False Love Awareness

Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson first gives you three quick examples of what can happen with false love; then tells of how false love is a lost and re-found concept; next touches on usual, common false love disasters; followed by some ways to protect yourself and loved ones from such disasters.

Has Something Like This Happened to You?

Enthusiastically, and to everyone she met, Audrey professed her love for Bobby saying, “I know I will love him forever”. Six months later she broke it off to pursue a relationship with CJ. Dietrich and Elizabeth both absolutely knew they were in true love with one another because their feelings for each other were so strong and not like anything they had ever experienced with anyone else before.

Two years after their marriage they were in divorce court wondering why those feelings had vanished. Faith and George had fallen in love with each other at first sight. Their first months together were so very ideal, romantic and oh so passionate. They were totally certain true love had finally come their way.

A few years later neither one of them understood how Faith could have become so involved in a torrid affair with Harold, a married man with children. Now after much anguish and struggle, followed by reasonably good counseling all these couples came to the same answer as to why things went the way they did. All of them, independently, discovered they were led astray by one form or another of highly deceptive and destructive false love. They all then went to work on how not to do that again, plus how to grow and get into healthy, real love.

The Lost and Re-Found Concept

At various times in history, it has been common knowledge and common practice to consider the issue of true or real love versus false love. Not so very long ago there were magazine articles, books, lectures, panel discussions, sermons and many late-night, private, intimate discussions about this very topic. When this was a common focus people seemed to have been more careful about deciding whether they were in a state of real love or something else. Lots of different terms were used to indicate that easily and quickly concluding that one was in love might be unwise and even dangerous – terms like enamored, moonstruck, smittened, love sick, having a crush, a dalliance or fancy (still used in the UK), and my favorite, twitterpated. All of these, and others, at least seem to have helped open the mind to the possibility that something other than true, lasting love could be occurring.

Perhaps because of the modern tendency to quicken, shorten and simplify everything, or perhaps because the ‘love’ word came to be a synonym for sex, or because it became popular to say that love was indefinable and, therefore, false love was indefinable too, these terms and related topics dropped from common usage and consideration. Once in a while one still hears the word ‘infatuation’ and newer terms like ‘main squeeze’ and ‘significant other’ which can imply that the existence of love is still in question. Some think it would be quite good for the older terms to come back so that we would have more categories to think of besides just ‘in love’ or not.

Thanks to modern science and much improved understandings and definitions of love, the subject of ‘real love’ versus ‘false love’ is once again something that can be productively considered (See Definitions of Love).

False Love Disasters

False love can be seen as the cause of many divorces, many ‘broken hearts’, many addiction relapses, many betrayals, many deceits, many violent abuses, many wasted efforts, many neglected children and spouses, many severely hurtful episodes and no small number of love relationship-related suicides and murders. It has been common to see all these kinds of problems as stemming from individual mental illnesses, personal inadequacies, character flaws, personality disorders and the like.

Increasingly research into relational dynamics shows that interrelational syndromes and mutual patterns of maladaptive interaction, influenced by certain kinds of relationally triggered, bad brain chemistry may be more the root cause, or at least a strong contributor to what is happening in these personal disasters. False love syndromes seem able to happen to mentally healthy individuals as well as others. The well-adjusted, do indeed, also have love disasters, as do the highly intelligent and otherwise successful people.

False love Protection

If you develop a good awareness of how the various forms of false love can seduce, trap and harm you, and an awareness of how healthy, real love is different from false love, you may be able to protect yourself from false love relationship disasters and their accompanying, considerable agony. If you teach your children about the possibilities of false love, you may help protect them from false love disasters. If you go to the trouble to learn about ‘real love’ and ‘false love’, you may help protect yourself and others from relationship calamities. If you talk-over with friends and family what you are learning and ideas about ‘real love’ and ‘false love’, your understandings and awareness are likely to grow considerably. By doing these things you can protect yourself and help protect your loved ones.

See mini-love-lessons concerning various forms of False Love below.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Who would be a good person you know to have a discussion with concerning ‘real love’ and ‘false love’? Will you initiate that discussion?

Related posts:

1. False Forms of Love: Thrill and Threat Bonding
2. False Forms of Love – Imprint Mating Syndrome
3. False Forms of Love: Unresolved Conflict Attraction Syndrome
4. Healthy Real Love -or- Toxic False Love
5. False Forms of Love: Shadow Side Attachments 

Best Practices, Parent-Love Check List

Mini-Love-Lesson  # 276

Synopsis: Here is a simple, short, yet comprehensive source for parents to use in viewing their ways of giving their children a full spectrum of beneficial love actions; it covers the 12 major ways research suggests and gives a “best practices” approach to love-filled, healthy parenting.

The Great and Grand 12

Extensive, replicated and deep probing research has revealed that love gets done in 12 different, interwoven sets of behavior.  The various patterns of successful parent love, mother love, father love and family love involve these 12 major ways of going about the doing of healthful, real love.  Each of these can be seen to have different aspects that integrate with each of the others but also have their own flavor and varying, beneficial aspects.

A Bit of Framework Information

Love is very real physically.  In the brain sciences, it has been discovered that the behaviors that are known as loving, bring about vital neurochemical, neuro-network and probably neural-electrical benefits that are essential for surviving and thriving.  This is true not only in humans but in mammals and other species.  Without receiving loving behaviors, mammalian infants and others tend to die of failure to thrive illnesses, although otherwise being well taken care of.  Those that do survive tend to be dysfunctional and maladaptive.  Those offspring that receive higher proportions of loving behaviors are much more likely to survive and thrive.  That is what the research evidence points to.

Healthy, Real, Parental Love is defined as a powerful, vital, natural process of highly valuing, desiring for, often acting for and taking pleasure in the well-being of one’s child or children.

This love motivates parenting behaviors that fulfill the five major functions of love which, in parenting involve:

1. Acting to form a deep and lasting emotional CONNECTION with your child.

2. Acting to SAFEGUARD your child.

3. Acting to NURTURE your child’s development and healthful growth (physical, psychological, social etc.)

4. Acting to HEAL and reparatively assist your child when needed.

5. Acting to profoundly and obviously ENJOY your child and your child’s unique ways of being themselves

A framing concept involved here is important to note.  It is that love feelings tend to come naturally but love relating takes learning and doing.  Only by the doing love conveying behaviors can love be sufficient and successful for fulfilling love’s major functions.  While love feelings may motivate certain, natural, love actions, feelings fall far short of what purposefully learned, practiced and skillfully improved behaviors can accomplish.

THE PARENT LOVE CHECK LIST

Here are the 12 Major Categories of doing healthful love toward your child or children.  You can estimate how well you are both doing and modeling (teaching) healthy love for your child or children by studying each category and evaluating your own actions.

Class I  Core Love Behaviors

1. Tactile or Touch Love  (includes affectionate, comforting, playful, tender, reassuring touching)

2. Expressional Love  (facial smiling, grinning, laughing; gestural open arms, thumbs-up, etc.; hand and arm motions; leaning forward, moving physically close; loving tones of voice, humming, singing, etc.)

3. Verbal love (frequently and in varied ways clearly stated messages of love)

4. Gift love  (giving object presents, experiences, doing favors and acts of service demonstrating love)

Class II  Crucial Love Behaviors

5. Affirmational Love  (first appreciating then stating and acting to express high intrinsic worth and valuing of your child’s being)

6. Self-disclosure Love  (letting your child see and know the human fallible and successful aspects of yourself via sharing your personal thoughts, feelings and actions)

7.  Tolerational Love  (being patient, understanding, accepting and forgiving of the less pleasant aspects of your child)

8. Receptional Love  (focusing on and reacting positively to your child’s attempts to show and give you love as an act of giving love)

Class III  Cardinal Love Behaviors

9.  Protectional Love  (acting to safeguard your child in small, medium and large ways without being oppressive, suffocating or overly blocking of your child’s efforts to learn to handle life’s difficulties)

10.  Nurturing Love  (kindness and care expressive ways that help a child healthfully grow, develop, improve, achieve and fulfill their positive potentials)

11.  Reparative Love  (actions that help heal wounds, cure illnesses, restore well-being, counter setbacks, mitigate sick feelings and get past blocks to wellness or, at least, make them less hurtful and harmful)

12.  Metaphysical Love  (doing spiritual, meditative, prayerful, ceremonial, ritual, contemplative or potentially transpersonal actions on behalf of your child’s well-being, health and advancement, sometimes, doing those with them)

There are other lists of love behaviors that are well worth studying and applying to the ways of doing best practices parenting.  Paul’s 16 points concerning love, found in First Corinthians 13 of the New Testament, and the 4 great immeasurable mindsets (or heart sets) of love taught in both Hinduism and Buddhism are excellent sources to study further.  The book Teachings on Love by the Zen monk, Tich Nhat Hanh, is a good place to begin for the 4 mindsets.  Consulting the works of Dr. Sue Gerhard, cofounder of the Oxford Parent Infant Project and author of Why Love Matters also is an excellent source for parents.  Also quite useful are the many Mini-Love-Lessons found under the Parenting heading of the Subject Index at this site.

Remember To feel love is natural, To do love is learned.  Therefore, to do parent love with a best practices approach, it is necessary to study, experiment and practice.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question:  Science has revealed a lot about both successful parenting and healthful love, so are you looking into and making use of science’s recent, fascinating discoveries?

Additive Talking – A Love Skill

Synopsis: This mini love lessons starts with an explanation of additive talking and subtractive talking; shows how truth need not be sacrificed for being additive; and then goes on to discuss the four major things that need to be focused on to make your talking with loved ones additive and not subtractive or neutral.

Add, Subtract or Zero

When you are talking with someone you love, is most of your talking additive, subtractive or neutral; do you know?  Additive talking and communication tends to enrich and strengthen love relationships.  It also usually helps the participant’s sense of well-being, assists both people to feel better for the experience of interacting, contributes to feeling personally enriched and stronger, and assists both in feeling positive about and toward each other.

Furthermore, it brings a sense that relating to each other is of value and it is worthwhile.  Subtractive communication does exactly the opposite.  Neutral, or ‘zero’ type communication as it is sometimes called, tends to have zero or slightly negative, emotional impact effectiveness.  Every communication you have with a person, especially in more personal relations, is thought to have an additive, subtractive or neutral effect in the limbic system of the brain.

The Truth and the Additive

Communicating your truth, the facts as you see them, your opinions, perceptions and understandings, etc. can be conveyed in ways to make your communications more lovingly additive without altering the essence of those truths.  Remember, all things can be said with love.  Plus, making your communications more additive is very likely to assist your loved ones improve their reception of your messages.  Subtractive communication tends to be tuned out, automatically resisted, devalued and discounted.  It also may cause your loved one to avoid you or be argumentative.  Neutral communication may be perceived as impersonal, emotionally distant and sometimes non-loving, mechanical, dull, boring and of little personal consequence.

Four Things to Focus On

When talking with a loved one is your talk usually making the relationship grow, shrink or neither?  If you want to be additive and help your love relationship grow, there are four things to focus on.  Each of these four things can make your talk additive and, therefore, more positive, powerful and effective.

First is your word usage style and habits.
Everyone has one or more talking styles.  Some talking styles are love constructive, others are love destructive and still others are love neutral.
Second is your voice usage characteristics.
This includes things like voice tones, volume, speed of talking, accent and pronunciation clarity.
Third is your motion/emotion presentation.
This involves your facial expressions, gestures and posture messages – all are likely perceived and interpreted subconsciously by a loved one who is listening to you.
Fourth is the subject matter you tend to talk about.

If your topics are perceived as interesting, fun, enriching, etc. you probably are talking in an additive way.  If they are seen as ‘downers’, criticism, false, negative, etc. you probably are talking in a subtractive way.  Neutral talking can be okay, but too much of it tends to have a negative effect eventually.

If you want your communication with a loved one to be additive, positive, constructive, and have a really good effect you will do well to give thought to these four factors.

Word Usage Style and Habits

Most of us have a talking style which is similar to the one we experienced when we were growing up.  With purpose and practice it can be changed for the better.  Here are some common examples to help you understand what is meant by word usage style and habits.  If you ‘gripe and complain’ more than you ‘praise and compliment’ you may have a more subtractive than additive style.  If your habit is to start statements with the word “no”  that is likely to have a minor, subtractive effect.  If you commonly mention more things that are focused on defeat, trauma, tragedy and downer topics than ‘up’, positive topics, your habitual word usage style slowly is likely to have a cumulative, subtractive effect.

If you commonly include talk about your loved one’s successes, attributes, victories, positive growth, etc. more than you mention your loved one’s deficiencies, difficulties, shortcomings and failures, etc. your style is likely to be having an additive effect.  If you repeatedly practice replacing the word “but” with the word “and” you will have a surprisingly good, minor, additive impact.  For example, instead of saying “OK, but don’t ask me to do that again”, you might say “OK, and I would like us to find another way to do that next time”.  If you learn to have a speech habit which includes frequently saying things like “as I see it…”, “my memory is…”, “I may be wrong, however, my perception is…” you are likely to be additive.  If you start your statements with the word “you”  followed by an affirmation or compliment you are being additive.

If you start your statements with word “you” followed by mentioning a deficiency, a shortcoming, a mistake, etc. you probably are being subtractive.  There are hundreds of other problematic or additive speech style factors.  Hopefully these examples can give you some idea of what to look for in your own speech style and habits.

Voice Characteristics

Some people sound angry when they are not; others sound wimpy and some others sound indifferent.  Some just lack practice sounding loving,  kind, pleasant, cooperative, etc..   Some people are really good at sounding tender, sweet, powerfully caring, etc; this probably is because they have worked at it.  You can too.

Motion/Emotion Presentation

Are you good at smiling at your loved ones?  Do you greet them with open arms?  When talking, do you look straight into your loved one’s face and often nod as you hear what they are telling you?  A great many facial expressions, gestures and posture changes can convey that you are emotionally positive toward the person you are talking with and that can send a very additive, emotionally positive message to them as they talk.  ‘Stone faced’ non-expression usually is interpreted as something negative and, therefore, is subtractive.  Scowling, frowning, rolling your eyes, and most of all hate looks can be very subtractive.  Similarly, clenching your fists, turning your back, pounding your fist, stomping off and the like usually are subtractive.

Additive Subject Matter

Are the subjects you usually talk about with your loved ones more frequently helping them feel good or feel not good.  This is a matter of balance.  Talk that is additive to a love relationship needs to occur more often than subtractive talking.  Additive subject matter can be affirmational, appreciative, uplifting, intriguing, fun, positive, laudatory, joyful and best of all loving.  This doesn’t mean serious, problematic and more downer topics are to be completely avoided.  It just means that it usually is best for them to be in the minority.

When the Negative Is Additive

There are times when subject matter may be about something painful or problematic but the way of talking about it is quite additive.  Offering emotional support, commiseration, shared angry venting, joint catharsis and voicing care are examples of this.  Talking in ways that attempt to dodge painful topics, difficult feelings and the like, sometimes can be quite subtractive.  However, if dodging the difficult gives relief sometimes it may be additive.  Semi-sarcastic putdown humor, kidding, reverse meaning statements, etc. can be additive if the person hearing them knows how to take them as such.

Hopefully this mini-love-lesson will help you add additive talking to your repertoire of  love skills and bring you and others much that is lovingly positive.

As always – Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Are the people you commonly associate with more additive, or subtractive, or how do you experience the way they communicate and what effect does that have on you ?

Related posts:

1. Talking to Feelings First, Then Topics – A Love Skill
2. Requesting Not Expecting – A Love Skill
3. Listening with Love
4. Catharsis Empathy – A Love Skill
5. Non-Defensiveness – A Love Skill 

Listening With Love - Are You Good At It?

Synopsis: This is both a mini-love-lesson and a Rating Test which aims to get you to attend to 12 important points concerning becoming a really good at listening with love; and you can use it to rate yourself, as to your love listening skills.

Rate Yourself

Listening well to those you love is one of the best ways to demonstrate that you love, care and value them.  Sometimes one of the most important ways to feel that you are loved is to experience someone who loves you doing a really good job of listening to you.  But what really constitutes good, love-filled listening?  To find out take this 12 item test, rating yourself as you go.  Each item will help you know a major way you can nourish and help improve any and all love relationships through being good at listening with loving.

Test Instructions

Carefully read each of the following tests questions.  Each question mentions one of the factors associated with quality listening with love.  As you read try seriously to think about how well you do what the test statement refers to when you are talking face-to-face with someone you love.  Then with each question look at answers A through F, and pick the one that comes closest to what you think accurately rates you on how well you listen.  Record each of your answers so you can come back later and tally your score.  Instructions for tallying your score will be given at the end of the test, along with interpretations.

Listening With Love – A Test

1. When talking with a loved one, you say fewer words than they do.
(A) Almost always (B) Frequently ( C ) Half the time (D) Seldom (E) Almost never (F) Don’t know

2. When listening to a loved one, you silence your own mind and what it is telling you to say next, so that you can attend to what they are saying more fully.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom (E) Almost never (F) Don’t know

3. You can repeat back to a loved one what they have just said, close to verbatim.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

4. When a loved one is talking, you repeatedly identify in your mind what the emotions your loved one is experiencing as they talk.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

5. When talking with a loved one you ask what they are feeling, so as to be sure you are in tune with their emotions, and to check out your own perceptions of their emotions.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

6. When talking with the loved one you have and convey empathetic, corresponding emotions i.e. you hurt when they hurt, you’re happy when they’re happy, etc.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

7. You listen attentively for a loved one to fully vent, express themselves, discover and think-out their own issues, solutions, concepts and feelings before offering your own thoughts, advice, possible solutions, etc.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

8. Your facial expressions, head movements, voice tones, gestures and posture changes consistently and repeatedly show interest, attentiveness, care and other appropriate corresponding feelings to your loved ones when they are talking.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

9. When talking with a loved one you physically touch them appropriately showing care, support, celebration, affection, etc.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

10. When listening to a loved one you avoid listening primarily for their pauses so you can start saying what you want to say next, and while they’re talking you avoid rehearsing in your mind what you’re going to say next, plus you do not let yourself be otherwise easily distracted from giving them your full and close attention.
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

11. When talking with someone you love do you do a good job of listening with your eyes, i.e. closely watching your loved one’s face and movements in order to see your loved one’s indicators of emotion, so you can be emotionally in tune with them and respond accordingly?
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

12. When talking with a loved one do you stay aware that listening well can help your loved one feel affirmed, valued and cared about, and not listening well can result in your loved one feeling devalued and less than well loved?
(A) Almost always  (B) Frequently  ( C ) Half the time  (D) Seldom  (E) Almost never  (F) Don’t know

Scoring

Score 5 points for each (A), 4 points for each (B), 3 points for each ( C ), 2 points for each (D), 1 point for each (E) and zero points for each (F) – Don’t know response.

Interpretation

Scores  49 – 60  suggests someone who is a great loving listener, or someone who is overrating.

39 – 48  suggests someone who is a good loving listener who can still improve.

25 – 36  suggests someone who is a fair loving listener who can do quite a bit better with learning and practicing.

13 – 24  suggests someone who is rather poor at loving listening and probably is in need of a fair amount of improvement.

0 – 12  suggests that a very poor loving listening performance is frequently occurring and considerable work at improvement is recommended.

4, or more, zero (Don’t know) responses suggests considerable study of loving listening skills is probably highly desirable.

If you wish to rate another person on their loving listening skills you will need to alter the questions a little so they read in a way that indicates a loved one listening to you.  Then record the responses (A – F) that best indicates how you think they behave on each item.  Then tally the scores as before.
To learn more about this important skill go to the mini-love-lesson at this site titled “Listening with Love”.  You might use that entry to talk about listening skills with a loved one.

As always – Go and Grow with Love.

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Who listens to you with love the best, and have you sufficiently thanked them for that?

Related posts:

1. Listening with Love
2. Listening With Love and IN and OUT Brain Functions
3. How Smart Is Your Love? – A Test
4. Alphabet Love Test
5. Intimacy Creation – A Love Skill 

Requesting Not Expecting - A Love Skill

Synopsis: We begin with the unsaid thoughts and how they affect love relationships; then look at requesting fears; requesting as a gift; the failure of expectations; and the ‘cure actions’ that really work.

Unsaid Thoughts

“I leave him love notes but he never does that for me”, “Why do I have to always be the one who initiates lovemaking”, “I keep hinting that he could bring me flowers but he never gets it”, “I don’t know why she’s never happy when my friends come over to watch football but I wish she would be”, “When something is wrong I wish he would stop trying to fix it by giving me advice and instead just show me some care.  Why doesn’t he do that”.

Why are the people who are saying these things not getting what they want?

To each of these people one could ask, “Have you directly asked him or her to do what you want?”.  It is amazing what the variety of responses to this type question are,  “I shouldn’t have to ask, he (or she) is supposed to know”, “I have griped and complained about it, isn’t that enough”, “I keep expecting he (or she) will figure it out”, “I don’t know why I suffer in silence but I do”, “It’s just not fair”, “If he (or she) really loves me they would know what to do, wouldn’t they”, “It spoils it if I have to ask.”  All of these replies mean that the true answer to the question is “NO!  I haven’t actually, directly and clearly asked for what I want.”

Requesting Fears

Lots of people have lots of different fears concerning making direct requests.  Some people are afraid that their requests will sound like, or be taken as, a controlling demand or command.  Others fear they will sound too selfish.  Still others have an apprehension that they will hear a personal rejection in the reply they get.  There are people who don’t have enough healthy self-love to think that they are worthy enough or have the right to make direct requests   A fair number of people grew up in homes and cultural spheres where it was considered rude, immodest or improper to make a direct personal request.  Then there are those who feel that to make a clear, direct requests is unsafe because it exposes something that is true about themselves, therefore, it may make them vulnerable to harm or manipulation.

Some people fear that directly and clearly asking for what they want will take some of the mystery and romance out of the relationship.  What I find is that directly ‘asking for what you want’ takes out of the relationship many of the misunderstandings that trigger fights and hurtful disappointments.  If you rely on expectations, expect to be disappointed because that’s what usually happens.  Instead be brave enough to ask for what you want and you might get it.

The Gift of Requesting

Requesting something personal of someone can be a gift because it tells a person that they have something you find desirable and perhaps commendable.  Therefore, it shows you value them. That can be and often is taken as a compliment.

When you tell someone what you want in a clear and direct manner you give them a gift of knowing something personal and real about yourself.  You have self-disclosed a desire and in doing so you have shared a small bit of yourself.  It also shows you have been brave enough to give them the chance to accommodate or reject your request, thus, giving them a position of importance.  The simple act of requesting things like “Can I have a hug”, Let’s get together and talk”, I want to take you to the movies”, “I would like to spend more time with you, just you” or anything else you truly and personally want with or from a person, presents the person you are talking to with a revealing bit of data about yourself.

The gift of Self-disclosure also occurs when you ask for help like when you say something like “I really don’t know how to do this could you help me with it”.  Even more revealing are saying things like “I really long for your praise and compliments, would you tell me that you love me more often”, “I want to make mad, passionate love with you and I hope you want the same with me”.  Each request helps you go a little bit more ‘psychologically naked’ with the person you are making the request of.

The Failure of Expectations

It is important to know that if you are talking accurately you have a better chance of getting what you want, than if you are talking in ‘fuzzy’ ways that are open to multiple understandings, or in ways that can be fairly easily misunderstood and misinterpreted. Unfortunately a very high percentage of personal communication is much more easily misunderstood and misinterpreted than most people realize.  Expectations are particularly prone to being mis-communicated.  In couples counseling I’ve heard people say “I know what I mean, why don’t you”?  Perhaps it is because they have not said what they want as a clear and direct request.

Research suggests that when people have an expectation, or something they identify as an expectation, they do less about it and say less about it than if they identify it as a want or a desire. Thus, when you desire something called an expectation or when you have an expectation you are likely to insufficiently communicate about it in an insufficiently active way which inhibits achieving it.  After all, it was something you ‘expected’ so why should you say anything or do anything about it?

Expectation means you are counting on it, and you think it will or should happen. Subconsciously this erroneously means that you don’t have to do anything about it and you subconsciously think that other people will have the same understanding as you do, and that they also think it will or should happen.  This leads to no one being responsible for making something happen, and then in many circles everyone is blaming someone else for it not happening.  “I expected you to take me out on my birthday, and all you did is get me a card and flowers.”, “You had to know I was counting on you to show up on time, and you didn’t even go to the trouble to find out what time you should be there”, “You must have meant to insult me, because surely you knew you were supposed to ask me to dance first.”

These are but a few examples of people relying on expectations instead of making requests for what they want.  Here are a few more that are a bit more serious.  “I was counting on you to take care of the contraception thing, and now you tell me you were counting on me.”  “I absolutely thought you knew I loved you, and you just weren’t interested.”  What do you mean you didn’t bring our passports, isn’t that the man’s job. My father always did.”

The Cure

There is an old teaching that goes something like this: Expect nothing, Want everything, and Clearly ask for what you want, or Get it yourself because that’s your best chance of having it.  Especially is this true in love relationships; making clear requests about everything you want: small, medium and large, enhances communication, cooperation, team work, collaboration, mutual understanding and closeness.

If you are not used to asking for what you want directly and clearly, start practicing.  You can ask people what they heard you request to see if they really understood it.  You may get surprised at the answers you get.  Are you dependent on other people ‘reading your mind’, having a crystal ball or magically just knowing what you expect or desire of them? Do you blame them when they don’t get it right?

Let me suggest there are two places it is really best for you to know that you have to ask for what you want rather exactly.  One is in a restaurant and the other is in a love relationship.  Consider the woman who after 10 years of getting wimpy, wispy, little, quick kisses finally said, “I want hard, passionate, long, French kisses” and right away she began to get them.  All she had to do was ask.  Now, you may not always get what you want but you have a much better chance when you request in a direct and clear way.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Do you want to unknowingly go uninformed and be in the dark about what other people expect or want of you?

Related posts:

1. Gratitude As a Love Skill
2. Dining with Heart – A Love Skill
3. Checking It Out – As a Love Skill
4. Catharsis Empathy – A Love Skill
5. Intimacy Creation – A Love Skill