Muddle's Waters V

[MuddleThrough]

BI, thanks for your input, as always. Hearing you spit back at me what I wrote makes it easier to see something I didn't quite see this way before:

It seems that if my self esteem were based on what this woman thought of me, I would be nothing. Yet, that's sort of what it seems like she wants. If she makes me nothing, than at least she's better than that - or equal to it. She said something to me a week or two ago that I liked pushing her down so I could feel better. Untrue, of course, because I would like nothing more than for her to be my equal in every capacity, but I guess this is more projection. I think she has a very good reason to be angry at me, and that is that I won't be in a relationship with her as an equal because I won't bring myself down to her level. She wants me to play in the mud with her, but we belong in a much better place. She won't work to be there. She thinks she deserves it, but she won't face herself and actually work at it. I still do all I can to treat her as my equal and I do view her as such - it's difficult to interact like that is true when she is so defensive and this percieved inequity is always at the forefront of our interactions (from her side). I guess this is the trouble with seeing your partner as you would like them to be (call it potential, if you will) rather than as they truly are in that moment.

It's a bit dangerous to say this (because nothing can ever really be boiled down to one root cause), but I do feel that so much of the cause of our issues as a couple come from how my W feels about herself - her lack of self esteem. I think this generates interactions that we both have a part in that tend to be unhealthy (I haven't learned to interact with her on these issues in a way that doesn't divert attention away from the negativity and onto the real positivity that would help her with her self esteem - but she doesn't really want to get better here, she just wants her immediate need satisfied), but without the ability and willingness to each look at ourselves, not much progress can be made. I think once she finds herself in a situation where she is forced to look at herself honestly (that day may never come) or is otherwise motivated to do so (from within), she will continue to use me as a scapegoat to vent all of her self-loathing onto and maintain this internal system she has going.