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Post by frenchroll on Oct 19, 2011 7:19:44 GMT -8
Each week feels like a year as I move through my recovery and codependence. I feel like I have focused so much on what is wrong with me, what needs to be worked on, what i need to change, surrendering, that I am beginning to feel like i cant do anything. I need to fill up with behaviors that replace the negative with the positive. An emotional system flush, so to speak. I need to seek replacement behaviors. Healthy behaviors. What exactly do those look like?
I began reading a book called "True Love". It is helping.
I am now becoming stuck. A fear of screwing up more versus a need to try and do things differently. I have a right to have needs. A value system. I have no right to have expectations on my H behavior. I do not get to bring drama to our relationship to force a
behavior response. Do I have a right to speak any of my emotions?
Am I allowed to say, (without drama) "it appears there is lack if iinterest in my personal well being and it is hurtful" I don't want to ask for things but I still have needs.
Is that fair to say or is that codependent?
I want to stop being part of the problem
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Post by Jacarandagirl on Oct 20, 2011 0:37:45 GMT -8
Do I have a right to speak any of my emotions? Am I allowed to say, (without drama) "it appears there is lack if iinterest in my personal well being and it is hurtful" I don't want to ask for things but I still have needs. Is that fair to say or is that codependent? You most certainly have a right to speak of your emotions. Just don't expect anything from the person you tell. The next bit is dangerous- you are judging someone else and trying to dress it up as owning your stuff. I wouldn't put it that way unless I was really angry and not able to look more closely. Another way to say that would be "I'm thinking you don't care about me". Or "I don't feel cared for when you do that." Why don't you want to ask for things? That's codependent. Relationships are about give and take, needs and desires. You can ask, just don't expect it's someone else's job to give it to you. If they won't, it's your choice to stay without your needs being met or look elsewhere. |
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Post by LovelyJune on Oct 20, 2011 2:56:08 GMT -8
Yes! You can and should ask for what you need. However, that doesn't mean you will necessarily get it, like jacaranda said. If you repeatedlly ask for the same thing and do not get it, you have to start looking not at the request or how you're delivering it, but if the person who you are asking is capable of giving it to you. Jacaranda said something interesting too: You can ask, just don't expect it's someone else's job to give it to you. I disagree. When you find the right person, he meets most of your needs and all of your core values, thus, you come to enjoy a certain level of expectation from that person. Other people do make us happy. Other people do love us and fulfill us. I am sure there are people in your life that, when you go to see them, you expect that you will have fun, or be happy. They don't complete us or fill a void. That's your job. But having expectations of being treated well and loved? When you are with the right person, you don't even have to ask! It simply comes with the package. It's when we start asking for healthy things from unhealthy people that's the problem. I cannot (nor can anyone else) expect to walk into an automotive shop and buy a bouquet of flowers. That's absurb, right? And yet we do it every day when we have the wrong expectations of people. Here's more on that topic: thelovelyaddict.com/2011/08/15/a-fish-is-not-a-bird/ Hope it helps! |
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Post by Jacarandagirl on Oct 20, 2011 3:20:43 GMT -8
So here is some more of my philosophy. It's not worth anything, only yours is, but anyway here it is. We are the only ones who can make us happy. All the happiness occurs in me, depending on what I'm thinking. You do something, I think "how great!" and I make me happy. On another day you do the same thing. I'm in a bad mood and I think "She's just doing that to try to make me happy". Who's responsible for my happiness?
On the thing I wrote before, I mean someone else can choose to give you what you ask for, but it's not their responsibility, their "job". If it's your need, it's your responsibility to get it met, and if necessary, to find someone who wants to meet it. Apparently good partners enjoy meeting our needs most of the time! I can't wait! My flatmate is pretty good with it actually. I see her trying, and taking them into consideration. It's really nice.
So don't take anything I say as a way to try to make what your PoA is doing OK with you, when it really isn't. I did that myself, and while I still believe in the reality I'm describing there, I USED it to skip over my needs, because I'm addicted to emotionally unavailable men. I basically went "Oh, he's smoking heroin, I need to meet my own needs". Philosophies are dangerous things.
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Post by LovelyJune on Oct 20, 2011 6:51:06 GMT -8
I agree jacaranda!
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Post by frenchroll on Oct 22, 2011 12:46:26 GMT -8
Thank you jac and LJ, I understand and your article link was very helpful. It is hard to understand a new way to handle and approach situations for me because I seem to be bouncing from 'guardrail to guardrail' I always had felt that once I made my HURT feelings known others were to fix them. Except I was hurt all the time. I struggle with my 'hurt' because I have grown to realize that they are tied to expectations that have been unrealistic. I have lived in such an unhealthy world for so long that learning what healthy is is difficult for me.
I understand expectations need to be realistic. I have a man who provides for 2 homes without resentment, who trusts me completely, who lets me handle all our money, who wants our relationship to work and willing to go to counseling. We have a fulfilling sex life, we can spend time around each other. I am no longer expecting everything to be perfect but I seem to get hung up in some issues and I fight the 'hurt' feelings daily. Arrgh...love and pain went together for me for a long time. I am learning to separate out the two.
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