wrestle with a pig

Verb

wrestle with a pig (third-person singular simple present wrestles with a pig, present participle wrestling with a pig, simple past and past participle wrestled with a pig)

1. (idiomatic, informal) To engage in a struggle with an opponent that benefits from the struggle even without winning it.
   • "And when you begin refuting one another's reasons, fussing back and forth, you generally do what a nationally known industrial relations authority warns you against: you wallow in the mud with the pig. He says, 'Never wallow in the mud with a pig, because the pig likes it.' That is exactly what he...1946, Richard Percival Calhoon, Moving ahead on your job, McGraw-Hill
   • "'I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig,' Ching likes to say, 'You get dirty and besides the pig likes it.'"1950, Time, volume 56