WendyOWilliams

I've seen it written here that true love is loving someone with no expectation of anything in return, something codies don't do. But isn't that a fallacy? Isn't loving with no expectation of reasonable behavior, respect, etc what got us so far down this road?

Don't we have the right to expect things from the people we love like participation in family life, working or otherwise contributing to the functioning of the family, things like that? If these things are not met without a reasonable explanation, we have a right to not want to stay in a love relationship.

Seren

We do have every right to have the things in our lives that we want, respect, mutual goals and dreams, companionship and the rest.

I think where some of us go wrong is "If I love this person enough, if I do enough for them, sacrifice for the, try to fill their every need, they will see how deserving I am and love me back." Essentially subordinating every need and personal goal for other. That is not love.

Thumper

I think LTD said it best for me. It is ok/appropriate to have expectations surrounding a role.... But not a specific person.

I sort of had that backwards.

We all have, or should have, expectations of a role. They come from our needs and boundaries. Instead of forcing, controlling, loving, hoping, and wishing a specific person into someone that meets those expectations we just need to recognize if they do or not and go from there.

There is so much disrespect and conceit in trying to change someone. I see that now but it certainly was not apparent to me when I was married.

Freedom1990

I love my 33-year-old AD, with no expectations in return.

That does not mean I will be her doormat. I have boundaries.

If she's rude or belligerant on the phone, I hang up.

Although I did make an exception over the holidays when she wanted to drop off a gift (long story there), she is normally not welcome in my home for any period of time.

She knows she will never get another dime out of me.

Our contact is limited because I have my boundaries firmly in place.

When I got myself into trouble is when I was a doormat and let people walk all over me.

Make any sense?

missg

Since I have been in recovery I have had to completely reevaluate my whole concept of love.

Like a lot of people here,as a child I was abused by the people who were supposed to love me. They SAID they loved me while treating me in any way but. I paid attention to the words and not the behavior. I grew up to involve myself with other people who said they loved me while treating me like dog doo.

Now my concepts of love is very very simple. If it feels/is unloving it ain't love.

Expecting someone who cannot love themselves to love me is well, really quite insane. I quite definately put alcoholics in that category.

I do have expectations about how I am to be treated by those who I choose to have close in in my life. Nothing wrong with that. Thing is,I had to begin to choose people who both value and are capable of the things that make mutually supportive,compassionate,empathetic and loving connection possible. This was not as easy as it sounds. It meant really looking at who was in my life and either distancing or eliminating most of them. It meant times of loss and grief....cuz what a surprize! nearly everyone in my life repeated the abuse of my childhood. It took lots of honing my radar about new people,practice, lots of therapy,recovery work and wading through seas and seas of pain.

I used to spend my life in a perpetual state of disapointment......the internal tape playing over and over 'why don't they love me? 'Why are they treating me like this?' 'they say they love me,why are they acting like this?" about some person incapable of real relationship. Today I am absolutely ruthless in having zero tolerance for allowing troubled people into my life or being treated with less than just really basic kinds of respect. The result is love all around me,both given and received. I don't expect it exactly...it is just there. It was there for the taking all the time. I just had to stop looking for it in all the wrong places. There are an enormous amount of good,kind,interesting,loving people in the world. It is just very hard to see them if you are focusing your energy on trying to figure out and deal with the screwed up ones.

With expectations it seems to me to be not so much the what as the who.

LifeRecovery

Be patient with me I am working on some of this right now in counseling, and it is not a direct response to what you asked.

I get a person and their behavior very confused sometimes. It is like with a little kid who is acting up and you are supposed to say you don't like their behavior not say that you don't like him/her.

In my relationship with my ex I felt like if I was mad I could not separate out if it was about his behavior (usually drinking related behavior) or if I was attacking his personhood (i.e. I think he is a horrible person). I got them very intertwined....and any time I attempted to say something it was taken like I was saying he was a bad person by him. So I stopped saying anything for a long time.

My counselor helped me to see that like with little kids there is a difference. He is/was a great human being, but when alcohol was added I did not like his behavior.

I get to set boundaries and/or expectations about behavior that I can or cannot live with. That is not me commenting on a someone's "being," but on what I can tolerate in terms of behavior.

I really like LaTeDas thinking about expectations about the role vs the individual that has been really helpful for me too.

As I am sorting this out for myself I am starting to realize that I can have strong feelings and "love" a person, but not like their behavior and/or how it impacts me. That does not detract from my feelings but it might mean I need to change the relationship.

quetzal

Hey all, I'm really trying to grasp onto these Ideas. I am aware of the fact that I got into a relationship with someone that I could see within the first few months had many problems. I didn't realize how co-dependent I have always been. I completely gave myself away for a whole year. A few weeks ago my BF (now ex) completely flipped out and destroyed a few doors in my home. He said the nastiest things and disappeared into the night. We didn't speak for a few weeks. He ended up paying the damage and as of now, we have been hot and cold. I know we need space and I am trying my best to not want a relationship with him anymore. I know he cannot fully be trusted and his mood swings only continue to hurt me. I feel so lost and find myself wanting to reach out.

lillamy

Whether you want to stay in a love relationship or don't want to stay in a love relationship is neither right nor wrong.

What you want in your life is your choice. You make the choice and you take responsibility for the choice.

The end.

You don't have to have a right to leave a relationship that is not what you want it to be. The semantics aren't all that important. But I think if you're looking for the right to do something, you're paying more attention to what other people think and less attention to what you need.

choublak

"The greatest relationships are those in which the desire for each other greatly outweighs the need for each other." Dahli Lama

DesertEyes

What works for me is to understand that love is a feeling. Not an action. There are many things and people that I love, each in it's own way. I love sunsets, cheesecake and my Mom. I can use the word "love" to describe all the different flavors of "love" because it is just a feeling.

The word "wife", "girl-friend", "soul-mate", describe a _relationship_ that I have with another human being. A relationship is all about behaviors. How I behave towards her and she towards me. I see those behaviors as independent of the feelings.

My ex-wife is a wonderful, lovely woman. At the same time she also has issues with pain pills, and running around with married men. I love the _person_ she is, but I cannot live with her behaviors. We had a marriage for many years where we treated each other with kindness and respect, and in that environment our love for each other flourished. When the addiction started the behaviors chipped away at the marriage and it died.

When I confuse my feelings with actions I get myself into "codie trouble". I start thinking that if I feel a certain way I must immediaterly act a certain way. Those "codie-actions" are _not_ based on the reality of the world around me, they are based on feelings that exist only inside of me.

Sometimes my feelings and actions do match, such as when my ex and I were happily married. Sometimes I have to take actions that are against my feelings, but I know are healthy and in the best interests of everybody involved. Like when I left my ex-wife because I could not live with her behaviors, and she would never have to face the consequences of those behaviors with my on-going enabling.

Leaving my ex was a very healthy action, even though my emotions went into a tailspin.

Mike

LifeRecovery

Thanks Deserteyes that is really helpful for me. Feelings and actions are different things.

quetzal

Thank you Deserteyes, these are new ways I need to look at and understand my life. I get so caught up with feelings, expectations and titles. I love him very much but am coming to terms with understanding that he is not healthy in my life. I must detach with love.