the feeling's gone and i just can't get it back

Despite some evidence to the contrary, I'm not perfect. I know! Came as a surprise to me, also.

I've historically never been terrible at taking criticism. When I feel I am right, I'll argue - but I can also (generally speaking) understand when I could improve something or when I have done something wrong. My gut reaction might be to argue, but when the dust settles I do invariably see other people's points of view.

However, this has fundamentally changed recently. I also know exactly why and how it has changed although my problem right now is that it's proving difficult to change my mindset.

I always thought I was an OK person. As I have got older I have become much more aware of my shortcomings if, paraxodically, less inclined to do anything about them. Having been through a divorce, though, I was made to feel during that entire time that I was solely responsible for the situation and that I was slightly lower in the food chain than paedophiles, amoeba and Kelvin MacKenzie.

If you're told that you're a shit of a human being for long enough (or, perhaps more accurately, never told by anyone that you're anything positive - lack of praise is at least as bad as a surfeit of criticism) you'll really start to believe it. And believe it I did, for very many years.

Coming out of the other side (and particularly when dipping your toe in the relationship water) you have to try and believe a bit more in yourself and, as the old song goes, accentuate the positive. It's tough, but gradually you get more and more confident and remember the nice bits of your personality actually do exist. For me, I had spent so long believeing I was useless that I really began to cherish those things about my personality that I liked and that other people seemed to like.

The problem now is that being criticised equates in my brain to those bad times, and somehow chips away at the nice image of myself I created to drag myself back up. Any time I'm told I am deficient in some way is met with a terrible denial as my self-preservation function kicks in. Often, I know I am guilty of the charge that has been levied but I find it almost impossible to confess to being culpable, as if that is suddenly an admission that I am actually some of the things I spent years being told I was.

This makes my wife's life extremely difficult as any time she wants to raise an instance where I may have been less than super, I get angry and defensive and refuse to cede. I've had to tell myself I am fundamentally good in order to get my shit back in order and I'm so fiercely protective of it that I can't countenance the fact that yes, sometimes I do selfish things and sometimes I am less than fair.

I really am trying to change, and this is in no way an excuse for my actions. I am really annoyed and disappointed that I am currently built in this way and desperate to come to terms with accepting the fact that I'm not always the good guy. In the meantime, I can only apologise and hope that will be enough.