Relationship Therapy - Post Your Relationship Issues - I will try to answer them.

I have a quick question - why did you choose this forum?
Isn't relationship therapy required more in "Married Life" & "Me & my Spouse" forums?

 

Wow! Are you joking or you are serious about the therapy. You really have varied interest and I must say I am impressed to know that you are a voracious reader.

Though I am not starting any relationship, but I am pretty confused about the man-woman relationship. What to do when a partner wants to do things in his/her own way and says there should be no expectations in relationship, no complaints and no fights at all. Cna you have such a relationship in a real world?

Best wishes
Ansh

 

Thanks for a detailed analysis, but my question remains unanswered. I was talking about a man-woman relationships sans expectations, sans complaints and sans arguements etc. If u could read my question again, I think you would be able to understand what I need to know.

Best wishes
Ansh

 

Dear SeriouslyJoking,

Welcome to IL!
I don’t mean to intrude in your space here. But since Ansh has asked about something that is so dear to me, I thought I’d chip in. I hope you don’t mind.

Dear Ansh,

I don’t think I have a straight answer to your question but I have some thoughts about the question you have posed and would like to put those forth.

I think having no expectations at all from a relationship is difficult, if not impossible. And to this effect I think that there is no relationship in this world that has zero expectations. Not even the most selfless parent-child relationship. When we give birth to a child we expect happiness in return, we expect to shower our affection on the child and in turn be loved by him, we expect moments of pride and joy. And just as we expect these, we expect to be busier than earlier, we expect that we will now have to shoulder more responsibility so on and so forth. So by definition, I think no relationship is sans expectations.

Now whether that expectation leads to arguments or fights is something that we may be able to control to a large extent. To handle expectations well is one of the most challenging tasks posed in front of us at every juncture in our life. And it also is the one that causes a great deal of turmoil in our minds.

In my observation this expectation challenge can be handled deftly by practicing non-attachment towards those expectations. Of course, let me put a disclaimer here that if the man and woman are polar opposites in every single thing then it is better that they do not get into a relationship. But most of the times the differences are on some/many counts but not necessarily on all counts and these are the cases that I think can be worked upon.

Let me explain what I mean by non-attachment towards expectations - We must expect and express our expectations clearly and nicely to the person concerned. But we must not get attached to the end result from that expectation. The end result is something that we will never have much control over so we must not get attached to it. Great, if the expectation is fulfilled, and too bad if it didn’t. That’s where matters should end. Hanging on to the end result is something that should be avoided. The outcome of the expectation should not make or break us for too long. If we can learn to do this (which is very very tough, I know) then the obvious by-products of expectation (which are arguments and complaints) can be avoided to a great extent.

The underlying thought that helps practice this non-attachment I feel is the realization of the fact that, whether we admit it or not, every one of us is here for our own self. As much I would hate to admit it, I know this holds true for me too. Otherwise why would God make us human beings dispensable? This is how we were designed to be by our architect, God. Nothing or no one in this world will stop for any of us. By acknowledging this fact that we are all in transit, we realize that what someone does or does not do for us should only matter so much to us. In the end none of the actions anyone does are permanent because the person himself is mortal. Don’t get me wrong here; I am not trying to paint a negative picture of us humans. To me, it is a simple truth of human life that we live here primarily for ourself.

So, given the fact that we are mainly here for ourselves, we must understand that some people just happen to stretch this feeling of “I am here only for myself” a little too much and hence are not easy in giving in to the expectations of others even if these others happen to be people that are close to them. That’s all there is to it. Also, we must remember that all of us at some time or other have been in this not-so-giving person’s shoes where we have not fulfilled expectations that others may have had from us. We may not have faltered as often as this person may have, but surely we have faltered sometimes at least. I think this realization of the fact that “All of us, including I myself, are here for ourselves” is pivotal in changing the way we look at expectations.

Another factor that sometimes helps is, analyzing to see if the expectations that we think are not being fulfilled are in fact being fulfilled by this person in some other form. I agree that it may not be the form that we expect it in, but if we can find the underlying feeling that we were looking for then maybe we can cut some slack to the form it is being presented in? For example we may associate the feeling of being cared for by a person enquiring about us, our life and about our day. But to some people caring may mean enquiring about us only when we are sick and in need (because otherwise we look fine so what’s there to ask?!) and doing the things needed to help us get better. As soon as we are back on our feet the person is back to his/her non-enquiring self. In this case, the person may not be called caring as per the most common definition of the word but may be his being there for us at least when we need him could be looked upon as that he/she cares for us? This definition of caring may be acceptable to some and totally not acceptable to some others. But it does help many times if we try to look for other ways (not necessarily our desirable way), that the person may have fulfilled our expectations.

To sum it up, expectations are there and they should be there. But if we can practice avoiding getting attached to the end result of our expectations then we will be fine for most part. Some of our expectations will be fulfilled and some will never be. As long as we don’t get attached to either of these outcomes, I think we can maintain a decent relationship and preserve our mental health to a large extent.

Ansh, I don’t know if I provided any help at all in even partly answering your question! But you asked something that was of such great interest to me, that I couldn’t help but write this long monologue.

Luv,
SS

 

SS

:bowdown:bowdown...What a fabulous explanation!! I dont know if Ansh found her answers in your explanation..........bit I sure did....they brought about so much clarity to the questions and thoughts that have been running in my mind lately....Hats off to you and your matured thinking:hatsoff!!

Cheers!

 

Soaring Spirit....That was a very very insightful answer. I learnt a few things about me here This post should be in a blog...