Doing All the Work

Letting Go, Love, Relationships 0

Doing all the work in a relationship is not loving, giving, or caring. It is self-defeating and relationship-defeating. It creates the illusion of a relationship when in fact there may be no relationship. It enables the other person to be irresponsible for his or her share. Because that does not meet our needs, we ultimately feel victimized….

Are we doing all the waiting, the hoping, the work?

We can let go. If the relationship is meant to be, it will be, and it will become what it is meant to be. We do not help that process by trying to control it. We do not help ourselves, the other person, or the relationship by trying to force it or by doing all the work.

Let it be. Wait and see. Stop worrying about making it happen. See what happens and strive to understand if that is what you want.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 325

Intuition

Guidance 0

Intuition provides options. When you are connected to the instinctual self, you always have at least four choices . . . the two opposites and then the middle ground, and “taken under further contemplation.” If you’re not vested in the intuitive, you may think you have only one choice, and that it seems an undesirable one. And perhaps you feel that you ought to suffer about it. And submit. And force yourself to do it. No, there’s a better way. Listen to the inner hearing, the inner seeing, the inner being. Follow it. It knows what to do next.

— Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves, p. 118

“It’s Your Responsibility to Keep Things Civil and Nice.”

Marriage, Relationships, Truth 0

You’re feeling confused, baffled, and wondering who belongs in the asylum. How could he be saying that it’s your responsibility to keep things civil and nice? He’s the one who was unfaithful, who broke his vows to you, who has inflicted hurt on you and your children. He just acted most uncivil and really, really not nice.

You think, “Isn’t it mostly his responsibility to be civil and nice?” Everything you’ve learned since childhood is that the one who committed the crime is the one who has the responsibility to right the wrong, to make up to those he harmed. You’ve learned that this is true whether the crime is murder or the crime is seven-year-old Adam stepping on his playmate Eric’s toy and breaking it. If the crime is murder, the best the perpetrator can do is to ask for forgiveness and serve time in jail. If it’s breaking the toy, we expect Adam to apologize and to do his best to fix or replace the toy.

Based on all the values, beliefs, and expectations you’ve lived by your entire life, what he’s saying doesn’t make any sense.

— Elizabeth Landers and Vicky Mainzer, The Script: The 100% Absolutely Predictable Things Men Do When They Cheat, p. 130