Today I understand a bit more why this took place. My mother saw her family as responsible for her happiness. That, however, also indirectly made me responsible for her anger. She basically expected we would know what she needed at any given time. This, unfortunately, is how many of us perceive when a relationship is working—when our “other” instinctively knows what we need and takes action on it and takes care of meeting our needs.
We spend many good relationships expecting our loved ones to know what we need, or at least expecting them to learn what we want, right? Honestly, do you always even know yourself what you want? Clearly we cannot expect our significant other to understand and know our every whim. Do we expect that friends, family, spouses, and co-workers should know us “by now” and therefore act accordingly?
They know the person we appear to be, the person we project we are, our image. But who we truly are is someone who has needs to be met in order for the anger not to rise. This inner being of needs must be spoken and expressed. As someone once said, “ask and you shall receive.”
