THOUGHTS/JOURNAL: RATIONALIZE THAT I WAS THE INNOCENT VICTIM

Why do I always have to get mixed up with incredibly stubborn, inflexible woman....maybe because I would have pulverized anyone less tough. I always trying to get the woman in my life to do what I think will be best for both of us....I didn't see how arrogant it is for me to insist on being the one who knows what is best. God gave my partner free will too. They get to have their own point of view and decide for themselves what is best for them.

But if everyone is just going to go their own way, doing their own thing, how do people ever get together? They get together if and when they both want the same things. People properly commit to each other when they both believe that doing so serves their own individual purposes. And they properly stay together just as long as that continues to be true.....I might think that my partner is making a bad decision ....but the point is their decision to make. They shouldn't be tricked, or made to feel like a bad person for not wanting the same thing you do.

Little by little I had began to face the fact that I made most of my partner do something that they didn't think was for their own best interests, just because I had decided that it would be best for both of us. Gradually I came to see that behind my mask of innocence and fragility, I had been shockingly manipulative. Still, it didn't seem all that fair that I was being asked to accept responsibility for such unattractive motives when I had been completely unaware that this was what I had been doing...I was doing this so I could rationalize that I was an innocent victim