Thanks for the feedback Alex, and looking back, yes, perhaps I could have phrased my questions more clearly. I was posing the original questions to myself, thinking in terms of my own agency in this situation, thinking out loud about the kinds of choices I had. So these are interesting questions you now present to me.

In my own case, I don't consider that my on-line persona is distinguishable from my real life one even though very few people I know in my ‘real’ life also know about my gallery here. I don't see any contradiction in this. My gallery here is as much part of the real me, as other things about me of which my watchers here know absolutely nothing. I have many 'secrets'. There are a few close people who know most of them, and two who know nearly them all.

I'm truly surprised at the success of my photographic work, at the recognition it's received, especially as I only take pictures of things I want to photograph. My work is authored in a first person subjective voice, I don't try to 'create' pictures, and rather I just try to express what's in my own head and my own heart. I'm amazed that my images constantly receive comments and feedback from every part of the world. People actually seem to enjoy the pictures I make.

In my case it would be a lie to say this recognition I receive, (which is a kind of validation of the constant internal private dialogue I have with myself on womanhood, femininity, sensuality, sexuality etc) isn't part of the pleasure. It's not the only pleasure, but it's certainly part of it. But even if this weren't the case, my work isn't less valuable just because it isn't collected the way, say, Mapplethorpe is, or because it's not discussed on University art courses, or because it hasn't been published in a hard back book. I don't do it for those reasons anyway, though like the other pleasures that come from photographing beautiful naked women, they would not be refused should they ever arrive.

I believe I must think about myself as whole person. Art has a small but important place in my life. I don't describe myself an artist; I don't describe myself a loss adjuster; I don't describe myself a father, even though I am all these things. I don't really know how to describe myself. I'm just me, I guess. My photos express some of the thoughts in my head. Perhaps there are artists who will feel their life isn't worth living without making art, but I'm not one of them, although it would be difficult. There are other people who think life isn't worth living if their football team loses a match on Saturday; I'm not one of those people either.

For me, my photography is like an addiction - and at the moment I can't live without it. But it's also a fairly recent sublimation of various neuroses, the last vestiges of which still continue to drive other preoccupations (as well as my photography) in my now reasonably well integrated life. This is the continuum I mentioned in an earlier reply. However, I can now stand back from a lot of what I do and observe myself reasonably well. Most of my observations are with affectionate bemusement because looking at me, you would imagine that these preoccupations should be easy to cast aside. But they are not!

But nor are they simply brute features of my character and personality either. They're not like my blue eyes, my 34" inside leg, my baldy head, or the fact that I was born in Ireland, etc ... ie facts that are simply impossible to change! Some of my recent preoccupations, of which photography is just one example, have resulted in pain for one who is very close to my heart. Preoccupations, whether they be with photography or football teams or anything else, aren't really the point: the point (for me anyway) is that I can see I have choices to make about them.

So I never thought for a moment that the choices before me were about whether I keep a partner who sometimes (rightly) complains. In fact, I would consider it’s a stupid eliminative reduction to even pose the problem in that way. I hope my earlier replies now make some sense in that light.

And how did she reply?

There is a famous James Joyce story in which at the end, a priest asks the assembled congregation to listen to their spiritual accountant, and to balance their books if all is not right. But as you rightly point out, love and life and relationships are not these kinds of zero sum games. I subscribe to this outlook as well. Here's the part of the text, misquoted by the priest ...

"For the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. Wherefore make unto yourselves friends out of the mammon of iniquity so that when you die they may receive you into everlasting dwellings."

Listening to the heart in never wasted time Isabel. But sometimes hearts can be twisted and contorted from experience. Hearts like these are unreliable guides. I often wonder to myself, what would my heart be like if it was not contorted in the ways it is. And anyway, how would I know ... and then who would do the 'knowing' ... Sometimes, all we can do is trust and hop and have faith.