deax

So my therapist is starting to really let me have it now. Yesterday was the first session in which she really kinda criticized me. She said I'm negative and therefore attract negativity, arrogant and superior and therefore I will always have problems with people, critical and judgmental so everyone will eventually disappoint me, insecure and I loved Richie because with him I was absolutely the Queen Bee, and she said my expectations of others are unfair and I rely too much on others to make me happy and to do for me what I can do for myself.

Whew!!! Yeah well she was right on every single count.

So now that she told me how awful I am lol- it makes me wonder about my perceptions of situations in my life with certain people. I know my family is nuts, but for the time being I feel I'm handling them well, and within 6 months I should be able to move out.

But I'm in a weird spot with my good friend Jen. It's a long story but now I'm trying to decide if I want to be friends with her at all anymore. She's not always a good friend to me in my opinion, or to her friends in general, but I know she CAN be-- she's just selective about it. But I can't figure out what to do. I've talked to her 3 times already about past situations but she's not good at confrontation and she's evasive when there are problems. I'm not, I'm very communicative.

Anyway I'm trying to keep this short so I know I'm being vague here but- how do you know when your expectations of people are too high or unfair and therefore you need to accept them exactly as they are, versus the times when you decide you have to significantly alter or cut off a relationship altogether because it's just not meeting your needs more often than it is? Having no expectations of people you care about sounds like a lonely, cold way to live.

As we know, because I'm so black and white about things (another thing my doc pointed out) I can't always figure out where the lines are in these situations... She says my mom wasn't good at helping me learn to establish boundaries as I was growing up, and I guess that's part of my confusion.

I'm weirdly excite though to find out all that's wrong with me, in some weird way. I felt like I really made progress in there yesterday even though I got beat up- now that I know, I can fix these things and hopefully get healthier. I'm kinda hopeful.

Anyway any thoughts on the expectations thing would be appreciated! It's kind of OT but not really- managing expectations is something I was never able to do with the addict in my life either, and I know many of us struggle with it.

mallowcup

Expectations....yes....I think that it is always important to determine what we expect of ourselves instead of others. We often think and speak about what we expect from others and rarely face the mirror to see how we don't even meet our own expectations. We keep waiting for someone to live up to standards that we don't keep for ourselves. If we determine our core beliefs and live by them, our expectations will be fulfilled. The problem comes when we live by compromised core beliefs and blame someone else for disappointing us.

thejig

this was posted this morning....hope it helps.

Expectations of Others

It is our job to identify our needs, and then determine a balanced way of getting those needs met. We ultimately expect our Higher Power and the Universe - not one particular person - to be our source.

It is unreasonable to expect anyone to be able or willing to meet our every request. We are responsible for asking for what we want and need. It's the other person's responsibility to freely choose whether or not to respond to our request. If we try to coerce or force another to be there for us, that's controlling.

There's a difference between asking and demanding. We want love that is freely given.

It is unreasonable and unhealthy to expect one person to be the source for meeting all our needs. Ultimately, we will become angry and resentful, maybe even punishing, toward that person for not supporting us as we expected.

It is reasonable to have certain and well defined expectations of our spouse, children, and friends.

If a person cannot or will not be there for us, then we need to take responsibility for ourselves in that relationship. We may need to set a boundary, alter our expectations, or change the limits of the relationship to accommodate that person's unavailability. We do this for ourselves.

It is reasonable to sprinkle our wants and needs around and to be realistic about how much we ask or expect of any particular person. We can trust ourselves to know what's reasonable.

The issue of expectations goes back to knowing that we are responsible for identifying our needs, believing they deserve to get met, and discover an appropriate, satisfactory way to do that in our life.

Today, I will strive for reasonable expectations about getting my needs met in relationships.

©1990, Hazelden Foundation.

mtnmagic

Great post deax - I could really relate to what you shared.

mallowcup - Thanks for the reply. It is exactly what I need to work on, although it was directed to deax, it was an ah ha moment for me!

thejig - Thanks for your post. More of the solution.

Goodness, I really love this place!

Minx1969

Deax -

How do you define good friend? What are the needs that you are expecting Jen to fulfill?

Maybe if you can figure that out - you can figure out if Jen has a place in your life.

I have many different types of friends today. I have friends in recovery and my sponsor that I rely on for emotional support. I have my boyfriend that gives me some emotional support but often as not I go to my sponsor or someone else.

I have some friends that are more activity type friends. I have one good friend I adore - she's great to have lunch with, go shopping with, just hang out with but in no way is she good to go to for any emotional support. I accept that I can't have that need met from her and I love her anyway..I just accept her for who she is.

And she's still a good friend..she just can't handle anyone's emotions (including her own half the time).

So..maybe that's what you need to think about when looking at expectations..

I can not expect someone who is emotionally unhealthy to meet my emotional needs..but sometimes they can just be a fun pal to hang out with.

LaTeeDa

I wrote this a couple months ago. It still sums up how I feel about expectations:

I don't buy into having no expectations. I know this isn't the conventional wisdom on the subject, but what can I say, I'm unconventional!

I don't believe I can NOT have expectations, and the closer my relationship is with certain people, the more expectations I have. Certainly I have expectations of my husband and children. I think where expectations have been a problem for me in the past, is when they were unreasonable. (i.e. expecting my alcoholic husband not to act like an alcoholic, LOL) If I have expectations of others and they are not living up to my expectations, I need to look at me, not them. Is what I am expecting reasonable? Are they capable of it? If both those answers are yes, then again I need to look to myself to figure out what to do about it. Detach, set a boundary, end the relationship, whatever.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I do have expectations and I think it's okay to have them. I just have to remember that my expectations are my responsibility and I have to decide what to do or not do about them.

L

deax

Wow... each one of you has been so helpful. As usual I have a ton of stuff to figure out before I decide my next step...

We'll be revisiting this in therapy next week. She said she's going to spend the week thinking about how to get to the bottom of the stuff I have trouble understanding, and you have all given me more to mull over, even just starting small with the Jen situation, by then.

Thanks so much.

princesas2005

dear deax this is princesas2005 and thank for the message