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pinksoil said:
Did you give him a hard time?

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No, not at all. He immediately launched into an apology and explanation of why he hadn't called sooner, and that was good enough for me. I was not so much stuck on the fact he hadn't called sooner as eager to take the caring and strength he projected over the phone. I really needed that so I took advantage. I think I would say that I glommed onto what he had to give. Sheeesh, it's a good thing we were talking by phone or he might have been engulfed.

Can they hear that need in us? Do they ever get scared of engulfment? Does it feed their ego to know they are so important in a person's life? Or is it just what they do, their profession, and they take pride in doing it well?

At one point my voice got very quavery and he could tell I was barely holding things together right now--the last few days have been hard. As I mentioned, I felt his response was very supportive and had this protective element to it. I don't think I imagined that. I felt a bit of anger from him that I was going through this and it came out to me as a fierce sense of protectiveness toward me from him. Did I hallucinate that? That's how it felt to me, and it made me feel good.