In Support of Strong Puppy

[fearless]

It is a fact that men are less likely to hit on a woman's internet dating profile if she has indicated that she makes more money than him.

I'm sure that is overall true although I think it's become less and less important as women are making more money. I made more than my XH for the first year or two of our marriage and he didn't care at all. Of course his two best friends' wives made more than their husbands to start also. None of them seemed to mind. The one guy did eventually end up making an obscene amount of money and his wife became a SAHM. Of course she then ended up leaving him for another man. The other woman also left her H. I just can't seem to see a pattern considering my XH was the one to leave.

Also my XH was 6'5", a successful attorney, etc., so I'm not sure that I was ever overpowering to him at all. I started to write before that what was interesting was, especially the last 5 years of our marriage, my XH was uncomfortable with any of my animals. The bunny made him feel put upon and "played" like I was doing a "poor me" and probably left him feeling inadequate, the monkey would annoy him and he would look at me like I was crazy (Stop touching me), the cow was boring and to be taken for granted, and the lioness was too controlling. It's so much easier to look back and see that there was nothing I could have done to make things work for him because it really wasn't about me. (It felt like me because of his feelings and because all of those animal behaviors from other women seemed just fine with him)

The fact is/was he was uncomfortable with himself and my closeness to him enabled him to project any of his negative inner feelings toward me. He was growing to hate his puppy and yet that was his prevailing animal mode and he yielded to that in his life much of the time. (Women ALWAYS seemed to do things for him and take care of him. He never asked they just DID. For example while we were dating in college, a woman friend of his who had graduated stopped by his house. He wasn't there but his roommates let her in and she cleaned his room for him. I was a bit bothered and he acted like it was the most normal thing in the world.) He could act monkey but had some serious underlying issues there and was not in control of his monkey (Okay that just sounds funny!). His cow (male equivalent - stallion??) was not developed too well plus taking control is not his forte. (He always wanted me to do the follow up if we had some problems and would be mad at me if I wanted him to do similar jobs or asked anything of him.) And his wolf was not at all developed which makes sense of you think about his puppy behavior. He, as far as I saw in the 16 years I was with him, never had proactive wolf behavior but in reaction to other's behaviors might demonstrate wolf, I think. My bunny could bring out his wolf toward ME IF he felt uneasy with the bunny. Meaning that if he did something and I felt sad, insecure, etc., his reaction would be anger and deflection away from my bunny. Like if I told him "I feel unimportant to you when you ignore me and talk and flirt with other women at a party," that would bring out an attack on how insecure I was and how that was my problem to deal with. OTOH if my bunny came out for let's say sadness over my mom's illness or fear of heights while backpacking along an advanced trail in the Grand Canyon, he could handle that and his (stallion?) could come out and take care of me. I guess what was hard is that I didn't want to have to hide my bunny from him. I wanted to be able to trust that he would care for me. So while I didn't develop a habit of hiding my bunny, I have found I have very low expectations of how the bunny will be treated and am constantly amazed when Raven doesn't get mad at the bunny!!