Seeking and Cas, thanks for your continued encouragement. I guess things have been moving forward bit by bit, just at a snail's pace.....but seemingly still forward.

Mila, thanks for your feedback about the photos. It feels like another mini baby step forward.

Missher...............it always motivates me to have you say you'll be looking forward to my debriefing. laugh Thanks for being in my cheering section!

So........XH and I played TT for almost 2 hours.....XH was in a better mood than he has been for the last 3 weeks, although he was still a bit cranky (not his normal self). It was interesting. There were times during play that he seemed like a cranky child. In spite of that we had some laughs and that was pretty good given that he was told a couple days ago that his mother has less than 6 months to live. He met with the hospice care team today........Then as we were going to our cars I was thinking that I should suggest to XH that we go for a drink and talk about his mother's health, but before I could say anything, XH said (as he was getting into his car) "So where is this place you're going to take me?" ........so XH DID remember that I had suggested that we go to this new restaurant afterward. We ended up eating and drinking for almost 2 hours.

I asked XH about the meeting he had with the palliative care team and he talked a lot, so I guess that was good. I asked him open-ended questions about his feelings about his mother's declining health and his family dynamic. He seemed to really try to answer many of my questions which showed more consideration of these questions than I saw from him pre-bomb. He seems a little paranoid and at odds with his sister right now. This was pretty unappealing to see but it was pretty standard MLC stuff. At one point XH told me that X-SIL and her H are having problems. He said to me "I asked her 'Have you told your H you're feeling this way?. How can your H know you feel this way unless you tell him? X-SIL's H won't even go to M counseling with her." At this point XH was getting a little bit agitated in relating his convo with his sister......... I bit my tongue R-E-A-L hard. We were making prolonged eye contact when he said this and I tried to keep a poker face. Don't know if I succeeded or not. I was thinking to myself, "Doesn't he hear what he is saying?????????? Doesnt he remember that he admitted at one point that he hadn't told me he was so unhappy he was thinking about leaving?...........and doesn't he remember that he wouldn't go to M counseling with me?????????? As we were locking eyes, I almost thought that for a nanosecond XH might have heard what he said but I'm not sure.

After that XH listened to me talk about my patio tree situation (I've gotten opinions from 6 different tree services now). He actually talked with me about this and it was helpful.

Somehow the topic of needing more TT practice came up and I said "We don't have a regular TT game schedule established". XH said "We play almost every week now. Are you saying you'd like to play on a weekly basis?" I said "Sure". XH said "We can play every Wednesday then"...............so I guess this is a step forward. I can figure out more ways to flirt with XH over the next several weeks after the shock of his mother's prognosis settles down.......

The restaurant was closing so we got up to leave (might have stayed longer if they weren't closing). I said "Are you going to tell your business partner tomorrow about our game?" XH said, "You're going to e-mail him the result, aren't you?..........Business partner thinks it's funny that we play TT."...........Then XH said I'll have to show you my iPad next time...........then I realized that XH had brought his iPad into the restaurant and it was sitting on the table the entire time.........so another example of XH hearing what I said, not acknowledging it, but acting on it............XH reached out to hug me, I kissed XH on the cheek, and we got in our cars and drove away.

One thing i have noticed over the past 5 days, since X-MIL's health problems flared, is that if I moved forward (i.e. I was pro-active in caring for X-MIL) without asking XH if it was OK to do what I was doing, but just DID what I thought was right, XH went along with it and seemed to be OK with it.........Wondering if that same M.O. will work with flirting as Missher has suggested.

GAG