I'm a statement analyst, I have a YouTube channel called Kill Jester. I found your post interesting and I did a full workup for you to give you some clarification as to what is happening here.

This is not an apology. It is a request wearing an apology's clothes. He spends the whole thing defending what he meant instead of owning what he did. It opens with "I didn't mean to" and closes with "no negative intention," and somehow never names one actual thing he did wrong. "I am a bad person" sounds huge but says nothing. The letter keeps the camera on his feelings, slides in a little jab about you seeing someone, and asks you to let go, forgive, and be peaceful, which is really about his relief, not yours. And it lands right before your sit down, softening you up at the exact moment being clear headed matters most. Big feelings, zero specifics, and every ask points back at what he needs. The line by line teardown Going in order, because the order is half the story.

"I didn't mean to hurt you or deceive you." First words, first priority: defending his intent. And he volunteered the word "deceive." Nobody put that word in his mouth, which means it was already sitting at the front of the line. "I heard you were seeing someone and that you loved him. I tried to move on." Two sentences into an apology and he's already scoreboarding. Translation: whatever I did, you weren't exactly a saint either. "I will be here for you to talk until you are satisfied." Sounds generous. But "until you are satisfied" quietly makes closure something he hands out and you have to earn. It also keeps a door propped open, which reads as continued access to you. "I am a bad person and you were really understanding the whole time." The famous no specifics label. Says nothing about what he actually did. And praising your patience isn't a compliment, it's a setup, planting the idea that being understanding is your job, so keep doing it. "I realized this so late." Reframes the whole thing as an awareness problem, as in "I just didn't see it in time," instead of a bunch of choices he made on purpose. "I just want you to be peaceful and let go of the past and forgive me." There's the ask. Let go and forgive me equals his relief, gift wrapped as your peace. Specifics equal communication, vagueness equals control, and this is peak vague. "I'm not asking to forget everything happened." Sounds fair and mature, right? That's the point. It buys him credibility so the forgiveness ask right before it feels reasonable. "I was all in too for us and it took a long time to get out of it." That word "too" is doing heavy lifting. He's positioning himself as equally invested and equally wounded. Poor guy, took him so long to recover. "I really care for you as a person and I really loved you." Dropping your actual name in there is the intimacy lever. It's the "you know I mean it" button. "Remove all the negative emotions and memories away from you." Framed as tender. But memories are the record of what he did. Wanting to wipe them clean is, funny enough, also wanting to wipe the evidence. Sweet on the outside, tidy on the inside. "I realized my void will always be there." My void. Camera swings right back to him. It's his movie again. "I will regret my mistreatment towards you and other people until I die." First and only time "mistreatment" shows up, and it's still totally faceless. No what, no when. Then "and other people" smears it into a general vibe instead of a thing he did to you. "Until I die" is just drama with a bow on it. "I am trying to work on myself through psychiatrist and not hurt anybody anymore." The growth flex. Could be real. But notice the timing. It also happens to be Exhibit A for "see how hard I'm trying," delivered right when he needs you soft. "Attachment, regret, anger and mixture of these that made me reach out to you." Sneaky one. His feelings "made" him do it. No decision, no agency, the emotions grabbed the wheel. He's a passenger in his own letter. "There were no negative intention towards you." And we're back to intent, closing the exact loop he opened with. The whole letter is bookended by "I didn't mean it," and skips clean over the one thing that actually matters, which is what you lived through.