well everyone has an ax to grind. i think that parents should draw a line at bodily fluid and poop photos fer sure. i mean, consider your child's dignity down the road. before i had children, bodily stuff grossed me out totally.

most parents get over the grossness of their child's emissions pretty quickly and learn to have a sense of humor. my infant once spit up right into my mother-in-law's mouth. it was hilarious, to me at least. a grandmother SHOULD have the wisdom not to insist on doing balance gymnastics with a baby so shortly after its been fed, right? lol. served her right.

You never cease to amaze.

No wonder you hate women so much.

I hope that you can find a partner who allows you to truly be you, and maybe find some healing.

Schaal has brilliant comic timing. I may have been a little bit overtired last night, but the mayonaisse bit totally got me.

Or reach a critical mass in a previously- male- dominated profession, then the status of that profession is downgraded accordingly.

Part of that is because women are considered lower-status than men objectively speaking. But also because many women tend to be self-deprecating rather than self-aggrandizing. And that changes perceptions.

So I think it stands to reason that confessional memoirs penned by women would be accorded a lower status than those penned by men.

If he is down on himself and any imperfections, then he will be down on you too. This isn't about you trying to please him or be perfect. This is about him engaging in negative self talk and projecting on to you as an extension of himself.

My guy was kind of like this at times and still is from time to time. His issue was any little thing going wrong there had to be someone to blame and if I wouldn't accept blame then he would sarcastically blame himself. "oh, I guess it's MY FAULT then." Like, one of us forgot to turn off the lights before going to bed. Not a huge deal, but you sort of check yourself so you will remember next time.

Usually giving him some food would put him in a better mood. I would just tell him, not everything is a "fault" situation life is just a bit messy at times and some things need fixing so the appropriate thing to do is fix them. Mop up the spilt and move on.

This didn't really solve the problem.

I finally told him that he had a negative self-image and if he was going to put himself down for dumb things that was his problem but I wasn't going to accept his projecting his negative self-image on to me. I am someone with a relatively healthy self image (with some definite blind spots of course)

but I make it a point intentionally not to engage in destructive self talk.

I reminded him that he was initially attracted to me as a confident person and I wasn't going to accept him putting me down over insignificant issues that everyone has to deal with as part of life's little realities and inconveniences. Over time, he began to identify with me and so thought he could do the same negative self talk with me as he does with himself. But if I accepted that talk from him, it would diminish my confidence and interfere with my ability to solve problems as opposed to wallowing in them.

I think I only had that conversation once with him and it was like I could see that the light bulb went off. He changed considerably after that. He still gets down on both of us from time to time out of old habits, but not as much as he once did, and again, a healthy snack and a verbal reality check can usually perk him up and get him in a productive mood again.

Just for what it is worth-- if you don't call your guy out on what he is doing in a way that makes him understand that he repeating some kind of relic old habit from his low-self-esteem teenage years, he will probably keep doing it.

But understand this has nothing to do with you as a person. You seem emotionally healthy and maybe you can teach him how to be healthier too. If after trying out the advice your receive here he won't change,by all means move on from him.

He will get the lesson crystal clear then and you will have given him a valuable lesson on relationships that his next girlfriend will thank you for.

do you want to have children with this guy? make sure he understands that they are little bundles of imperfection. don't let him project his insecurities onto them.

I read this essay yesterday and felt totally perplexed by it until I read the byline and sort of semi-recognized the name. Caitlin Flanagan, she is some sort of conservative/stay at home mom champion/mommy war pundit correct? Actually I have no who she is but I thought that the essay was completely bizarre.