The reason it feels like foisting yourself on an unwilling victim is because you still believe in your heart of hearts what he or she is telling you: namely that there is something wrong with your love. That your love and caring is hurtful and damaging. When we hold back, we are buying into this lie. Our love and caring DO NOT hurt anyone. AND their rejection does not hurt us. It feels bad but it does not damage us.

But our discussion of this is an intellectual process, and this change, this new way of looking at things, occurs much below the intellectual level. It is a gut-level thing.

And of course it's not the BOOK that makes a person change-- duh! It's the process. Some people have the lightbulb go on in Church, some see a movie and it's a life-changing experience, some get knocked off a horse-- who cares how it happens?

Believe me, I know exactly what it FELT like to make bids for attention that were not responded to. I think I've made that pretty clear. Why so much resistance to something that m-i-g-h-t offer some relief? What you're doing is NOT working, so keep looking for something that might work. Both of you (karen and ggb) are committed to never leaving the marriage-- why the hell not just try one more book?