It seems like calling him has become the elephant in the living room.

Of course, if you were actively SI, he would not want your last words to be, "if only i could have called..." And everybody understands that. So no problem there.

At the other end of the spectrum in terms of frequency, he doesnt want to become an OCD tic, where you call him every time you feel a certain way. And thats where it feels like you are getting stuck in a loop, in rationalizing the OCDness?

Because i dont think its really about HOW BAD do you feel, on a scale of 1 to 10, for you to be "allowed" to call.

How do we separate the "how bad", or celebrate the how bad, from the ocd habit? Just trying to look at things in a different way. Its not a question of how close is how bad to SI. Or at least how do you separate the two.