hey duronimo……thought I’d check in and see how things were going

mmmmmm are you a little bit technically challenged….or is it just using the forum

we look forward to hearing from you when you are able.

Possibly this section from Chapter 19 of my book might be helpful duronimo

We had a great five months together but Jay always said he didn’t really want a long-term relationship. My previous experience with Garth stood me in good stead and I made sure the fondness and love I had for him never slipped into a strong romantic love. When I picked him up from work to come and stay the usual Tuesday night at my place I knew something had changed. When we got home we sat on the balcony overlooking the bay, scotch and cokes in our hands.

Jay was shocked by my response. So was I, but for the first time I was looking after my own feelings and was not prepared to be hurt by seeing someone I still cared about move on to their next fling. I knew it was important for me to make that stand and the strength of my decision ensured Jay and I remain friends to this day. My relationship with Jay was the first wholesome one I’d had that began, continued and ended in a healthy way. I’d learnt the valuable lesson about never allowing romantic love and friendship love to mix. Like water and oil, it’s impossible to mix the two and to try to maintain a friendship with a person to whom you’re romantically attached only causes pain, placing you in the vulnerable position of becoming a victim.

😳 not so sure about wiser…….just had to learn some hard lessons in life.

this one below from Chapter 17 was a huge one…….for many years we can be blind to the behaviours…….then one day we wake up and say WT? have I been doing all my life.

Over the next few weeks Jason continued to distance himself while I tried to deal with the possible loss of my lover. Two weeks later, I plucked up the courage and made an appointment at the Albion Street AIDS Clinic. The female doctor was warm and genuine as she took me through the gruelling two-hour interview, asking me every question imaginable about my sexual activities. In 1992 there was still much to learn about the devastating disease, and medical researchers were trying to gain as much data as possible to understand the various possible means of infection. I was naive about many things; my interview lasted an extra half hour because the doctor needed to explain terms like ‘toy’ and ‘water sports’, Even though these were not exclusively homosexual practices, they were foreign to me.

Already having some understanding about what had brought me to the clinic, the doctor finally asked that question I usually brushed off quickly. ‘So, how are YOU going?’ she asked slowly and deliberately. Instead of my usual instant, conditioned response, ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m fine,’ I made the mistake of pausing for a moment. The suppressed emotions of the last couple of weeks gushed forth along with the embarrassing details of my life with Jason, including the violent episodes, although I assured her there was always a valid reason for his behaviour. ‘Have you heard of the co-dependent or drama triangle?’ she asked. The drama triangle is a psychological model of human interaction in transactional analysis created by Stephen Karpman to help understand the dynamics behind some unhealthy relationships. Drawing a triangle on a piece of paper in front of me, in one corner she wrote the word ‘rescuer’, in another ‘victim’, and in the final one, ‘persecutor’. Pointing her pen back to the ‘rescuer’ corner she began to describe typical behaviours and thinking. It wasn’t difficult to understand that she was indicating this was me, and I remembered my first thoughts of Jason being, ‘Oh you poor guy, life has been so hard, let me help you.’ Next she moved the pen to the ‘victim’ corner. ‘Jason in a nutshell,’ I thought. Nothing went right for him and I’d often wondered why he seemed to have more bad luck than the average person. She drew an arching line showing how I had moved from rescuer and was now standing with Jason in his corner. Moving Jason now to the third ‘persecutor’ corner, I saw where that left me. I was now the victim taking Jason’s verbal and physical abuse as the true martyr I was. Just as in that moment twelve months before when I chose to forgive those who’d abandoned me, I was once again experiencing a defining moment in my life. It would take me years to fully integrate that understanding; that pattern felt so natural because I had replayed it over and over for as long as I could remember.