Читать книгу Be Happy, Always - Xandria Ooi - Страница 27

Are Your Subconscious Expectations Hurting Your Relationship?

<Awareness>

Most of us learn what “love” is (and is not) through observing our parents’ relationship and from absorbing society’s cues from books and movies, and all of these influences merge into subconscious expectations for our own relationships. It’s subconscious because at the outset, we tend to just see them as “good standards,” “what is normal,” or “how love should be.”

Sometimes, we expect things from people because our families expect the same things from us. Sometimes, we judge people because that’s how our families judge people.

As we grow older, it can be very interesting to discover that what we thought were our own opinions and preferences were actually other people’s opinions and preferences that we adopted as our own.

This awareness can vastly improve our lives and our relationships. You and your partner can create your own definition of normal based on what you both want and what works for your relationship—not what relationships should be, but what works for you both.

People can always give you advice, and your parents may have their own way of conducting their relationship, but for you to be happy in yours, you have to question why you want certain things done a certain way—perhaps it isn’t as important as you thought it was, and your need was just a habit that came from your family culture instead of your own personal preference.

For example, if your mom used to tell you off for chewing loudly, you might feel irritated whenever your partner eats loudly. But does it really bother you, or does it bother you because it’s a habit that bothered your mom? Is your partner really rude, or have you have associated eating loudly with rudeness? Is your partner actually loud, or are you more sensitive because it’s become your habit to make an effort to eat very quietly?

You might discover that hey, your partner’s eating habits don’t actually bother you! Or maybe you might find that it really does bother you, and then you can communicate why you have this preference instead of continually telling your partner not to do it “because it’s rude.”

This is such a small thing—the way someone eats—but in real life, there are a million small things that our partners do or don’t do that irritate, frustrate, hurt, and anger us.

I remember being really upset when Yuri would hesitate or seem reluctant during the times when I asked him to pick me up from a location that was out of his way, or to drive me to the airport. My immediate thoughts were: wasn’t it absolutely normal that if you loved someone, you would happily pick them up when they asked?

This was when I realized that in my family, my family would chauffeur each other around whenever we needed a ride, even if it was out of the way. That’s how we grew up, so that’s how we interpreted care, concern, and love. To me, it was normal to happily help family out in any way we could.

It was such a small thing, yet it showed me that my expectations of my partner were incredibly linked to how my family showed each other support and care. So instead of asking Yuri for a request or a favor in the way I would ask a friend, I was asking with a sense of entitlement and expectation, giving off the vibe that he should want to do it because he loves me.

When we talked about it, Yuri realized that many of his expectations of me at home—that I should take care of the house and of him—were a direct result of how his mother had taken care of his family when he was growing up.

This was when I started wondering: what other expectations had we both absorbed from our upbringings that were driving the way we defined and interpreted love, as well as contributing to so many misunderstandings and arguments?

Most of us know that the way we think and behave is largely influenced by our families, but many of us are not conscious of how heavily our family conditioning drives the way we perceive love and relationships.

This is why it’s so important to practice asking ourselves where our reaction is originating. We have to identify the source of our negative feelings and see if they arise from the various expectations we have that are influenced by our family conditioning.

It also helps to remember that our partners also have preferences and habits shaped by their family conditioning, so when they don’t subscribe to something that we believe in, it’s not because our partners are opposing us, it’s that they genuinely cannot see what we see because their habits and preferences are completely different.

Now that we’re aware of this, we can ask ourselves why we get upset when someone behaves differently from what we would expect of them and examine if it’s in any way linked to our parents’ preferences or even societal influences.

This awareness can enable us to let go of many expectations that we thought were ours, but which could merely be society’s or our parents’ expectations. Even something as simple as our thoughts on whether a situation is fair or unfair could change significantly.

Sometimes, you might be bothered that your partner doesn’t have a lot of money or that your partner is of a different religion, but it’s worthwhile to consider that maybe you yourself actually have no issues with it—it may be a concern that you absorbed from other people. Even if you come to the conclusion that it is indeed your personal preference, then you can communicate it as your preference as opposed to communicating it in the form of an expectation. The communication approach would be, “I would like this because…” rather than, “You should be like this.”

Family conditioning leads to conscious and subconscious expectations, but now that we’re adults with relationships of our own, we need to use our awareness of this conditioning in re-examining our judgements, prejudices, and expectations so that we can decide to let go of those that don’t serve us.