The miracle is this....

[sage]

Part of what vexes me about your summary is that there seems to be a game-playing, ego inflation aspect which is jarring. I don't want to be in a R where I have to inflate an ego falsely, or where my ego is less important than my spouse's ego.

Is that a mis-reading of the gist?

-- MicheleTW

Maybe, maybe not.

As I mentioned in the post...the tone of the book irked me too...seemed to indicate that I should be twisting myself like a pretzel to meet h's ego needs ... but when I read the thoughts individually they make perfect sense to me...and strike me as sensible and giving and loving. Why WOULDN'T I make the time and effort to make h feel loved and supported and if that is best accomplished thru stroking his "ego" in a way that wouldn't necessarily stroke mine, well, what diff?

It's not much different than learning how to speak your h's love language (from the book "The Five Love Languages") or addressing his particular needs a la "Men are from Mars". I've also done quite a bit of studying of Buddhist principles (works by Jack Kornfield and Pema Chodron) and of Miguel Ruiz's works and frankly, it all blends together and starts to feel as though my "ego" may be keeping me from true happiness if I let it.

We have some discussions here about "power" (like, aren't you giving it up...) and I'll say again what I said then...I had plenty of power for the first 7 years of my M (heck, for the first 15 years of knowing him) and it almost cost me my M to this wonderful, romantic, sensitive, loving man...when I softened myself and turned my attention from my "power" (ego) to his needs and the greater good of our M, well, things really got great

I'm not without needs or expectations or boundaries or the flip side (occasional anger, resentment, whatever) but focusing on the positives has gotten my needs met more than I could possibly have imagined and that does wonders for my "ego"

Sage