*10/11/06*

I’m almost treating this month as a foregone conclusion. It just seems to be slipping by so quickly, maybe because of the prospect of Halloween (and my 50th) looming at the end of the month. I haven’t the faintest idea how to costume the boys.

I resumed transcribing my diary onto another document (hopefully the main body is safe, just locked into another hard drive). I was just writing about the part when I gave Danny a massage, and he didn’t respond sexually, as I’d hoped. I got an interesting image of that as an analogy. The kernel of this situation, and most of the early relationship with Danny was that I was there, in my half of the circle, at the meeting point halfway, and he wasn’t there. There was a void where I would expect contact. I think that may be analogous to the real aloneness I carried inside of me emotionally. I grew up with parents who weren’t equipped emotionally to meet me there. And I think my response was to believe that I had to do the reaching, AND the reciprocation for the other person. I felt like I had to put constant input into Danny, or he would fade away. It turns out that I was in a situation that I reacted to with angst–waiting alone at a “meeting place” and not really being met, engaged. I wonder if this will continue to be a theme threading through these documents. I was very critical of myself at the time I gave the massage. I thought I was pathetic, and obviously so. I felt humiliated by the fact that I’d come to the halfway point of the relationship circle, and beyond even into his to invite him to engage with me. Without a word, it was clear the answer was ‘no’. I suppose inviting him over for a massage was me setting up for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer; I’d fully expected the answer to be ‘yes’. Hadn’t everyone told me that guys couldn’t control their sexual expression if sexuality was provoked?

I think it’s important for me to know that having a gap where one would expect a place of meeting and intersection has probably been so much a part of my atmosphere that I had no way of seeing it, just living it. It came naturally to me to feel that gap, and feel like *I* had to do something about it. I suppose there were undercurrents too about experiencing that gap meaning that I was deficient in some way. Having that internalized early. The experience of waiting calmly in a gap until engagement with a partner took place was foreign to me. I think this may have been a major animating force in my life, that is repeated even today in the way I don’t feel Gary engages. A fleeting engagement “there” was enough to make me feel I was ‘in love’. Only to be crushed. Many times. I suppose a turning point was when I was angry with Rich because he was disengaging after having engaged with me. I’d been thinking of it as a moral failure from him, like he was obligated to TRY to love me. Then it dawned on me that the fact was that he wasn’t there, and a relationship with me wasn’t working for him, and therefore it couldn’t work for me either. It wasn’t about me trying to make them ‘do what they should’. I think that realization was very freeing, and indeed the next relationship I entered was the one I cemented with marriage. Only to face a different type of lack of engagement. And different kind of ways of advancing to try to do the work for both of us in engaging. The driving force for me is the fear that if I stop things will continue in an unhappy way indefinitely. As has been true with sex and our mutual experience of it. I did stop engaging it, did stop trying to agitate him to engage it with me.

1) There is for me a feeling of some sort of vitality and tension that would animate sexual feelings and expression
2) This causes me to experience him as clumsy and awkward in his approach to me, and he seems to accept this as “normal”
3) So on a deep level the connection hasn’t happened to animate lovemaking, and it’s further alienated by his approach to me.
4) My body is unresponsive. (I can ask for one thing, thinking it’ll feel good, then it doesn’t.) [I suppose that part of this depends on riding the crest of a wave, and touch being the outgrowth of the big force behind, which guides the touch and response happens as a natural outcome--and this is the part I haven’t been able to explain to Gary]

5) The above sets up an uncomfortable situation where I’m easily irritated, particularly when Gary does something I’ve repeatedly told him is uncomfortable for me–I mean, physically uncomfortable.

It’s been a while since I analyzed the mutual sexual experience between Gary and me, and I think that’s a pretty thorough description of what happens.

For me the Perfect Lover:

Someone with a robust libido, sort of always a simmering pot to animate:

Sexual tension, an undercurrent of desire that can be awakened

A strong life force, a taking in of the senses with gusto and unashamedly showing pleasure, and letting it flow out of him, and letting it guide his touch, and the MANNER of his touch

The ability to be aware enough of his senses to be able to enhance them with subtle shifts and changes.

Someone who remembers what gives more pleasure, and uses that as a springboard to enhance. Lovemaking becoming a creation, an entity almost, and each time there’s a unique creation

That’s basically what I want, and since it’s a little it more about *being* than *doing* I don’t know that this will be realized in relation with Gary. I can see a sort of overall blueprint where if I can stay with my plan of letting things go and not engaging in conflict with him that there’s a *possibility* that he may move more toward a meeting place. Perhaps if he feels more good will toward me, and that increases my good will toward him, we may get to a place where a ghost of the above dream is possible. But I think that any changes that are based on his willingness to be introspective are just not going to happen.

Well, that was a bit of a wander. Behind it is an idea: that in this next half or whatever’s left to me of this life that I finally get free of this sexual impasse, and not go content to be sex-less. To resign myself to not experiencing a full and complete expression of my sexuality. Because the last 15 years I’ve come to do just that. That does have implications:

1) give time for this path of non-engagement and see if that helps any sexual impulse that may have been buried under the blame stuff

2) I did marry him, and married him knowing that sex was a problem for us. Though I don’t think we said the words “richer or poorer…etc” that’s still the spirit of it. So it’s an ethical question: am I bound by being married to forgo sexual experience, even with someone else, when my partner and I don’t have sex, and it doesn’t look like ending the moratorium is going to happen any time soon.

I suppose the answer to that will govern my presentation in the world; how I make myself available. Does having married Gary exclude me from affairs, or does Gary’s lack of interest in pursuing it release me from the physically faithful part of my marriage promise?

AWWWW, shit. I wrote quite a lot and then realized that there was a second one of these documents. I’d written more on one, and so figured out which one needed updating, and moved it over by cutting-and-pasting. Thought I was then safe to close the document; closed the one that I hadn’t fixed, but then they BOTH closed, so I lost the changes–the several minutes of writing I’d done. I was on a bit of a roll, too, about shared assumptions. And how that long ago experience with Danny demonstrated what happens when people’s underlying agreements and assumptions seem to diverge. It had seemed so much a seduction context with Danny, yet he didn’t respond to it as such. And how that reminded me of the ambiguity of the possibility of shared assumptions with x –if some of the sexual language he uses with me is a tacit acknowledgment of attraction or if I’ve entirely created it all. I also talked about this being a situation where I can not ask him because it’s too risky in this time when I’m transitioning into being older and not quite sure if and where my own sexuality fits in. But I do wish I’d taken Jeff’s advice and asked Danny how he felt about me. I never did.

1/18/06

I guess I have a little time for introspection. I have a sort of goal of painting one of the walls in Scott’s room, and to go for a 20 minute run, but I’m feeling a little stationery. I had an interesting talk with x that caused a little shift in the way reality is pictured to me. It’s the concept that the light we see is only a small part of the entire spectrum of light; I think I got it when I considered how human beings use light that’s in the non-visible spectrum.

Wow, I just feel so tired. The time alone just never seems to be enough. I got home from errands and visiting x around 11:20, or 11:30. It’s noon now, and only 2.5 hours before I need to leave to get Scott. And tomorrow, though Scott’s also in school, the fact that I’m going out with Kathy in the evening to see an author gives me that compressed feeling, like there’s not enough time. And it’s strange, I should be anticipating that as a pleasure, going out without the kids. Funny I should see it as rather a burden and something to get through. But that’s similar to how I experienced anticipation of the ski trip this weekend just past. That’s sort of how I experience just about anything that takes me away from home. I wonder if those are like agoraphobic behaviors, or feelings. Or the stirrings of them. Or a side effect of the wellbutrin, which sometimes has anxiety reported as one of them.

1/19/06

I just walked for about an hour and a half; came home and got something to eat, and thought I’d write down some thoughts I had while walking. Part of it was from a summary that Alan Lightman (on a recorded interview I was listening to) made of the creative process. He said the commonalities in the creative process of the geniuses who made some of the most important discoveries in the 20th century were: A prepared mind—a scientist that knows his stuff thoroughly, 2) Getting stuck, which seems to be a requisite for the next step which is 3) Creative breakthrough

I thought about being stuck. I am sort of stuck, if I don’t want to outright leave Gary (because living in this house we bought and keeping some sort of bedrock stability for the boys—where we live and where they go to school—is something I want and leaving Gary would disrupt that). So I’m sort of stuck. I’m stuck because I’ve tried everything and every explanation of what I want and it’s not getting through to him enough to make him want to change. Basically, I need a person who is able to engage in a conversation at the level required to be able to work out conflict. Period. What I have is someone who immediately defaults to passive aggressive behaviors and vengeance-seeking when there’s a clash of wills. So there I am.

I feel a little vulnerable to the criticism: “See! You can’t marry someone expecting to change them—you did that (finger-pointing here)!!!!! It is clear that he’s not going to change. I don’t know that I married him with the overt idea of changing him; I guess I married him thinking that we COULD have conversation on that level. And it’s taken these many years to see that not only do we not have that, but that appealing to his reason to explain what seems to be basic to me—is not working. And likely never will. I think what I’m facing if I don’t want to leave him is living for a very long time with a guy that at best I’m friendly to, and at worst disliking very much. So I’m trying to come to terms with that, because that’s really no way to live. To have this continuous fly right in the middle of my ointment—the fly is our relationship and how we relate to each other—doesn’t seem like a realistic idea—to somehow live around on the margins of “that fly” and try to form a life there doesn’t seem very desirable. I guess I’m having a conversation with myself about a fact in my life and how I see it, how I maybe SHOULD see it—just kind of facing down the shape of most of the rest of my life is going to take, given these starting points. I FEAR that what will come up in the conversation is that I SHOULD change MY behavior: stop reacting when he’s disrespectful and infantile in his communication of his needs. I also fear that part of this conversation means that I’m really the cause of the friction between him and me and between me and his mother—that it’s a meanness in my spirit that perpetuates this.

Here’s what it looks like. Gary, (and to some extent his mother),do a behavior I find unacceptable. I feel angry about this and try to address it using conversation. In general, the issue is not resolved in this way, in fact sometimes gets even more complicated by the way that Gary handles my using conversation to bring something to his attention. Usually when he either doesn’t acknowledge what I’ve just told him or dismisses it. Other things like this happen and are also not resolved and healed. I feel angry about the wound that can’t be healed because I don’t have his cooperation. Time passes. And what I wonder is, does the fact that I still feel angry about these things or feel dislike for the person as a result of them—does that mean this is a feeling-of-choice and that I’m choosing to have it, and therefore I’m perpetuating the bad blood between us; but not “just forgetting it”. I’m sorry, that seems too much to ask, to ask a person to ignore something that is in their consciousness, and is a disturbance in their experience. I just got an image of swallowing something too big to swallow.

But refusing to swallow also has unhappy results, even if I’ve kept my integrity.

I also just had an image of myself looking him in the eye after he’s said or gestured something hurtful: “That hurts me when you xyz (name the behavior”.

I listened to an interview with a playwright who also wrote the screenplay for a movie: “The Company of Men” I think. And his new play is called “Fat Pig” about a man’s romantic relationship with an overweight woman. They also mentioned a play called “The Distance Between Us” that sounds interesting to me. But in the conversation the playwright was so truthful and authentic and immediate, that I felt like I could get understandings from just peripheral comments he made. About there being a certain cruelty in relationships in only doing what was necessary to get through another day—minimally. He also talked about, I think a passivity in fearing engaging conflict—about, again, doing a minimum to just get by: it was in the context of talking about his main character hanging out with people he really didn’t like; how a lot of people do that because it’s easier than engaging it—and he said something about driving the people around you crazy—something to do with avoiding and avoidance. It made me think of Gary. Because I think his avoidance really hurts us—his avoiding engaging this big gulf between us—and what I think is his part, but what does he think if my part? How does he view how I contribute to it? I’ve invited him more than once to share that with me, to start our dialogue there. He has not ventured his opinion on this. So I am still left with the impression that I get angry with him when he does xyz (not keeping a agreements, say), and he gets angry because I get angry with him about xyz. And things would be fine if I’d just quit getting angry with him when he does xyz.

10/20/05

I’ve run into several dead-ends today that I’ve finally thrown in the towel on. I’m reminded of that physics law that says that objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Maybe it could be called “The Dog With the Bone” Law. Once I invest in a project, it’s hard to stop until I have success. That’s kept me hanging in way too long, in the past; but it’s also kept me hanging in til a problem was solved.

So I ran into a dead end trying to get the router set up so that I can access the internet with the laptop from elsewhere in the house. The range is miniscule, not 20 feet. I’ve done all the suggested stuff, changed the channel of broadcast, took the phone away, moved the router, best as I could, away from metal.

10/21/05—would have been my grandmother’s 92nd BD.

Rick, the builder, wrought a miracle yesterday, in that he came in the afternoon; got the infrastructure ready, and cut a hole in the roof over the kitchen and placed the skylight. Wow, it is so cool to have natural light in the kitchen, and a really pretty light is coming into the house right now. I think I’m really going to like this house.

This is about the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long that I’ve had some spare time without a million things required to do to fill it. Though this isn’t entirely a free hour, because I’m expecting that Rick will be here any time. So it’s not like I can really relax into the arms of silence, because it might be broken at any minute.

10/24/05

Roger is here working on the deck, so I didn’t get the alone time I’d thought I might have.

Sigh. Last night’s party for the old neighborhood didn’t ring as nicely as I’d have liked. Maybe it was a bit weird to have x and his wife here together. Maybe it was because there were some weird kid dynamics. Maybe it’s because Gary and I had another lousy interaction before everyone got here (I went to the store to get some ice and soda for the party, Connor and Scott had a conflict that Gary was angry at Connor for, and because he was angry with Connor he behaved as if he was angry with me.). (I think that Connor reminds Gary of me, and so when he and Connor have a problem he blames it on me. One time he and Connor had a tussle about something, and I took Connor to the bedroom to cool off; when Gary came in he said, with as much focused anger as I’d ever heard in his voice, “It’s YOU”. So if Connor misbehaves, or Gary and Connor have a conflict, he treats me as if it’s my fault. He doesn’t appear to examine the seeds of the conflict in his own behavior toward Connor which often exacerbates a potentially tense situation.)

So I have some musings about the party and some about Gary and me.

I’ve not had much desire for food, and I suppose it’s because there may be some appetite suppressant as well as libido-enhancer in that Wellbutrin. Consequently I’ve lost weight, which has been fine with me, since I’d put on some unwanted pounds in the past 2 years. So I’ve been feeling more confident in my clothes since they fit me better and I wear them better. So I wore something last night that I felt slim and attractive in, blue jeans and denim-colored shirt.

A couple things from last night: X sat down by the fireplace, which is across from the loveseat that his wife was sitting on. Someone remarked about him not sitting next to his wife, and he said, “I’d rather look at her.” She made a wry face at him and we all joked a bit about it. She is very pretty, with beautiful skin.

Downstairs, helping clean up, someone asked me about the mardi-gras beads we have, what I’d done to get them. I don’t know if this was a double-entendre thing to say, but I said it anyway: “I didn’t bare my breasts”. We laughed and I said, “A ten cent strand of beads—I don’t come cheap!” There was some talk about that practice at mardigras, and x said: “You know when you get to a certain age they probably throw beads at people to keep their clothes ON.” Well, I doubt if he meant it the way it sounded, but coming on the heels of the remark about not baring my breasts it did sound a bit like he meant me. So in addition to the evening feeling a little off anyway, there was that. Upon leaving and saying goodbye to his wife at the door I said, “Come visit us” and she said something like “We should. You come visit x.” That felt a little strange, too. She said something about him visiting during the day, that is, other people coming over. I didn’t hear her very well—I THINK that’s what she said. I responded that I’m often in the neighborhood after dropping Scott and so I drop by.

So I’m in a sort of contradictory position about wondering if she feels it’s strange or inappropriate that I stop by (the threat mode) and feeling that I’m probably flattering myself if I think threat mode, because I’m really more in the crone mode. This as a result of what x said about people being “paid” to keep their clothes on.

So I felt kind of sad and let down after the party. I think in part because I’m pretty sure I want an affair, and the prospects seem more distant now.

My musings about Gary and what I thought about over the past week:

The preamble is that I wonder if writing them down is a way of further widening the gulf between us, and maybe providing myself rationale to stray. Like it’s dishonest of me, and I should be looking to heal this relationship. I’m done, I’m done with initiating counseling. My perception of him is that he will NOT take action when something is wrong, and that until an issue is urgent enough for him to INITIATE action, that going to counseling is an exercise in futility. Going to counseling on my initiative, as it’s always been, is just a masquerade that makes it SEEM as if action is being taken, but it’s not. The deal is, he is not seeing our situation for what it is. He is persisting in ignoring, and adapting himself to the continued shrinking circle of our relationship. It’s getting smaller and smaller and instead of seeing the need, he just closes his eyes and makes himself happy with what he has. And part of what he has is the satisfaction of winning with his little passive aggressive barbs and getting to be “right”. I really think that it’s about winning for him, and he doesn’t see how defeating that is to what’s left of “us”. If I were to not complain about anything, or point out anything that’s “wrong” and not respond to his barbs we’d probably have a ghost of a chance, but I’m not willing to absorb that.

Odd, I’d sat at the fireplace, and moved over to make room for x who came in behind me, and then Gary came over and interposed himself BETWEEN us. It seems it might have been more natural for him to sit on the right of me so that I’d be the one in the middle; there was room…I wonder then if he “knows” about my attraction to x, or if that was just coincidental. It seems like that may have been what initiated the comment about him not sitting on the loveseat with his wife.

Got to go get Scott; fill the tank up with gas.

Later:

From a message to Valerie:

I’ve been thinking about something about Gary and me. A few times when we were getting along a little bit better than others and that invites the thought that maybe things could get better, and my first thought after was to feel reluctance because that would mean not having an affair! That’s sort of a switch. The thing is, I have an intuition that things aren’t going to get any better with Gary since they haven’t in nearly 14 years of marriage. We just don’t have the basis of trust, friendship, and communication that would be required to get through the sexual issues (of me feeling repelled by him, actually, and the way he approaches and touches me when he wants sex—it’s come to where it’s really more comfortable for me now for him to not initiate because I just don’t have that current for him.) He is not capable of the kind of talk and trust it would take for us to be able to bridge this gap—and I think it’s because he won’t look at the reality of how really bad it is between us. When sex shrunk to non-existence, he merely adapted himself to being content without sex—it was easier to do that than to deal with it, directly, with me. I feel that initiative is key—like the alcoholic who will never get better until he really sees what he’s doing and acknowledges just how bad things are. The counseling we’ve had—many times over the years—has always been initiated by me. I’m the only one who’s seen how bad it is, and took steps to do something about it and he’s gone along for the ride. But it’s not enough that he’s receptive…he needs to see for himself how bad this is, and take the first step to righting how wrong things have gotten. There are certain things I just can’t do for the both of us—it has to come from him. But, his tendency is to instead retreat to his own little world and be happy living without the things he could have. In this context, an affair is a win for me just about either way it falls: chances are I wouldn’t be caught by him because he would do his best to not know. So I can have an affair (or more) without fear of interference. If somehow I did get caught and it was shoved under his nose, I think it would be pretty graphic evidence for him that it’s not working to retreat to his dream world where everything is fine and nothing needs to be dealt with. I’m not looking for an affair though as strictly a lesson for him: I want it for me. I’ve farmed out my emotional needs to my girlfriends, and I’m going to farm out my physical needs too. And, at my age I have a much better handle on it, I think, than when I was younger and single and had sex confused with love. (And got hurt repeatedly as a result.) I’m not looking for love. I have no problem now with a strictly physical connection, though I’m going to have to like the guy and feel attracted to him.

One more weird thing that happened at the party and I’ll quit belaboring this. I had sat down on the edge of the fireplace, and I was talking to his wife who was seated across from me, in a love seat. X came into the room from my left and sat down at the fireplace, too, and I scooted over to make room for him. Then Gary came into the room and walked over and placed himself between us…which seemed a little weird. Ann said something about wouldn’t he like to sit with his wife and he said, “I’d rather look at her.” It seemed like a really nice thing to say, and even though I have an obvious conflict of interest I joined with the others in saying, “Awwwwww”. She, however, made a very wry face at him, like she thought he wasn’t sincere. Ann teased her about that and said, “Don’t you watch Oprah? Just say ‘thank you’ when someone gives you a compliment and leave it at that!” X said, “I do mean it, but she dismisses it.” It’s my curse, I guess, to be sensitive to undercurrents, but since they’re undercurrents, by definition I never get to know for sure if they’re real, or if they’re only fabrications from my own head.

I liked the clarity of my language as I wrote to her, so I thought I’d paste it in here, too.

10/10/05

Today finds me feeling much more satisfied. I stopped by today and this time he invited me in for coffee and we spent quite a lot of the morning just talking about books and science. It was really nice, just a pleasure. And it felt easy, without me feeling worried or self-conscious about some of the sexual stuff. In fact, there didn’t seem to be any sexual tension at all, and it was nice. And it makes it seem hopeful for continuing friendship with him. I really do like being with him. I asked if dropping by was ok, just as I was leaving, and he seemed surprised that I’d ask, and that it was a foregone conclusion that it was more than fine. So I just felt buoyed and…satisfied the rest of the day. It felt good to have such a solidly good interaction. And it’s kind of nice to feel a bit freed from any sexual urgency. More comfortable.

Gary’s mom’s coming over for dinner Thurs, because it’s her birthday. It’s sort of a cloud over the week to have that pending, but then I leave the next day to go to the beach for book reading group retreat. So that’s something to get me through Thurs. Then hopefully won’t have to see her for a while. Though she said something about going for lunch. I hope she doesn’t bring it up again because I think it’ll be awkward if I fend her off again, but I really don’t want to go just because I don’t know how to graciously and without rousing suspicion say no.

10/13/05

I’m feeling a little low today. I don’t know if it’s coming-to-a-sudden-halt in all this activity low, or what. I suppose part of it is knowing that Darlene’s coming over tonight. I keep telling myself it won’t be so bad. Chances are it won’t.

I think it’s maybe slowing down enough to realize how sad I am that Gary and I can’t make a happy home for our kids to grow up in, and that probably the best we can do is to treat each other reasonably well in front of the kids. I wish they could have modeled for them a really loving relationship, though. There’s a shadow of sadness following me today, where I don’t feel like I’m parenting Scott adequately. It’s been less than 2 weeks since we moved in. It’s been insane trying to get moved in, with workers around and the inconveniences that come with living in a construction zone. I’ve not had a lot of patience with Scott and his 4 year old ways. I’ve been leaving him to eat alone while I go accomplish a few more unpacking chores. It makes me feel tearful to think of him eating alone.

Conrad doesn’t have school tomorrow and it looks like x might bring the kids and come up. That was my surprise this morning. I wasn’t expecting his kids would be off tomorrow too, like Conrad, and I didn’t even really expect to hear back from him since recent experience has told me that he doesn’t answer e-mail very often.

I’m feeling a bit torn between sitting with my sadness and doing some things that need to be done if I’m going to be going to the beach tomorrow evening. I need to get some clothes washed ahead—maybe Gary can do it this time. Tomorrow is the start of the book group weekend where we choose our books for next year. I’m sliding on the dinner preparation, and skidding by on the book selection process too. They’re being kind to me, and I hope it’s understood that I just can’t add much else to my plate.

There is some sort of sorrow that is epitomized for me, and a trigger of sadness, in the image of someone eating all alone. It seems they must be lonely, and using the food sensation to comfort themselves with. I don’t know why that feeling would be shrunk so tightly to that image.

Some troubling thoughts were triggered last week when I was listening to a KBOO broadcast, and someone who is a teacher, I think, in the Nonviolent Communication Project, was being interviewed. It was very interesting, and the little I heard was enlightening. It was about using language patterns as a way to build connection, and recognizes that a lot of ordinary language useage sows seeds of conflict. And the two people that I have the most uncomfortable conflicts with right now are Gary and his mom, and I find that I really DON’T want to understand them, and build connection with. I think this realization might be part of the reason I’m feeling sad today. Funny, I can’t say I’ve felt sad like this for a long time. Angry, yes. Irritated, yes. Busy and overwhelmed, yes. Harried and fragmented, yes. Pulled too many directions at once, yes. Stimulated and a little high (on account of the combined dose of the Wellbutrin), yes.

The libido thing seems to have waned a bit. My guess is that we’re beginning to approach the end of this moving process that’s been going on for a year now, and what I’m experiencing is the let-down. That would make sense. It may also be something like last year at this time when I began to feel very depressed. I just think I did too much and so got depressed. It’s been such a big push to get in here to this place, and now we’re on the verge of that big push being over and it’s hard to fathom not living with that big push anymore. I suppose doing too much can kick off a depression. Perhaps what did it last year was having done too much, but it was unacknowledged and in fact people expected me to do more. I felt unsupported in every way last year, by Gary and by my parents. I think that may have been the crux of it. Now I’m thinking that probably I never will feel supported by Gary, because he keeps doing passive-aggressive stuff and isn’t honest about what he’s mad about. So the things that alienate me from him will continue to happen.