Wow, hi guys, what a weekend it’s been! Low lows and high highs. First of all, hello, STA! Nice to see you – it’s so good to know how much better you’re doing these days. Thanks for stopping by! H2H, lots to chew on, as usual, and lots of good assignments – I can always count on you for that! - and I’ll respond some below.

Hi, Anne! Yes, it seems to help us when we have boundaries and don’t let each other get carried away, because we both tend to be stubborn mules when we don’t get our way. It’s a good baseline to start with if you have difficult communication, or if your styles don’t mesh. Maybe you should give it a try with your H.

So… [big breath] I came this || close to throwing in the towel on Friday night. We had a fight about time issues, and I was feeling disrespected from that, and lately I’ve been feeling like I’m wasting my time, and so I was primed for a big temperature check. [bending over for my whacks] We started really getting heated in our discussion, and S. pointed out that it showed how little trust and understanding we had for each other, that I was immediately assuming bad intentions [an oldie but a goodie] and how he was immediately getting defensive and hostile.

So I suggested we break and not talk to each other for 15 minutes, and he agreed and we both did calming things – I picked up my book and he turned on his music while he straightened his room a bit. About 25 minutes later he made his way back into the living room, sat down, and started doing something when I started a conversation about the movies (at the noir festival) I’d seen that day (alone, not with MF). We immediately got into a spirited discussion about the films, and were having a great time. After about 30 minutes I said I’d like to go to bed (NOT continuing the conv we’d started fighting about, which was a 180 for me). He was very affectionate and close in bed, and asked the tried-and-true “What are you thinking?”

Well, he wasn’t expecting to hear what I said, which was, “I was wondering if you loved me, and I’m trying to figure out how to ask you.” Well, what I heard/interpreted (which has since been modified) was [BIG LONG pause, then hesitantly] “I do love you.”

JinB: Why the long pause?
S.: [BIG LONG pause] Well, I do love you, like when I feel close, like I do right now.
JinB: Are you saying that sometimes you’re not sure?
S.: [BIG LONG pause] Sometimes, like when we’re fighting, I don’t know. But when we’re close, like after we have fun together, or like now when we talked about the movies, and I’m feeling really close to you, I do love you.

Here I can’t remember what was said, if anything, but after a while I said “S., I can’t fight for maybe. I won’t. It’s what I was doing before [before we split up], and I can’t do that to myself again. I won’t do it.”

To which he said nothing, and eventually we went to sleep. The next morning, I got up and made my coffee, heated up some leftover cranberry bread, gave him some in bed, which he ate while staring at me and neither of us saying anything, and then left to go to my yoga class. We had plans to make pizza at home that night, but I didn’t say anything and neither did he, and when the time came (6 p.m.) he called to ask if we were still on. I said yes, and the conv was strained although he was acting as if and being very cheerful, and about 30 minutes later I arrived at his house with fixins for pizza (dough-in-a-can, mushrooms, plum tomatoes, olives, tomato sauce, and mozzarella cheese). He was cleaning the kitchen when I arrived, and said he’d be out of my way in a minute. I said “Oh, no, pizza is an all-hands-on-deck activity,” to which he smiled, and caught me as I walked by to give me a hug. Things brightened considerably after that, and we had a great time, opened a bottle of wine, and ate stretched across the bed having a nice, fun, light conv., laughing at some music that was on, and generally laughing and making jokes. The pizza was delicious, and he kept saying so and validating my great idea and how fun it was. Then…

I pulled out the Scrabble game I’d smuggled in, and we played for FOUR hours. It was so much fun, and although I beat him, he had a great time fighting. When we were done and it was time to go to bed, he was all over me, hugging, kissing, smiling, etc. [Note to self: HELLO?! QT is a serious LL for him, even if I keep insisting that WOA is his primary!) He couldn’t stop talking about how fun it was, and when was the rematch?

When we got into bed, I was feeling weird about the conv we’d had the night before, and do I just act as if, or do I bring it up… I was feeling physically protective of myself, and I finally said very gently, “I’m feeling a little self-protective tonight,” and he said “I can feel that,” and I said “The conversation we had last night is still very much on my mind,” and he said “That’s understandable,” and we lay there for a while, him holding me the whole time, and he kissed me and said “I love you, Jennifer,” and I squeezed him, and lay there not knowing what to say, because how do you take that after what he said? On again off again? So I said, very gently, “I don’t know how to take that, after what you said last night.” He said he’d felt put on the spot when I asked him if he loved me, and was trying to be really careful about what he said, as the subject is so sensitive. Okaaaaay, isn’t that a little weird? I mean, if he loves me he loves me and what’s so sensitive about saying “Yes, I love you,” and leaving it at that? But I didn’t say any of that, just decided to let it go and see what happened over the next few days.

I did say that I was having reservations, after hearing what he said, about us going to spend Christmas with my family, and how important my family is to me, and how Christmas is a very special time of the year for us as a family, and I was saying all of this very gently and in a nonthreatening way, and he was validating the whole time. So I said my piece quickly and let it go, because he heard me, and understood.

So, we spent the next 12 hours ML and then he asked me to stay the afternoon (after he got out of bed around 1 to make me blueberry pancakes) to help work on the fence in his backyard, which is a project we’ve been cutting wood in Vermont for. He flirted nonstop with me, calling me his “apprentice,” and it was really nice. He was very affectionate afterward, too, and thanked me several times for helping and saying it was fun to work outside together (something that we love in Vermont).

Then, he had a dance class, then out with a friend afterward. I didn’t expect to see him (just a call), but around 11 he showed up at my place with a movie, and he kissed me about five times when he walked in (not the usual peck on the lips). So we settled into bed, and watched a movie, but not before he talked once more about how fun it was to make pizza together. I said we’d have to find more foods that required assembly, and he said “Yeah, we don’t cook much together, and that was fun, and we should try to figure out what else we can make together that’s fun.” So I see gaining weight on my horizon…

This morning he was affectionate, and took some pictures of me for a book I’m going to be in, which was fun because he took about 75 pictures and my eyes were either closed or half-closed in almost every one! We had fun being photographer and model, though.

OK this is long so I’ll get some analysis in later. Just wanted to update.


shameless plug for my NEWEST thread