Hey Anita, to address your questions and comments,

One of the things I didn’t address was my discomfort regarding his behavior involving teenage girls. I felt that there is something wrong with his attitude and some of his behavior in this context. I don’t know if he understand how wrong it is to flirt with and even spend time alone with any teenage girl (at least teenagers who  are not part of the household).

The teenage girls are family friends. They are both daughters of folks who come to the house. The one in question is the sister of his late nephew’s best friend. He explained today that he sometimes invites her over to hang out or watch movies and didn’t mention it to me because it didn’t seem worthy of mention. Hm. Ok. We talk about our days and that just doesn’t come up? Sure, anything is possible. Also, there are other people in the household and family who are closer to her age. Why isn’t she spending time with them? Why would you even WANT to spend time with a 19 year old girl as a 45 year old man? I am a few years younger than him and a woman and if I don’t have much in common with her, how do you? But he is a bit of a free spirit and apparently her family knows they hang out and no one else has an issue but me.

I am not clear if you agree, disagree or partially agree with my understanding that you have unrealistic expectations of men, specifically, expecting the current guy to filter his thoughts and behaviors to such a degree that he has to be overly careful/ uncomfortable about what he says and does?

He doesn’t have to be, that’s the thing. I expressed how I felt, asked questions about what he thinks of/why he thinks he does it out loud to me, and said he doesn’t have to do anything. It was his choice to try filtering and then getting mad that he “had to.” Say and do what you want, but if you can do that, why can’t I also say that this is how I feel about it sometimes? If I can be slightly less uncomfortable about it and he can be slightly less effusive, great. It’s not that I don’t try. As for other unrealistic expectations, that’s possible. But for me, it’s often about trying to strike a balance between not being too rigid/letting my sensitivity overtake another person’s free will and letting too much get past me in that effort, which is being touched on with GL and their comments.

Thanks, Anita