G, I am totally like you during conflict -- I need to talk it out and then I need a hug! I've not read the original Mars/Venus book but I have been reading the "Together Forever" edition. I don't know that I buy into the notion entirely but a lot of things in the book have really resonated with me. The part about men viewing feelings as facts and women viewing them as temporary, subjective expressions -- why yes, that would be my H and me, to a T.
Joe, I appreciate your advice. I agree, I have to avoid R talk. Hopefully, MC will help because I will have an "approved" outlet for it moving forward.
It's funny what you say about piecing -- I've wondered whether we've been in it this whole time. I suppose I was waiting for him to agree to work on the M, but you're right -- his actions demonstrate that he is, even if he doesn't verbalize it that way.
I haven't read 5LL, but we both took the online quiz a while back and I know he was pretty evenly divided between Acts and Gifts. When we were at lunch last week, I said I had something I needed to give him and jokingly told him, "It's a mix tape!" He seemed genuinely happy at the thought and disappointed when I said I was only kidding. (In reality, I was giving him a book with an exercise in it that our former MC had recommended.) But it did make me wonder -- should I be trying to speak his LL or would that be seen as pursuit at this point?
