self protection can make us do crazy things but it can also make other people do crazy things as they react to it. It also makes it difficult to distinguish the real complaints from the spew (before and after BD)
Hopefully your friends are seeing more and more of the old you coming back and you certainly seem to be having a positive influence on vanilla, (and an interesting one on my work attire)
thats all good and his loss
Both mid 30s, 2 young kids BD 7sep14 XW moved on long ago, now living with OM1 D paperwork in progress