Meeting Expectations

If there was anything common about all the relationships I've had, it is my thirst to please the person that I am with. There are days when I try to romanticize this and I put it as making my partner happy. But when you objectively or even clinically look at it, you would say that it is pathological. I have this unusual thirst for approval. Yes, I want some sort of affirmation from the person that I am in a relationship with. For me, it is some sort of validation of my worth - as a person and as a partner.

It could be good but there are times that it becomes a handicap. I have had relationships when my partner used me - emotionally, physically. And yet every time that I am played with the guilt card, I give in. Every time he throws something that says that I am not meeting his expectations, I give in. I do everything and anything just to meet that expectation to the point of losing myself.

I have tolerated situations that I have never dreamed to happen to me simply because in my view, by doing so I am showing my love for my partner. I have been unfair to my self most of the time.

We always have that tiny voice in our head that just screams reason and reality to us. I have ignored that voice simply because it counters the expectations of my partner. Needless to say, that voice is simply telling me that what I am doing is not good for me that I should stop it.

I honestly do not know how to fight that craving, that thirst, that addiction for approval and validation. I just know that it had to stop if I wanted to be in a relationship where I am respected and valued as a person, where I am given what I deserve and I receive the kind of love that is for rightly for me.