Thoughts About Relationship part 3

Thanks again for your feedback, which was really useful. I found your alternative results lines did help me move forward a bit in seeing how I’m thinking/acting and how it is keeping me in this loop. In terms of how they land, I think a strong line coming up is on people pleasing (alongside my reflections on feedback to my “Grit” AAC as well) and how that is clouding a lot of my thought. In terms of what they bring up, I am still slightly afraid to look clearly at my expectations, what they may be, and how acting on whatever they are could affect me and my partner (I do see the circularity there).

Onto the questions:
1. What do *I* want and need to have with someone to build a life?
A. Intelligence – I want us both to admire each other for our thoughts, abilities, ideas; I want to enjoy creative play in conversation. Kindness – mutual support, efforts to understand, believing the best, generosity for each other. Fun and humour. Clear communication. Acceptance of limits (one thing I love about my relationship is that if the other doesn’t want to join in an activity, or is too tired when the date comes around, that’s fine). Shared development – I want our lives to change and grow. Integrated lives to an extent – liking most of each other’s friends, family. Eroticism – play and fulfilling sex. I want to be “in love” or infatuated at some point in the relationship.

2. How do I respond to this list?
A. I feel simultaneously that I haven’t given it enough thought, and that it’s too long. While I value intelligence I think this makes me snobby or presumptuous to think that I am intelligent enough to ask for that in the first place. However, I like that the rest of the list is more about how we spend our time and relate to each other rather than a fixed quality.
In the last line, I edited “need” to “want” about being in love/infatuated. The last two points – eroticism and infatuation – are important to me but I am concerned that these are unrealistic. I also understand they might be temporary, and have been wondering how much of my current circumstance is due to shifts over time from a new relationship to a more long term expectation.

In the short term, I am trying to bring up small things that bother me to my partner so as to give the opportunity for us to be understanding, communicate clearly, be kind, rather than building up one-sided evidence that my needs or expectations are not being met. For example, this evening I will tell him that a conversation we had yesterday left me feeling dismissed, which I let lead me to feel annoying/stupid and then resentful, though I don’t think this is what he meant.

 

Answer:

 

That sounds like a wonderful first step into creating the opportunity to cultivate understanding, to communicate clearly and to be kind. Stay clear on the result that you’d like to create for yourself – the one that is entirely yours and has nothing to do with how your partner responds or engages.

I’d like to invite you to give yourself an opportunity to investigate yourself without fear. By examining your expectations, you aren’t changing anything except your understanding of yourself. This is the data gathering phase. If that’s true, how would you approach looking at your expectations differently?