Chrome is back

[Kettricken]

Hence the problems inherent in labeling anything "masculine/feminine" as opposed to perhaps "fire/water" or something like that.

Chrome, I think you're back in the Center of the universe chair. Not the "entitled" one ... the "everything is my fault" one.

Maybe on other occasions your "playful" approach might have worked for you, because it was what appealed to *her* at that moment. You're not a mind reader. And she sounds like a complicated woman with a full raft of her own issues; pressing lever A (ANY lever A) is not always going to get reaction B; nor should it.

I'm sort of on Martelo's page here ... let yourself, your dreams and desires, be known. That absolutely can and should be different from "let yourself be a whiny nag".

I'm all for taking responsibility for the things that you might indeed be doing better at. But over-immersion in that headspace can be a trap. If everything is your fault, then everything is fixable. You just have to figure out exactly what to do and make that change. The illusion of total control ... it's seductive, but what a lie.

Edited to add: And *may* lead to a lot of uneccessary and counterproductive flailing around in pursuit of trying to do the "right (translation: perfect) thing".