What constitutes a 2D?
Blue - There is a Yiddish name for matchmaker. It is called a "shadchen". I always heard it prounounced as shot kin so I Googled it. It sounds like someone who rode shot gun on the old 1800's stage coaches.
I've been married for 28 1/2 years and we are separated. We have agreed to dissolve the marriage and it should be dissolved by next month. We live together for economic reasons and we are best pals and friends and close confidants. We have a lot of equity tied up in our home and don't want to sell with the pricess down about 1/3 from 2 years ago. We go out for dinner about once a week and have company over, such as cousins all non Scientologists, and no one knows we are breaking up. Our kids are 22 and 27 now but we have no grandchildren. We both love the kids equally. I married above my pay grade just like you, Blue, she stuck it out with me until the kids were raised and then unlike your beautiful wife, she wanted more romance than I was able to give her. She's 13 1/2 years younger than me and still beautiful but the old magic was not there anymore for me. I told her to start dating, said I still love her but more like a friend and a confidant and not a lover, you know a brother and sIster type of love. As far as another 2D, I can take it or leave it. I can still perform the act well but it would have to really be somebody special to make me want to start a new serious 2D. Now dating and having fun, yes that would be tremendously exciting but all shadchens keep your distance from me.
Heidrun and me are like sould mates, same birthday, she's from Austria and I have track there, in the 18th and early 19th centuries and I love to speak German, we both love opera. Our approaches to Scientology are very similar. She has taken the time to read every page on my damn thread, every time I log in, she is on line reading and posting. Had I met her 35 years earlier, yes, it sounds like a perfect match for marriage, raising a family and all that but for now, just good friends, close friends, confidants, perhaps working together on a project, discussing books we've read, movies we've seen and all that type of stuff but no shadchens please.
Lakey
Lakey's post brought this to my writing mind, but my life brings it to my attention.
Depending on how you count them (his, hers, theirs, ours), we have 7 children and 9 grandchildren.
We think we know a thing or two on the subject of having and raising children.
But a 2D is more than children. It is more than sex.
Whether we are talking a normal heterosexual union, a gay union, or some other configuration, we are talking about getting our vectors in line.
There are very close couples who have no sex. I knew one couple, who had loads of sex, and raised awful children.
In my mind, the 2D should be about family. For us it is a big picture. It is the older family members, who may die sometime soon. It is about the grandchildren not yet poddy trained. It is all of those people, including ones who've died or not yet been born.
As someone, who is definitely on the record as to enjoying sex, I can still see that without it, we'd be together. Some people snort coke, we do kids. They're probably both expensive and time consuming pursuits, but we really like kids.
For Christmas, our youngest daughter got one of her nephews, a boy of 11, two books on Kanji (Japanese characters). He has been surfing the net, found a web site to teach him Japanese, and has been pursuing that on his own. For his sister, who is 9, our daughter took her to the store and got her running shoes, and then took her running 3 1/2 miles in the mountains this afternoon. They followed that with some hot tubing and a green meal.
We have all the family at our house for every holiday. We create family activities, ie., trips to the snow, to the Islands, the beach, museums, etc.
As Roger has pointed out, it goes to the basic of being present. Seeing what is going on in present time, coordinating actions, working through conditions, and making things go right.
We don't encourage little people to be like us. We encourage them to be like themselves. If they have an interest, we'll contribute to their doing it, but we won't do it for them. Most of our family skis. When the 11 year old boy was 6, I took him off his first cornices. That same year, we took his sister up and down an intermediate course for most of the day in a snow storm. she kept saying "again." She got faster and faster.
On the other hand, we aren't real big fans of television watching. Our viewpoint just oozes out and pervades the family. It is a matter of "corrupting" the youth. - giving them something more fun to do in their spare time.
But back to defining a 2D. 2Ds are a small group dedicated to certain purposes and activities. You can have a single couple, who never has any intention of having children. They have agreed on the roles that each plays, and upon the purpose(s) of being together. You can have a stay at home wife or husband, you can have both parties working, or both playing on money in the bank.
There just aren't any set boxes that you need to stuff yourself into. What is needed is to expand yourself and pervade the individuals' universes that are in your particular 2D. Once you've done that, you can help them get what they want or to help them find out what they want. getting you and your partner and the other family members energies and activities aligned in the same direction is like being a football coach. Some players require 8C. Some friendliness and logic. Some a two by four next to their heads (just kidding). Each is treated as the individual that they are, but together those individuals go out as a team, and kick butt. That is what families can do with and for each other.
The leaders of the family have to know their admin scales. They have to know their priorities and importances. Then you can perceive out points and plus points.
Encouraging your children to be winners is a 24/7 activity. It filters out from who you are to what you expect of them.
As an example, we have a pug dog. Pugs are known as lap dogs and for their friendly disposition. Ours is no exception....... except for the day the summer before last, when we were standing in line to buy a pizza. A Rottweiler attacked him. I was holding his leash, but he was behind me. When I heard the scuffle, I turned around to see my dog standing on a 90 pound Rottweiler, who was laying, with my dog's teeth firmly in the Rottweiler's neck. The other people in line behind me told me what had happened. The Rottweiler had attacked my dog, and my dog, all 20 pounds, took him down in under 2 seconds.
That kind of attitude is what I would hope my children would have, what my father gave me, what I try to give my grandchildren and those who I touch.
ARC is wonderful, but sometimes you have to take the bull by the horns. My father used to say, "It's a great life, if you don't weaken."
When it comes to creating a 2D, it is a good idea to pervade each other's space, to know them inside and out, to be in agreement on purposes, plans, culture, activities, future(s), recreation, and damned near everything else. Having a frenemy for a 2D partner is not optimum. That condition can be upgraded. i find that it is usually better to upgrade than disconnect.
I do think that Soulmates can find each other across seeming distances of space and time, if they allow themselves to do so! Paul seems like such a lovely being and I feel that I got to know him well through your website on him. I am sincerely sorry that he was not able to stay with you physically longer, but I know he did his best. My sense is that he lived much longer with you in his life, and clearly had more happiness, than he would have without you. That he loved you completely clearly shines forth in his pictures, and is palpable still! Love never dies. I love the pictures of him and the cats!
Just trust in the Universe, and let it flow! 
Did you ever consider that? "Here's a new friend that you can play with and will have lots in common with"...And the rest of us just get to have warm fuzzies for a moment by getting to play along with you on this thread! 
). This is what I think. I think if your dog really thought that the Rotty was attacking him, he never would have been able "to get on top" of that situation...I think your dog perceived that the Rotty was attacking you, and went into defensive overdrive the way Parents do when their kids are in danger. I think he was not being so protective of himself, but of you. You're one of his special persons.
