H and I had a very enlightening convo last night. Enlightening for me anyway, I can't say for him. I now have a very good analogy of the progression/state of our R.
Picture a young boy and girl sitting and playing with a pile of toys. Initially, the toys are new and interesting, the R is new and untainted, so both are playing quite well together. After a while, when the personalities start coming out, an observer would notice that the little boy is playing with the majority of the toys and the little girl has less, but because the little girl is creative, she can be content playing with less so no conflict ensues. Soon, the little boy, who is not very creative, gets bored with his big pile of toys, notices the little girl having lots of fun with her pile and decides he wants her toys. He takes her toys. The little girl is surprised by his action but just calmly takes some of the toys that he was no longer playing with and is content. This cycle occurs a couple of times, but after a while, the little boy takes the toys from the little girl and won't let the little girl take any of his, so she has nothing to play with. For a while, the little girl just watches the little boy play with all the toys, but since the little boy is not very creative or entertaining, she tries to take one of the toys. A fight ensues.
About this time, Mom, who has been offering instruction all along about playing nicely (counselors,) walks over and separates the two, giving each of them half the toys to play with. The little girl is ecstatic because she has more toys to play with than she has ever had. Little boy is very unhappy, because he wasn't happy with all the toys, he's certainly not going to be happy with half. He tries the nice approach and asks the little girl if he can have first this toy, then that toy. Initially, the little girl complies because she doesn't really need that many toys to be happy, but notices that he isn't willing to do the same for her. Finally, when she's down to 3 toys, she refuses to give him anymore. He already has all of the biggest and the newest toys, and she only has three. Because of the limited number of toys she has left, she refuses to negotiate a trade with the little boy unless he hands her a toy first, because she believes she won't get a toy back, and since he won't go first no trade happens. The little girl would like to be able to play with the bigger, newer toys, would even like to have someone to play with, but determines that's not an option so she'll just make the best of it, grateful for her creativity.
Well this all makes the little boy angry. He decides to steal one of the toys when the little girl isn't looking. So now she's down to two. She tries desperately to be protective of her last two toys, but the sneaky and determined little boy manages to snatch another. Now the little girl is down to one toy (boundary), which she is holding onto with dear life. Once in a while the little boy tries to physically wrestle it from her hand, but the little girl is no weakling and manages to keep her last toy.
Unfortunately, the little girl has gotten to the point where she spends the majority of her time preventing the little boy from taking her toy and very little time actually getting to play with it. She has become a commando toy guard (oppositional) in order to retain the only toy (dinner plate) she has left. She wants to leave and take her toy to the other room (WAS,) because she feels that is the only way she'll get any peace and actually be able to play with and enjoy her one remaining toy.
