Expectations. We all have them. We expect our kids, our spouse our parents and even our friends to act a certain way. When they don't, we become upset, angry, disillusioned and sometimes it causes us to react in ways that are not totally becoming to us. The fact is....to expect is human nature. It is especially human nature when it is our child. When you have raised a child and you know they know right from wrong, good from bad and what is expected of them and you know who they are as people and then they suddenly start acting like someone born in a barn with no morals, no back bone and no good sense...then tempers will flair and we will lose touch with our prettier side. We as parents become disappointed, angry and we have no understanding of WHY?!
Until I started going to Al-Anon, it never occurred to me just how much I expected of others nor how upset I became when they didn't live up to those expectations. I viewed people a certain way and felt I had a pretty good handle on how others should and would react to certain situations. It was my expectation that they would live up to what I expected.
Looking back, long before I had an addict son, people were known to disappoint me. My dad was supposed to be emotionally supportive because that is what dads do. My dad wasn't and didn't and it hurt. However, it didn't stop me from continuing to expect it. My husband was supposed to grow old with me. He didn't. He died. You can imagine the disappointment and pain there. My friends were supposed to understand the times when I wanted to be social and also the times I didn't. When my friends quit trying, I was crushed and angry. Then I would reset and start the whole expecting all over again, only to be just as crushed and angry the next time. What I didn't realize then was, this was not on them. This was fully and squarely on me. I had expectations that these people didn't ask for or necessarily want....and probably didn't even know existed and yet when they failed me by not living up to what I thought they should. I was angry at them and I usually acted out and caused a friction that put a strain on the relationship.
Jump ahead to the point where I now have an addict son. You can only imagine all of the time I kept expecting from him while I lived in total denial of who he was becoming and what he was doing. I spent so much time wondering where I went wrong when I would expect him to respect the house rules....and he didn't. When I expected him to be kind to the neighbors, family and women in general.....and he wasn't. When I expected him to get a job and keep it.....and he couldn't, and when I expected him to speak to me with respect......and he refused. I felt as if I had walked into an alternate universe when he looked at me as if I were the crazy one while I stood there screaming to the top of my lungs demanding respect, demanding he get a job and demanding that he quit being a jack ass to everyone who came in contact with him. The fact is, we both had expectations at the time and neither of us was living up to the others. I expected him to act like a decent, kind and loving human being (according of course....to my standards) and he expected me to leave him alone, turn a blind eye to the negative things he did and believe whatever lie came out of his mouth (just because he said it). We failed each other daily with our expectations and spent most of our waking hours angry, fighting and in a very negative head space. It was miserable.
Once I started working my program though and reading my books, I started realizing that the person I was now dealing with, had no ability whatsoever to live up to mine or anyone elses expectations. Meth had messed with his brain so badly that when he was using his mind was chaotic, paranoid and very much in a thought process I couldn't even understand, let alone have any expectations of. Not only that though, when I started reaching deeper inside of me, that is when I realized that it wasn't just my son. It was everyone, that I had expectations of. I had felt let down by everyone in my world at some point and in most cases it was because of my expectations.
Now I look at life and people in particular in a much different way. Addicts included, my expectations are usually not fair. Thinking that people will act or react according to my rules in life forgetting that they have their own set of rules to live by has been an issue for me in the past. It brings up the question, how many people have I disappointed because of their expectations of me? It is a humbling thought. Today, if I want or need something from someone, instead of just expecting them to psychically know it, I simply ask. I ask with the knowledge that the answer may possibly be "no" and that if it is, I must be accepting of it. No longer do I just take for granted that another person is going to act or react according to my thoughts or beliefs, even on things as fundamental as love, honesty and respect. Instead, I assume that they may come from a different environment, situation, lifestyle or even thought process and that communication rather than expectation is the key.
As for my addict, understanding that I can't have expectations of him and that I must accept him for who he is and not who I want or expect him to be has been huge. This does not give him free reign to cause chaos though, because along with no expectations also come boundaries that I have made clear to him. I accept who he is as person and that currently he is an addict, but he knows that in order to have a place in our home and in our lives requires him to get clean and stay clean. It is not an expectation and ultimately it is a choice that he has to make for himself. If however, his choice is to keep using, he knows that I will always love him but that I can't be a part of the world he has chosen.
Through Al-Anon, I have learned that expectations of other human beings can be the road to disappointment, anger and even destroyed friendships and relationships. To expect is to push your agenda onto another and frankly, their own agenda might be quite different than yours. As for the alcoholics and addicts in your life, please remember that they aren't capable of living up to anyone's expectations. If they aren't kind enough, loving enough, receptive enough or respectful enough, it is not necessarily because they don't want to be, it is because they are listening to the lies that drugs and alcohol tell them and at the end of the day, you expecting more from them will just disappoint you both.
Until next time........
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