Loving, Listening, and Letting Go..

[aeolianchaos]

You said your wife wants you to be a cool guy. That's just another way of saying she wants you to man up. A female acquaintance once told me: " I want a man that can stand up to me, not because I want to be intimidated, but because I can't trust a man will stand up for me and protect me, if he wont stand up for himself to me". This quote came from someone who is very strong independent kinda like your wife sounds.

See, this is where I see her looking for a reflected sense of self or even borrowed functioning. She wants me to be someone she can take pride in, and not feel self-conscious about. The issue for me is that perhaps this is also true. Either way I have to choose to do what works for my integrity. This means probably going through some discomfort and learning.. I just wanted to make sure that I'm doing it for my own benefit and not to try to 'win' her back in any way. I see the advantages of it, but because its been put in that context of something 'she' wants I tend to be cautious about it.

I don't think my wife is strong or independent. I think she was raised by a very aggressive mother who has shielded her children from the bumps and bruises of life. She tries to be 'strong' by emulating that kind of aggression but really the aggression contains a lot of the symptoms of someone who is very poorly differentiated and will break off any kind of alliance when confronted with themselves in a way they don't want to see. Typically this is done in the context of diminishing the other person to a point where the loss of that bond becomes less significant. I think that she has always felt the need to call herself a "strong woman" precisely because she is so insecure about whether or not she is.

It looks like the local library has it as an audio download. I will check it out.