Expectation or Hope (7)

Posted by feitheachd on Fri 7 Aug 09, 5:17 PM to feitheachd's blog.

“Don't ever expect” is part of a motto that I try to live by; it has served me well I think, but just recently I've been wondering if I really do mean it.

I wonder:

Within any sort of relationship, do I have a right to expect anything?

Whether through explicit oaths or implicit agreements, all partnerships come to some kind of understanding – sometimes that understanding is mutual, often it's not. We kind of, sort of agree to behave in a certain way and we sort of, kind of promise not to do certain things - and we then move forward and function in a world of trust bolstered by nothing much more than hope.

Relationships on every level thrive, stagnate and disintegrate within that framework and the framework won't look much different in each case – it's the choices of the partners within the relationship that determines its prospects.

I can only have responsibility for my own choices and every choice I make will have an impact on the relationship and on my partner/s. I can work hard and contentiously on making the relationship flourish; I can disregard it and allow it to stagnate or I can actively undermine it and watch it disintegrate. So can my partner/s - and the choices he/she makes will depend entirely on what he/she wants.

If I was fortunate enough to be in a Mistress / slave relationship, that I wanted to thrive, all I could do is be the very best slave that I'm capable of being. Then, I could hope that my Mistress would desire and direct this, that her dominance would grow as a result and that the dynamic would evolve and deepen. But, in the final analysis, that could only depend on her – she stands alone, the most complex of complex creatures, and she alone would decide what she wanted.

I could choose, I could act and I could hope.

But that's all – I can have no right to demand that my actions are rewarded as I would desire, because I cannot know how they will be received.

I can strive, I can take pride and I can hope.

But that's all - the level of my investment in a relationship gives me no rights to a reciprocal level of return.

Eliminating expectation isn't easy, but it's liberating and it allows me to concentrate fully on my own behaviours – the only thing I actually have control over.

Never demand.

Don't ever expect.

Strive always to be pleasing

and

live in hope.

Replies

7 Aug 09, 5:33 PM
x_ele_x
UK, 3 yrs

No of course you cannot and shouldn't expect and you certainly shouldn't demand....all you can do is be the best you can possibly be and hope that it is valued enough to be reciprocated. Sometimes it will be and sometimes it won't but if you can still live up to your own expectations of yourself then that's still a pretty good place to be

Good luck xx

Edited 7 Aug 09, 5:34 PM by x_ele_x

7 Aug 09, 9:07 PM
wonderer
UK, 5 yrs

No idea about D/s but guess it's as per other relationships. My (perhaps slightly puritan) understanding is that in a fully committed relationship, the only expectation you have is that it will be a venture into the unknown, an act of faith. We don't know where life will lead in the long run; how the two of us will ride the roller-coaster of life; what health and ill health we may experience - phyical and mental; what employment opportunities and disappointments we may have; how we may change and gorw in differnt ways; whether children may appear in our relationship or families; whether and how we may experience bereavements; what people may come into our lives.

A relationship which is conditional on partner acheiving certain aims, delivering certain benefits (e.g. generating income) feels to me to have more of the nature of a commercial contract than a committed relationship; one based on bargaining rather than unconditional giving.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. http://www.informedconsent.co.uk/posts/226772/

7 Aug 09, 11:43 PM
feitheachd
6 yrs

Thanks xxeIexx, I agree – it's a good place to be, I just need to make sure I'm properly settled.

"Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be, and he will become as he can and should be." ::Johann Wolfgang von Goethe::

7 Aug 09, 11:43 PM
feitheachd
6 yrs

Thanks wonderer, yes, it is an act of faith – but I've never been all that good with faith, so I'm trying to find a positive way to deal with the implications.

"Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be, and he will become as he can and should be." ::Johann Wolfgang von Goethe::

7 Aug 09, 11:50 PM
feitheachd
6 yrs

Thank you Marquise.

Your insights from the other side of the coin are very helpful.

TheMarquise wrote:

However, it would be very difficult to give your all and then not to expect anything like you envisaged by way of return. There is something that feels appalling unfair to behave impeccably and yet be treated with derision or neglectfully. Therefore, I would not recommend emotionally investing in someone who does not understand the notion of reciprocation and can only take, not receive.

I couldn't agree more. I should have said that, because I had chosen wisely – I could hope. I understand that a healthy relationship requires hard wired reciprocation, my thinking was just that once it was in place, expectation was at best a distraction and at worst a noose.

TheMarquise wrote:

I am sure it is the last thing you would wish of any woman, that she do other than what her inclinations are suggesting to her. But I think you can see how the high demands you lay on yourself may push her into a position that feels like a trap.

This worries me; as you say – the last thing I want to do is manipulate. My intention would be to focus on my own behaviours in order to be as pleasing as possible – but if you think that this creates demands on a partner to somehow “perform”, then my intentions are ill founded from the start. My whole purpose is to eliminate any thought of a quid pro quo and instead encourage the growth of the partners' natures and of the dynamic.

Isn't it possible that the eradication of expectation liberate both partners?

"Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be, and he will become as he can and should be." ::Johann Wolfgang von Goethe::

8 Aug 09, 9:23 AM
feitheachd
6 yrs

TheMarquise wrote:

If a domme was released from her expectation, might this be an opportunity to insist on you taking a job with more hours, or that paid better, buying a property for her and then deciding she wants you to be a cuckold to her. Perhaps expecting you to serve her lover. Would this be acceptable to you? If not, you would need to say so. I am not trying to paint the worse case scenario. I just think that it is easy to work all this out in theory and ideally it wouldn't need to be problematic. However life and people being what they are, there are many possibilities. As a slave, I think you still need to be aware of some things you need to have in your life to be content within a partnership.

I wonder if this isn't simply the consequence of freedom from expectation.

If I choose my partner wisely (and by this I mean - choose a partner with a mindset and moral framework synchronised with mine) and then work to facilitate a dynamic that encourages her to grow and to express herself fully in the manner that her nature dictates, aren't the choices she then makes always the right choices?

Certainly for her - and, if those choices were in significant conflict with my own basic needs or my own ethics, then I would have the choice to leave.

My point is simply that once I have decided to commit myself to the partnership, I have no right to expect my behaviours to produce a result that I desire, the only right I have is the maintenance of the hope that it does.

"Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be, and he will become as he can and should be." ::Johann Wolfgang von Goethe::

8 Aug 09, 4:11 PM
feitheachd
6 yrs

Yes Marquise, as always you have helped me challenge and reconsider my hazy ideas – and, as I try to eliminate expectation from all my relationships whatever their depth, this helps from a practical point of view too.

"Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be, and he will become as he can and should be." ::Johann Wolfgang von Goethe::