The Preconceived Resentment Trap

I have said before that expectations are preconceived resentments. This is a lesson that many codependents need to learn over and over again. After all, we are good at assembling numerous expectations in our heads, primarily about what other people should or should not be doing. It’s habitual behavior and we need to be aware of our tendency to fall into the Preconceived Resentment Trap.

It’s January and in the United States it’s cold and flu season. If I come down with a cold or flu, it’s easy for me to not want to be responsible for myself. After all, we codependents aren’t masters of taking good care of ourselves to begin with, and so it’s easy for us to shift our expectations toward everyone else in the family.

So let’s say we have a cold. We’re sniffling and coughing, feeling achy and miserable and wanting someone to rescue us. We notice a pain in our throat, and we realize that we don’t have anymore cough drops. So we sigh and think how wonderful it would be if our significant other (magically) walked through the bedroom door with our favorite cherry cough drops. After all, if he/she really loved us, they’d know that we are out of cough drops and in need of them, right? Of course! But we wait and wait and our fantasy doesn’t happen. We know he/she is in the living room watching TV. What’s wrong with him/her? Don’t they know we need cough drops? So we become disappointed, mad and we start smoldering inside.

It’s nearly lunch time and we decide we’d love some chicken noodle soup to help put our electrolytes back into balance. But we don’t want to have to get up and do anything for ourselves, of course. So we think about how nice it would be if our significant other (magically) showed up at the door with a tray of chicken noodle soup, toast and green tea. Oh, that would be so wonderful! But, of course, it doesn’t happen. He/she does show up and ask us if there’s anything we need and we say “Oh, no. I’m fine.” Then they leave and we grumble to ourselves about how he/she should know what we need!

Finally, we drag ourselves out of bed and storm past him/her as we make our way through the living room to the kitchen. We cough and wheeze as we pull a can of chicken noodle soup from the cabinet. Our significant other comes in and asks “What’s wrong?” and we retort “Nothing… You should know!... I have this terrible cold and you’re doing nothing to help me! I need cough drops and you haven’t gotten me any! I want chicken noodle soup and you’re not bringing me any!” We rant and rave, cough and sniffle.

Our significant other listens patiently and then responds: “If you have expectations of how I should be helping you, you need to VOICE them. I’m not a mind-reader. I can’t know what you need or what you expect unless you tell me. So, please from now on tell me what you expect of me or need from me.”

His or her words are like a cold but necessary reality slap to our faces. He or she is right. We’ve fallen back into our old codependent thinking patterns where we don’t feel like we’re worth taking care of ourselves or asking for what we need, and so we’ve started fantasizing about how our significant other should be doing everything for us that we aren’t willing to do for us. We got trapped in magical codependent thinking, filled our heads with unvoiced expectations, and when they weren’t met, we got mad and resentful. In the process, we made ourselves miserable and then made an ass out of ourselves by blaming our significant other for neglecting those things we hadn’t been willing to ask for of him/her.

If we are going to entertain expectations in our heads, we need to have the courage to voice them. We are worthy of receiving what we need—that is, those things that we need and cannot provide for ourselves. When we are sick, we need-- and we are worthy of receiving-- help. All we have to do is ask for it.