Dear Pop:

You are very welcome. A week trip is a good idea only if he (as well as you) fully understands that the purpose of the trip is not to make you feel- or not to feel- any particular way, only to relax together, just like you stated in your recent post.

He (as well as you) must put absolutely NO pressure on you to feel or to express affection, attraction, and/ or love for him. He has to understand that the emotional happenings of recent (fear=> loss of in-love feelings=>panic)  is not something that you chose or something that he caused: it is something that happened to you and it has nothing to do with him individually. Therefore you cannot choose it to be gone any more than he can.

As humans, we can’t police our (or others’) feelings: we can’t decide to feel X about this and Y about that. We can’t brand a feeling “bad” and put it away in a jail cell and continue our lives without it. We can’t punish ourselves for not feeling X or Y. The very efforts to police feelings is nothing but destructive to our health.  Also, he has to understand that no one (not even him!) feels in-love with anyone else all the time or most of the time: no one in the whole world. So it is unfair to demand it from anyone.

I suggest that the two of you decide on a few ground rules before the trip so that you are prepared for all possibilities. A few possible ground rules- for you and him to decide:  * to not talk about certain topics, * to not use the words “love” and “in-love” (and/ or whatever other words can trigger your or his anxiety), * to have this kind of physical contact but not that kind.

anita