#relationshipexpectations

From their very first date they’d been excited about how similar their family values were. They’d talked very frankly and openly about what kind of marriages they were looking for. They’d grown up in very conventional homes, with very conventional parental roles. They were hoping and expecting to replicate those roles in their own marriages.

Theirs was a pretty conventional marriage in many ways. Lizzie had primary responsibility for home and hearth. Lawrence had the job that paid most of the bills. It fit exactly the way they had conceived of their marriage at the very beginning. But it was turning out to be not as satisfying a division of responsibilities as they’d expected.

Lizzie was overwhelmed with trying to carry full daily responsibility for the management of the house and kids. Today had been a pretty typical day. In the morning, the baby had to be taken to daycare; the 7 year old needed help taking in his show-and-tell project; and the 11 year old had to go to the orthodontist before school. During the school day, she’d gone into the school media center to help out with story times, into the office to help with filing and phone calls, and into the Health Room to help the part-time school nurse. For a few hours, she’d worked at her custom quilting business. After work, she’d picked up the dry-cleaning on the way to daycare, taken the 7 year old to Cub Scouts, and picked up the 11 year old from soccer. When she got home, she’d started cooking dinner with the baby on her hip, was helping with homework with both older kids at the table, and had started running the first of 3 loads of laundry.

When Lawrence got home from work, he sat down in the family room with his newspaper. He called to her from his chair and asked her when dinner would be ready. She found herself clenching her jaw as she answered. She was feeling very testy about his sitting down and relaxing while she was trying to get everyone fed and attended to. She started muttering under her breath about how puzzling it was that a man who had so much education was apparently unable to assemble a salad, cook pasta, or do elementary school math.

Lawrence in the meantime was quietly worrying about the bills as he sat and looked at the newspaper. He knew that there’d been an orthodontist visit that day; he’d seen the bill for the new soccer cleats; and the monthly daycare bill was consistently chewing up the little bit of money that he kept trying to set aside. He thought it was great that Lizzie could be at the kids’ school so much. It certainly made him feel secure knowing that she was so on top of the kids’ educational experience. And he was delighted that she so enjoyed the quilting commissions that came her way.

Lizzie called to him from the kitchen that she needed extra money in the checking account that month for the Cub Scout camping trip. He found himself clenching his jaw as he yelled back that he’d take care of it. He was feeling resentful that she could just speak and he’d be expected to spit out money like an ATM. How could a woman with a good education and a lot of practical skills feel no responsibility to help pay the bills for her family?

After dinner, and after the kids had been put to bed, they found themselves with a rare quiet hour. They both wanted to have a serious conversation about needing some changes in the household responsibilities. It was really tough not to just blame and be resentful. But that evening they were able to talk about what they each were feeling. He confessed that he was feeling overwhelmed by carrying almost all the financial responsibility for their family. She confessed that she felt resentful and exhausted from carrying almost all the childcare and household responsibility. Almost simultaneously they each asked, “Could you please consider helping me out?”

He offered to take over some of the cleaning and the grocery shopping plus all the Cub Scout and soccer responsibilities. She said that she could finish up her quilt commissions and look for a job with a steady income during school hours.

The last three years have been filled with hurt. My husband, Randy, left me in October of 2013. I’m still not sure why. They guy that I moved to Palm Springs to be with (I had only known him over the Internet for 4 months...how stupid was that???), decided that he didn’t want to be emotionally available or monogamous. Then there was WF. We’ll talk about him more later. Then, the most recent was Jerry. That lasted all of 21 days and it ended because he said that I was, “too needy”. Have I learned anything from my counselor and from my 12-step program? You bet I have!

I took the Inventory of Addictive Thoughts and Behaviors (IATB) and was kind of horrified at what I discovered. The inventory is based on 28 questions about how I reacted to certain relationship circumstances, rated on a scale of 1-4, with one being the most needy.  It was broken up into three sections: “Reactions,” “Involvement,” and “Expectations”. I took the inventory and then averaged my scores for each of the three areas. Here are my results:

REACTIONS: (how needy my reactions are to my intended) 1.5 OMG!!!

INVOLVEMENT:  (my need for involvement with my intended) 2.2

EXPECTATIONS: (my level of expectations of my intended) 2.0

I never knew how really needy I was, but this smacked me in the face. I just thought that when two people loved each other that they would naturally expect and want things from each other. I’ve learned better now.

I now see that my behavior is manipulative. I hate that! When beginning a dating relationship, I will drop hints or leave texts or notes, hoping to get just the exact response that I want and need. When I get it, things seems fine but when I don’t get it? I go all out and push even harder and the cycle of getting together, toughing it out, and breaking up (usually because the other guy can’t take it) goes around and around.

Take WF, for example. He tells me that he used to be very emotional and was ruled by his heart but somewhere along the line, he had to make the change to being more logical. In my opinion, he went too far, but that is just my opinion. 

I tried my best to get him to relate to me the way I WANTED HIM TO...from his heart and not from his brain. It didn’t work. It was never going to work. He was and IS HIM and not only could I not change him, I shouldn’t WANT to change him. I need to accept these men in my life for who they are and get rid of those expectations and accept who they really are.If I can’t live with who they really are, then the relationship wasn’t meant to be.