Posted by Racer on July 14, 2006, at 1:26:09
Last night, in our marriage counseling session, something came out that I guess I hadn't ever realized before. It's individual issue, but it came up in MC because my husband was there to say the Magic Words, I guess.
The MC asked me how I'd done in the class that I just finished. I said I hadn't done as well as I'd wanted to, which is true, but my husband said, 'Ask her what she got.' I told the MC what my final score was, and got told that I should be proud, that considering the circumstances, it was great that I'd managed to complete the class, etc. And my husband said, "I could never do that well -- I think I was a pretty good student, but I could never have gotten that score." And I said, "But that's all I have!"
And then I realized that really is a lot of it. I don't have anything else I can point to and say, "see? This makes me OK. This makes me Good Enough." All there is that I can point to is Good Grades, and even they're not really enough -- after all, no one sees them -- and when other people try to tell me that I don't need to push so hard, that I should be proud and satisfied with less, etc, I can't take it in partly because that does feel like the only part of my identity that I can point to as Good Enough.
And even those aren't quite good enough, since I don't have a degree in middle age, and I'm taking classes at a community college. So my As are the equivalent of Cs at a private college or university.
I guess it somehow feels as though I'm being patronized, too. More of the "you don't deserve anything better, because you haven't contributed anything, and won't contribute anything." [bad word]
I think maybe I'm not doing all that well right now. [emulates a Hoover] a lot, you know?
poster:Racer
thread:666938
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060703/msgs/666938.html