Well, one thing that strikes me is the "lessens the chance of outright rejection " it seems to me that this is your own doing. I believe you may need to change your expectations in order to minimize your opportunity for pain. In other words if you go into it with a clear mind and the understanding that you expect no for an answer, then anything else is "icing" on the cake wouldn't you say.
The one thing that bothers me about you is that you tend to focus to much on the negatives. Don't get me wrong, I understand the fresh wounds and how we try to not put salt in them. But, this is a choice you are making to see what will come of things and when you do that you cannot go into with gauze and bandages in tow ready to be used because you "just know" that you are going to need them. I can remember when my daughter was very young and she touched the stove when it was still hot. Carrie started watching her all the time, not allowing her in the kitchen, that sort of thing. I told her, if she is dumb enough to touch that stove again, then she deserves to feel the burn.
Now understand I am not saying I wanted my kid to get hurt. I was saying that I want my child to learn from getting hurt. I didn't want her to never go in the kitchen again, just to think twice before touching the stove and look for the red lights saying it's still hot.
P, I think that sometimes we make what we are trying to do here much harder for ourselves than it has to be. I think we look at things and seek the negative rather than the positive ie: "We make a great fivesome" you looked at that with anger, reality is it's nice that he even had that thought. Many WAS would not and certainly many would never say it. Perspective, postive forward thinking, self fulfilling prophecy with a positive outcome, these are the things you need to keep cycling through your brain. You are in control here right?
