Quote: Let her take the lead on anything more, as she seems to expect that you'll cross that boundary.
Yes, that's true, she probably does expect that. She's in full hypochondriac mode right now. Today it's this, yesterday other things.
Quote: At some level, in a cloudy, mixed up way, she may be taking that boundary-crossing as disrespect rather than as a positive. Her 'aha' may have more to do with "Wes is still thinking about himself in sitches like this rather than about me" more so than "I still got him on the hook."
Actually, the story was abbreviated. I examined without any sexual connotations at all. Then we talked for a long time about it; maybe I was a little too "fix-it", but I tried to be reassuring. I listened for at least 15 minutes to her talk about how she has been scared lately about dying and leaving the kids. She noted that she never felt that way before when she was with me. In fact she didn't even do self exams. After we had talked for awhile she made the comment about how I hoped it was cancer (this is a theme that pops up time after time...she feels I have more anger etc than I actually do...it usually comes in the wake of me being a little more distant). So that started the grab her and pull her on my lap, reassurance that I do not wish the worst for her, and then me getting up to go.
It was when I went to go that I started the boundary crossing stuff after she made comments about me getting the opportunity to "feel her up". But I hear you Gabe. It's about perception and I don't want to give her the feeling I disrespect her feelings. Not to worry. The message was heard. I just wanted to clarify that I did not take advantage of the situation at the time. I kept examination of the lump and the discussion afterwards completely serious.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. Abraham Lincoln
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. Theodore Roosevelt
