Things moving fast. Twists & turns.(hoosjim's 15th

[JRuss]

I don't agree it's about disrespect, per se, at least not on a conscious level. I think she has an intense fear of intimacy that runs into Jim's own fear of abandonment, and that results in a chronic, entrenched pursuit/distance dynamic, where Jim is most of the time over the arc of their relationship pursuing, trying to close the intimacy gap he feels (not incorrectly), and she is most of the time distancing so as to keep real intimacy at bay. Her distancing moves feel like disrespect because they by design hurt and push Jim away, and maybe she doesn't on some levels respect Jim, but I think it's mainly just the way they've always been: Jim wanting true intimacy, trying to take that one step toward her that will calm his inner fear, and her being deeply fearful of exactly that and not being able to give it to him, retreating at times (moodiness, ennui, sighing) and others more affirmatively pushing him away (withholding, playing the victim, bff/wine downs, OM, etc.).

Occasionally, and most recently with the return of OM, Jim has been pushed so far away that he stops pursuit and does something that makes her fear that she may have lost him for good. She also has a fear of abandonment (though it is decidedly secondary to her primary fear), and she pursues him intensely but only briefly. But, pretty quickly, because he wants intimacy so badly and leaps at her pursuit, the old dynamic returns, she stops fearing abandonment, her primary fear of intimacy rears its head again, and she starts distancing. Lather, rinse, repeat. These moves on her part, then, aren't so much about affirmative "disrespect" as they are because she makes herself vulnerable, understands that they are in that moment approaching real intimacy, and she gets spooked and moves to return things to where they were: back not to a happy place but to one that is at least less scary.

Jim's journey is toward happiness with, and love of, Self. He's on this path but traveling in fits and starts and prone (like most of us) to backsliding (I'd have had sex in your position, too, for sure). She needs to get at why she is so fearful of intimacy. She doesn't seem to be on that path yet at all, though.