Oh! so that explains it.

[haphazard]

Corri – thanks for reminding me it was you that recommended the book. I wanted to thank whoever it was – like you say it is switching on a lot of light bulbs for me.

I am wondering if the key to all this is guilt?

My H controls me through guilt, through making me feel guilty for his sense of inferiority. His sense of the unevenness of the relationship triggers bad feelings for him – the bad feelings occur when I am around therefore I must be causing them.

I cannot fix it. It is not possible to fix the OPs sense of one-downness - that is for them to fix. When I say I am better-looking, more intelligent or whatever is this even true? Or is it something he transmits to me through feeling less intelligent, less good-looking. He has said these things: he has called himself unworthy of me, he has said he hates to argue with me because I am more intelligent than him – I’m not sure that’s true. Delius says that the one-down makes himself unattractive in the eyes of the one-up by their neediness and approval seeking – by giving themselves a bad press.

H is no longer 21, no longer a student with no money. He is a high-earning professional man. My power as an attractive woman is waning as I age. There is a power-shift – but as Corri says we should not be engaging in power games. I was not fully aware that we were, but obviously he was.

What I can do I think is stop feeling guilty. To release myself from that guilt and start to operate from a more natural place rather than walking on egg-shells and twisting myself around to not hurt him. Then I can become the free-flowing spontaneous person that I was when we first got together. That is the thing which I get angry about, the sense that he has me trapped, that I can't be me. Because by being me I make him feel less.

Anything I do for him gets thrown back at me because it's just not good enough. How could it be after all the years of feeling bad?

And he has to GAL. He has to get away from his sense that "everything I do I do for you", because that is what is making him miserable and me guilty. I am sure that the less guilty I feel the less I will walk on egg-shells and the more spontaneous we will become. I’ve already noticed it happening to a certain extent. Lately for whatever reason I have been taking H’s sarcastic negative remarks in a humourous way, assuming he is just using gallows humour rather than moaning. It seems to be working he will laugh ironically back

Now how do Hairdog, Heather and others fix it from their side. While I don’t have the book on me right now (at work) I do know there are several strategies given. The main ones being GAL, and stand up for yourself – don’t fear going against the one-up. The one-downs have to get into the habit of not automatically subordinating their wishes to the wishes of the one-up. This will build a better sense of balance, gain the respect of the one-up and let the one-down feel less like the one-up is being selfish. It is not selfishness it is freedom – freedom from worry that the relationship will end if they do something they want to do.

Fran