first applies the label “addicted” to Travis, then to herself, an assertion Travis does not agree to, or even reply to at the time.
Throughout, Travis’s focus is on her lies, and getting her to admit to them. She succeeds in diverting him several times into talking about sex, but in short order Travis goes right back to trying to force her to admit to her lies. He loses it several times, he returns after each outburst to insisting that she admit to her lies. She doesn’t.
Travis changes course in the last few minutes of the chat. It’s then he says he’s addicted. He isn’t referring to sex, he’s referring to what he says he knows will be his inevitable forgiving of her transgressions. In these minutes, all his demands are reduced to one: “JUST TELL ME YOU ARE NOT SORRY.”
She replies, “everything you said when you were playing the tough Travis is true,” but that it’s complicated to explain. Travis tells her to “say it with details, and be specific.”
It’s at that point he tells her to call him, saying: “I don’t want bull shiz that neither of us believes, just call me and tell me, “I want to hear it because I feel it will be the first pure truth you’ve ever told me.”
She says it will be difficult, and when TA asks why she replies-because sometimes the truth sucks.
He tells her it (telling the truth) should feel liberating, then asks, right? Right? Right? Right? And tells her again he doesn’t want bull shiz.
The chat ends there, followed by a 2-3 minute phone call, that was in turn immediately followed up by her email to him titled: “Two things- I did not slash your tires and I did not steal your journals.”
He was asking her to come clean. He may or may not have expected she actually would. If he did imagine she was on the verge of telling him that first “pure truth,” he likely was all the more furious when instead she finally said what she had wanted to say since May 22 (IMO, the sex tape).
The didn’t come clean with Travis on May 26, but two days later, May 28, Travis did with Lisa. He texted afterwards to friends how good it felt to unburden himself, how liberating, that he felt “happy as a lark.”
He felt good about himself. He no longer felt depressed. He was jauntily flirting with Brooke and looking forward to the future. His belief in himself had been restored, and his belief in the power of “coming clean” had been reinforced.
And just possibly, had the been paying attention on May 26 as I suspect she was, a more confident and relieved Travis may well have had handed her the key she needed to manipulate him just enough on June 1 that when she ambushed him on June 4, however distrustful he was of her that day, it wasn’t nearly enough.
It’s a theory, anyway.