That was then

In the past, my bride inevitably suffered by comparison to, well, pretty much everyone else in my life, but especially my female friends. Always. I'm still chagrined to recognize that a main purpose of these friendships was for my wife to suffer in comparison to them. What I'd share with my close friends was almost never about her, yet that sharing formed the basis for my comparisons. When I would complain about her - with good cause or not - or, more often, simply lament that we were unable to share together in the same way as I could in these friendships, I'd usually find a sympathetic ear, and as a result my emotions often went in a direction that I should never have allowed. This caused my bride much pain in the short term, and myself in the long term the loss of good friends.

The core cause of this dynamic, of course, was my own insecurity. Deep inside, I knew I wasn't a good person, and all of the dynamics of growing up in an alcoholic home and experiencing parental suicide and sexual abuse were at work in me to reinforce that inner knowledge. But it was all a deeply buried secret, most of all to me, so I needed continual evidence to the contrary. This was most easily available in the form of my perceived superiority to my constant foil, my bride.

Today, as a result of a lot of hard work and thanks to the loving grace I've received from so many, first and foremost my dear wife, my own self-concept is very different, which has made all the difference. I still have to be on the lookout against my inferiority/superiority dynamic, because I still deal with a significant amount of self-judgment, but I'm aware of it as I was not before. Since I no longer need to elevate myself at my wife's expense to resolve a cognitive dissonance between my conscious and unconscious images of myself, I'm now able to have a close friend for friendship's own sake, rather than as a means to make up for what I secretly believed to be lacking in myself.

I still have road to walk, but it's a way smoother road.