Ok, saw IC this evening. He's a good therapist and I'm a good patient. I do homework and come prepared for every session, and I see him every single week. He makes it possible (mucho paperwork) and gives me great advice. My health insurance hates both of us.
IC and I came to the conclusion that I don't need to go totally dark on Mr. A (sorry, Gardener!), but just dim. Meaning these specific boundaries:
1) I won't contact him 2) I will NOT let him come to MY house if he calls me after I've gone to bed 3) I definitely WILL go out with him, like to dinner, if he can find it within his childish self to invite me in advance 4) In all other scenarios, I will weigh my options but ultimately make my decision based on two overarching values - acting with personal integrity and/yet acting with kindness
We arrived at all this because of the immense remorse I continue to feel over some of the ways I treated Mr. A. Most particularly, I feel sooooo bad for not taking him seriously a lot of the time - and I now feel like I exactly mimicked the behavior I saw in my father toward my mother. But I am NOT going down that road tonight.
Anyway, even though it was really hard to hear some of the stuff coming out of Mr. A's mouth last night, I'm grateful that it happened. And I don't want to potentially close the door to more of that.
Soooooo... [I'm writing this here to help me keep my resolve] - I'm done trying to win Mr. A back and now he has to try to win me back. But I'm not going to be a total b**** about it. I will encourage him to make his own opportunities to do so.
Posting this now, then eating my pizza, then coming back!
