Playing to Win vs Playing Your Own Game – Mental Crisis!?

OK, I got humbled, wrestled with my ego and ultimately lost…..by choice!?
So I filled in during fixtures and played with a very savvy player who tends to win a lot and he coached me in a match.
My game is topspin attack and do pretty well, even against ‘much better’ players much to their dismay.
However, I was playing against a teenager who is very consistent and seems to be able to return my attacks, and when he got a weaker ball was able to put the ball away very strongly – in other words, he was beating me at my own game.
The advice was, keep pushing, push short to the forehand, vary it.  Sure enough, when I did this I ended up winning fairly easily. 
But everytime I opened up or engaged in topspin open rally, I lost. 
Thing is, I kept trying it and sure enough lost the next game.  Then I played push push until I get a weak ball to kill, or a way to play a strange push like a no-spin or side-spin to force an error and I started to win again.
But I really felt uncomfortable playing this – like I’m winning but hating myself – hehehe.   
Of course I want to win, but it was such a different and weak way of playing, I felt a lot of resistance. In the end, I played ‘wrong’ and lost in the 5th.
I walked away feeling discombobulated because I was humbled to have to realise that more and more people are simply stronger than me in the topspin game now in the higher division, but also that I struggled to do ‘whatever it takes to win’
Perhaps you haven’t faced this as you’re a lot younger and of course much better.
Sorry if this seems like a weird question.  I do know that the aim of table tennis is to make the other guy lose, not to beat them with your game, but still, it feels so wrong.  Not sure why I struggled to follow through with what I knew was working. 
Welcome your thoughts.