The love you initiate...

[sage]

I think Betsey already covered this but let me try...

but to highlight that it's hard to do a LL that is your own, when it isn't AT ALL your partner's... so what do you do, squelch your desire to give gifts? I found myself very resentful about this - it made me angry that I felt S. was "preventing" me from doing what is a big LL for me.

If h is unresponsive about getting gifts or non-reciprocal...it's really up to YOU how you choose to respond to that...getting resentful or angry doesn't help anything...and sort of implies to me that your giving of the gifts was laden with EXPECTATION...don't know about your h but mine (rightfully) recoils from anything that appears like a "gift" but has "expectation" written all over it.

If you can give gifts w/o expectation or resentment or anger...go for it...if you can't, I suggest figuring out why not?

And...I suspect that h would be more open to receiving them (and less questioning of them) the better you are at giving them with no strings attached.

It's HARD, isn't it???

Sage