LJ, I might go a bit off topic here relative to you starting his car and brushing off the snow. It is commendable that you want to ease the fact that he'd been denied, as long as you know you can't "fix" that for him. Why do I bring this up? By the time MH and I were married for 10 years, I said he had already made up for 30 years of my earlier traumatic life. Inadvertantly he did this, just by being himself in treating me civil, and listening when it counts. I have tried to start a mutual gratitude journal of what we appreciate in each other, but he does not stick to anything except, well, sports scores! I'm an impatient Aries. One of my lessons is to learn that my time frame ( I want it! and I want it now) is not necessarily someone elses's time frame, or God's.