Something there is that doesn't love a wall...

[Surv1ve]

Hi over here. Oh, what nice developments in your thread.

I agree with Andrew's take on "no expectations" In codependency language, it's taking our happiness and joy from our own lives and disentangling our emotional wellness from their unreliability and process. I think when I really and truly started living my life for me, my H was freed to actually engage in some of his emotional work without my being so invested in his specific outcomes.

I also think I have no expectations while also making requests of H now. It means that I have gotten in touch again with who I am, want I want, and what I deserve. I make requests of him that I would make to anyone who occupied this level of importance to me because I deserve to ask for the things that I want, and I deserve to be treated well by people who are family. The asking is healing, but it was only healing once I divorced myself of the result. In not asking, I felt l like I was squishing myself, making myself small, and really actually protecting him from emotional growth.

I ask now. I ask expecting he will most likely say no. Seeing that as a reflection of him rather than whether or not I am deserving has been enormous. It allows me to be true to myself while maintaining no expectations. If he surprises me and says yes (and he does sometimes!), I thank him. If he declines with kindness and states his truth, I thank him for that. If he blasts me, I leave and take my space and refuse to feel that his loss of calm was because I asked. The world asks us for things, and he gets to practice self awareness and boundaries when I ask.

And, this means that I get to be boundaries. People who care about me and want me in their life will sometimes say yes to my requests. If he can't, he can't and it also means he doesn't get to stay. Not from a place of punishment, but from a place of I can't hold space for him or anyone who doesn't treat me like someone they are willing to work to keep.

I also like that you're writing from this place in your life, and I think I'll see if I can do the same. What are the stories of potential reconnection? What does awakening look like? What is on the other side? and, for those people early in MLC, do these stories of the future, a better one for the LBS and also for the MLC, offer enough hope to get through the raw moments of those early days. Or, I guess, alternately, do they tie people to a potential future that may never come?

After almost 2 years, I finally shared the MLC journey with a colleague at my last job. Three months later, she had her own bomb drop experience and her H did pretty much everything my H had done. She so admired my patience and perserverence... but she also kicked him out after 4 short months. Sometimes, I wish I was as firm as her and that I was done but it was so lovely to look at each other's stories from such a distance of time on either side.