So I found myself practicing my magic skills passively wile watching TV, just like I did in Oblivion. Of course, with the new leveling system that gave me several level ups without improving any of my combat skills. Now, I'm finding combat a lot more difficult because I essentially have a level ten character with level five or six combat skills. Therefore, I'd like to try to improve my combat skills without leveling up my character for a bit, so that I can bring them back in line with the level of my current enemies without scaling the difficulty manually.

So, long story short, do you "level up" whether you click the option of leveling up or not? More importantly, do enemies level up regardless of you not choosing to level up yourself?

no, unlike what was possible in obivion you can no longer do that.

whats unfortunate is that in addressing the issues with level scaling they only changed the exploits people used to balance the horrible leveling system rather than the system itself. so the game is going to be unfavoringly difficult to those who don't use combat skills.

That's what I was afraid of. What really svcks is I went to Winterhold to get new spells since that what I was good at, but none of the spells they have for sale work on enemies of my level. I wonder if spells like frenzy scale naturally, get replaced eventually, or if you have to get the perk that makes those spells affect higher level enemies.

Games fine for pure magic...lvl 58 not hitting any more difficulty than i did at lvl 10, it all feels pretty balanced to me.