Thanks for your question and suggestions, sandi2 and Wonka.
That is a very good point about LL, especially since I see how my still-W and I seem to express ourselves differently at times. How very sad if someone cannot see your love for them just because of the language used; hopefully that LL book is available electronically.
That is a very good question about travel, sandi2, and what I would do to express my love for D without it. I guess I would answer "spend time with her!" (German has a saying that you love that which you have time for). We had a very nice time, for instance, just she and I, a few weeks ago, at a dumpling restaurant, a meal we agreed to keep secret from my W, co-conspirators.
And today D covered me up with a blanket (I am jet lagged, back in Sweden), and rubbed my stockinged feet, whereas my W basically ignored me. I give her a back or foot rub sometimes, something she sometimes asks for, so I don't feel like I am intruding.
How else? I used to read to her, but she is older now and it seems out of place (though my W and I read each other Watership Down many years ago, and it was a wonderful experience), plus my W grabbed the reader role a few years ago and I was out.
D and I sometimes just go for a walk and talk about this and that; yes, just being together and sharing seems to be where it is at. She nicely asked about my trip (I stopped in NYC on the way); my W projected "oh, you are back, how wonderful, now I will ignore you" when I came home, and I could feel her anger just beneath the surface.
Travel is important to me, as I understand it gets difficult when you are older, and I would love to share it with the kids. Just being in one place is not so interesting (my little town here in Sweden is not exactly a pulsating metropolis)
Daughter likes to hug, but I feel like I hold back (should be hugging my W, d%%n it! along with all the corollaries!) and like it is inappropriate for a dad to hug his soon to be 16 year old for too long. This may sound stupid and I am surely not expressing it well, but hugging her seems inappropriately emotional and connecting and vulnerable for me; I don't want to break down in front of her, or have her feel my pain. So I am not sure what to do when we do.
Yes, travel is an escape, but it is from routine, and nothingness, and cloudiness, and aging, and boredom, and life as just passing time. Novelty is supposed to be a Very Good Thing for relationships; it would be wonderful to share it with someone.
Luke
M58, xW54 S22, D18 M 1984, D 2016 Living a new life.
