After some give-and-take on Friday, we were supposed to have our first Stage I encounter today...but, when the time came, my wife begged off, saying her foot was swelling up and hurting. (I fail to see how that would affect her lying on a bed, but I digress.)
She asked, "Is that why you took a bath early?"
Me: "Yes, I was trying to be ready so you could pick a time that was comfortable for you."
She: "Now I feel even more guilty..."
In the end, she suggested we do a variation: holding each other while keeping our clothes (in this case, pajamas) on. Which we did, for about 10 minutes (or so she said--I wasn't watching the time). Other than the clothes, it was pretty much exactly how I thought it should run; I closed the bedroom door to keep out the cats, we got on the bed, I lay down and let her adjust herself into a comfortable position against me, then gently held her. I encouraged her: "Don't talk; don't think; just feel." She said it was hard for her to stop thinking. She had to stop when she felt like she couldn't breathe; her asthma was acting up and she hasn't been using her preventative inhaler as much as she should.
Afterwards, she told me she liked that, and suggested we do that every night. I told her, "When you're ready for the real encounter, that's exactly how it will work, except without the clothes. There's nothing to be afraid of."
A positive development, even if it wasn't as positive as I might like.
- "A"
"Everything that happens, happens. Everything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Everything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again."
