1. She shows no reluctance to discuss any aspect of her activities, nor to account for any of her time, nor to answer any question I come up with. I have no doubt that this will continue as long as her activities remain innocent and my interest in her life remains sincere and without insecurity or unfounded suspicion.
2. She has been working with the trainer off and on for about eight months, and the only major changes I have observed during that time is that she and I have gradually grown closer and more affectionate, and she has shown more confidence in dealing with the rest of humanity in general as her energy level and appearance improve, and much less cranky with me and the kids. She shows every sign of feeling more loved, cherished, and respected by me than ever before, and returns those feelings wholeheartedly.
So, I must have been doing something right so far.
On the other hand, she's a lot better at reading me than I am at reading her, although I think I'm starting to catch on. So there could still be some surprises in store for me down the road.
Now y'all are telling me that I am supposed to restrict her activities for her own good. This strikes me as one of the most disrespectful things you can do to somebody. That's what you do to children, and they're required by law to put up with it for 6,575 days and not a minute longer. After that, as far as I can tell, the proper way to deal with somebody is by suggestion, by persuasion, by attaching conditions to your willingness to deal with them or to do something for them, by being somebody that people want to deal with, by setting boundaries on things that you are not willing to endure from anyone you choose to deal with.
Setting boundaries for her benefit? Restricting her own activities to make her feel protected? Threatening to kick her out in order to make her feel loved? That just feels completely messed up to me. Of course one of the big reasons I keep getting into trouble is that I'm weird, and I don't really have a firm grip on how the rest of humanity thinks (although I've been learning), and I'm not even always certain about how I think. So I'm definitely approaching this with an open mind.
Now I'm well aware these days that I have to be willing and able to live without her if need be in order for her to really want to live with me. The next step, from what I'm seeing, is that I have to really, deep down be willing to throw her out under circumstances in which I really, really wouldn't want to (or more to the point, reach a state of mind in which I would want to) in order to keep her respect and make her feel loved. Kind of like mutually assured destruction - we had to be willing to wipe the Russians off the face of the Earth, knowing our own destruction would almost certainly follow, in order to keep nuclear weapons from going off throughout the Cold War and Russian conventional forces out of Europe.
Have to think on this for a while... I can't fake that mindset, I'd have to really be in it to make it work. In the meantime, I'll continue to keep a sincere, loving interest in her daily activities while providing plenty of love and manly attention to ensure that she wants nothing more than to keep coming home for more of it.
a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
