"(Remember, I had given her a Valentine's Day card, and wrote something really nice in it, and she said "You make me sound better than I am.") It's almost like she has this self-sabotage wish whereby she longs for something that she KNOWS is stupid, impetuous, and dangerous, just so she can show everyone "see? I'm not the person you thought I was," and bring herself back down to mere mortality so she can live her normal life in peace without so many expectations."
CE. Remember a few months ago our convo about your W's "this is so huge" comment about her flat stomach? It really stood out to me back then that her behavior is from someone who needs a tremendous amount of external validation. Low self-esteem. A feeling of internal unworthiness.
Have you ever read Happy Giant's old posts? the above from you could have been written by him, honest to Allah.
And he was exacerbating his problems by trying harder and harder to put his W back up on the pedestal he had carved for her.
I had to deal with this same type woman. She even said something way way back when we first started seeing each other that she finds herself unceremoniously dumping Ms who put her on a pedestal. I had blown it off and its remembrance came back to haunt me. I turned from an indifferent aloof emotionally unavailable lone wolf to putting her at the center of my world.
During her weak attempt to test my waters last year she said something to the effect that "sometimes I am my own worst enemy." She, like your W, is a self-saboteur.
I resisted divulging this, as I feel one need not divulge every single part of his/her life on a public forum, but x was victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a male monster relative as a child.
I'm guessing Happy Giant's W's FOO with local boys (and probably even before) also is why she has such self-hatred.
This is not to say Mrs. Choc suffered the same sexual abuse fate as a girl, just that something in her FOO makes her say things like x said to me after her A: "You deserve much better than me."
I didn't know about her past until well into the R and felt I would be a real chit if I were to turn tail and head for the hills-- even though I knew staying might cause me a potential pain sledghammer down the road (which it did unfortunately).
That's partly why I was afraid, because of her apparent low self worth, of you drawing too much attention to how wonderful you thought your W was through lots of gifts and attention-getting love fare. Not to mention it was so out of character for the old grumpy Choc. Thankfully you handled it quite nicely with just flowers and a very nice email that wasn't all mushy and grabby. I was holding my breath on that one.
You're right. These are her issues. And it's her job to figure them out and not give you half a wife. Just be there for her yet be firm in what you will/won't tolerate from her in terms of disrespecting you and your R. She owes it to both herself and to your family to figure out why she has such a low self-opinion and how to redeem herself.
Finally, as for the lying. One more comment.
Your W is lying because she needs to buy herself time. It's not out of maliciousness IMO. This is the ONLY way she can stall long enough to figure out what she wants to say to you from her heart that will help clear her own confusion and lessen the hurt on you in the process.
Remember that.
Weird isn't it? It's both selfish and selfless at the same time.
-Stigmata-
The difference between a warrior and an ordinary man is the warrior views everything as a challenge; the ordinary man views everything as either a blessing or a curse.
-Yaqui shaman Don Juan-
...and that holds 2x true for nice guy wussies, DJ
