WHG - Why the heck do you care? It's her distrust, not yours. You didn't create, she did. Stop owning it. In essence you're saying you shouldn't GAL or do things because it might make her mad. Really? Listen to yourself... by the way, has not doing things worked for you? Has toeing her line and staying in her pocket gotten you far?
Rick - sadly true, comprimising for her has not worked. In fact, all it's done is made the hypocrisy of this make me angrier and angrier.
WHG - Do what works, stop doing what doesn't. You know that toeing the line doesn't get you anything but headed towards divorce. So don't do that. You sort of know that GALing pisses her off and makes her uncomfortable, but does it actually drive her away?
Rick - any time she gets uncomfortable with me GAL I think to myself that she must really not want me to leave her, but in her current state she is so defensive that she would rather end our M than admit she still wants me. I've been trying to figure a way around this dilemma. Maybe I just have to do it anyway and its up to her to figure out a way back to me.
WHG - She does care. That's why she's getting defensive. But she doesn't want to engage. She wants to keep you available as her safety valve but live her own life too. Sweet deal, eh? As long you keep playing out the string she gets to keep having this deal. Lucky lady. But don't take the care piece to mean she's in love with you. She cares in a way that's selfish... she cares because she needs you and you're safety for her. I see the same thing with my W. She wants me here, she wants me around, she wants me to take care of bills and such - she just doesn't want me as a husband.
That may be the ugly truth. I just find it so hard to believe that anyone would do something like this. You go from being in love with your W to wondering what depths of selfishness are behind her actions. I guess I'm like Neo in The Matrix. I need to take the blue pill and wake up!
