S.O.S. I'm drowning and need a hand

[toughlover]

Re: GAL...hey, there ain't no such thing as perfect in this stuff, but there is such a thing as doing the absolute best you can do, then trying to beat it once you get there!

It's like I always tell my kids re: sports...there's always going to be someone faster, stronger, quicker, more agile, and even smarter...but you CAN have the best attitude and work ethic. 50% is just showing up, and 50% is working your tail off. We can all do that.

Re: MC...highly recommend it if you can find someone good. And even if H won't go, you can. Sounds like you're doing that with the phone coaching. I would've done that, too, but we were lucky to find a really good MC close to home (after doing MUCH digging and calling around).

HINT: If you're already going on your own and, at the same time, not pushing H at all to go, he MAY be more likely to take notice and tag along. I've found that it's easier to get someone to tag along and join something that's already in progress than it is to focus on "getting started"...inertia doesn't just apply to physics.

This is where I feel like I'm staring at a wall.

Hey, I hear ya...look closely at the wall...it's got some of my graffiti on it

I have done 90% of the pursuing in this R.

Then I guess a 180 would be to quit pursuing...and your GAL stuff should not only help you with that but help accentuate your lack of pursuit being that your H is quite observant and perceptive. THAT will help with your PMA, and I've found that if you can sort of grit your teeth and do that stuff, it all tends to feed each other until you end up one detached, confident, DB-ing dynamo!

We dated for 6 years before M, and he didn't have to work very hard to keep me around.

OK, so read this statement as though you were me, I didn't know you from Eve 9which I don't). What does it scream at you?

I know that he is pretty clear on how I feel without me having to say it (granted, I am an open book--I have NO guile).

Again, this screams something at me....know what it is?

In some ways, I feel that I don't truly know him, and that he doesn't really want me to.

Well, if you've tried talking to him about it, and it doesn't work, then this screams CHEESELESS TUNNEL! at me. So don't try, at least not in the old ways, to "know" him. But it may not mean that, that sounds like an interpretation on your part, a guess, an assumption. Don't assume, Clarice

So, heck, give him what he wants FOR RIGHT NOW. If right now he doesn't want you to get too close, then don't. That shows respect and reinforces the fact that you two are individuals who need to come together because you choose to.

It may be that once you really GAL and detach and are fine with or without him (not as an attitude, a trick, a manipulation in order to make him feel bad or provoke a response), he'll decide differently when the dynamics change.

All I have come up with thus far is to GAL...show him that I can be independent and happy and confident with or without him.

Exactly.

But to say that this would get his attention? Not sure.

Well, it doesn't matter anyway, cause it's about you.