Dear Friend, I think many could offer good feedback. You might try the online chat groups for regular contact in your situation (Marriage Builders, MidLife Crisis Forum, Love Shack, Getting Past Your Past, E NotAlone, Motheringdotcom) My first thought is that you've let a non-democratic relationship come into existence between you two. He wins, you loose. At least it sounds as if that is how you see it. Now, I think of that a typical Master/Slave thinking i.e. someone has to loose. But I wrote that paper on Master/Slave and the follow-on papers on Power of Passivity and Passivity in the Foundations to point the directions out of that non-democratic (normal, yet un-american) kind of set up. I want your partner to "get it" that if you lose, he will be losing too. I want you to get it that if you let him "win," you are turning him into a loser as well as losing yourself. Check out those papers. By the way, I doubt your lizard is a little scared. I imagine it is scared to death most of the time when he is around. Not a desirable situation. Good luck. Al