My new perspective on the projection and the D&Ds

Just a thought I had today. XN was always telling me that no-one made him feel as bad as I did.

Now, I didn't ever do anything purposely to hurt this man. Most of our problems came from him being insensitive or screwing up and being incapable with dealing with the aftermath from me.

It occurred to me today that perhaps I should see his projection as a huge compliment.

If I made him feel really bad, then that means that being with me exposed his inadequacies - as a boyfriend/partner and as a human being. I'm a pretty decent person, I like to think. I will go out of my way to help someone, I have enough conscience for both me and XN and I'm passionate and kind. I hate injustice and will campaign for causes that I believe in.

I am a fair person and I held XN to account every single time that he screwed up. I never let him off the hook with his lies (the ones I knew about) or his bad treatment of me.

I always made him sit down and listen to me and would get an apology out of him and an acknowledgement that he'd screwed up (not that that meant anything I know).

Being exposed to this, being made to face up to his own failings in the face of my sense for justice, being around me when I was involved with a passionate cause (and XN couldn't even be bothered to vote once in his life despite joining the local Labour party because he said he was passionate about politics), and being told when he was being insensitive must have all contributed to his having to recognise his own inadequacies.

I wasn't like this all the time. I also supported him, loved him, and was his champion, his one woman fan club!

It's occurred to me that the depth of his feeling bad around me could be in direct correlation to the good person that I was. It showed him everything that he wasn't and would never be and therefore I should take this as a huge compliment and not as an insult.

I remember that he wouldn't come to visit some friends of mine with me one day because he said that the husband (whom he'd never met) would make him feel bad and inadequate. The husband of the couple in question is indeed a lovely man who would have put XN in the shade. I also remember that XN D&D'd all his old friends when he returned from travelling except for one. XN said that he did this because they made him feel bad.

At the time, I'd assumed that they were just a bunch of idiots who were stuck up and snobby but when we were talking about my friends, the couple, he'd said that the husband would make him feel bad in the same way that his old friends did - i.e. not because of anything they did, but because they were simply "better" than him and he knew it. Therefore he couldn't be around them around any more.

Others may not feel this way about their XNs but I do feel sure that this was a lot of the case with our r/ship. I know who he's hanging around with now and they're younger, not particularly ambitious, nor would they be his intellectual equal. He might enjoy their company for a time but eventually he will decide that he deserves company that is intellectually more satisfying to him. But anyone who is his equal, in the looks department or intellectually, will make him feel bad and he couldn't be around them.

I am going to take this as a big compliment. That is my lesson to myself for the day!