Maybe what you have to do is spend a lot of time listening to your own feelings and asking yourself: Is what I feel now love or pity? Is what I feel now strength and power, or mere insecure bravado posturing? If I just said something petty to make fun of my girlfriend, why? Did I really want to make her feel bad? Or did I just need to feel good because I was feeling bad about myself?

That would be the first step to recognizing authentic feelings of love, if there are any, and sorting them out from the feelings of pity/superiority/etc. It would also go a long way toward helping you stop dead in your tracks when you find yourself engaging in non-loving behavior designed to prop up your ego.

And yes…try to have more good times! See if you can find a new source of good feelings about yourself that don’t come from putting someone else (her) down, but rather from lifting her UP, making her see how fine she is. After all, if you’re REALLY terrific, don’t you deserve an equally terrific woman?

A lot of what I try to do is literally the opposite of what a good person would do. I don’t want to stand out as a good match from the rest of the pack. I want her to be cared about but I loathe doing the caring, yet as time goes on I find it increasingly less difficult to swallow my insecurity: this relationship is lasting despite my vilest efforts, though the superficial things still burn my ego. And the girl becomes more and more confident I am the one. But no matter how hard she tries to make me see it, I resist. Instead of taking the plunge either way to make-up and go with it, or break up, I remain idle between the benefits of dependency and the doubts of loneliness. I am afraid of failure and success.

And what about love? Sometimes my heart melts, only to burn again.

I’ll have you know we celebrated our six-month anniversary last night and had a lovely time together. Even fucked-up people who know they’re fucked-up can do normal things sometimes. It wasn’t too excruciatingly abysmal, having a good time. Maybe I’ll try it more often.

On Richard Mouw’s (of Fuller Theological Seminary) blog, this beautiful passage on Incarnation:How do you get believers to get excited spiritually about the fact that the earth is millions of years old, and that human beings have evolved from lower……

Why is it, do you think, that you seem to need to lack respect for a woman before you can call her your girlfriend? Are you afraid of being in a relationship of equals? Why does the woman have to be under your thumb? Is it because you don’t feel like much of a man with a woman of equal value by your side? If so, the solution is to find a way to love yourself and value yourself better. Until you do, you will only be “attracted” to women you can kick around, so to speak. But you will never really “love” any of them; they will be around only as long as they shore up your fragile ego. And the sad part is, you will always have plenty to pick from as there is no shortage of women with low self-esteem looking to please a man who treats them like dirt.

You would probably be doing your girlfriend a favor to drop her–not because you don’t think she’s good enough for you but because you realize the only reason you’ve been with her is because you’ve been able to hold her down. But if you don’t tell her why, she’s going to think it’s her fault and just go running off in search of someone else to mistreat her. She may do that anyway, but the least you can do is say you realize you haven’t been doing her any favors and now you realize you have some issues to work out when it comes to women and you have to do it alone. Encourage her to do the same with men, rather than becoming desolate and searching desperately for a new man to please.

The only alternative is to ask yourself whether there is something in her that you really love…something you would love even if she had more money than you, was more successful than you, was better-looking than you and was emotionally capable of telling you to go piss up a rope. If that is so, you owe it to her to try to find a way to love her even when it ISN’T convenient. To let HER be the one with the power sometimes. To be truthful and honest about how you have looked down on her and judged her, and how you now realize that was wrong, and that you want to change it, and part of changing it is encouraging her to change, because part of the reason you don’t respect her properly is that she doesn’t respect herself.

Only by opening yourself up and becoming truly vulnerable can you open yourself up to being truly loved. Love doesn’t have to always be boss.

It sounds like you’re trying to work your issues out – good luck with that and keep at it, one day you will have the self worth to be with someone you like.

Forget about her motives, only she can deal with those.

The first thing I notice before I pursue a relationship with a woman is the desire to sexual dominate her. All my partners coincidentally have fragile or low self-esteem.

Power issues are the crowning cornerstone of every relationship I brutally end, (or worse the ones I fail to end before things get out of hand).

My current girlfriend complains that I keep myself guarded and remote from her. This seems to fit perfectly with the “knight in armor” allegory. I can’t tell her how I really feel about her – that I look down on her and judge her. Love when it’s convenient, also; hate when it’s convenient. Try to keep it all to myself, especially the love.

I just want to affirm what Hugo has been saying. Why does she feel SO comfortable with someone who can’t stand her, and how do I allow this to continue?

You have got me hooked to your great work. Wish you the best!

I just have one question for you…

Can we elect you president?

Let me just say it is great to hear from a man who, “gets it!”

Thank you for your contributions and wise words!

Warmest wishes,

Jennifer