motdakasha

That depends on the would-be-mother, and/or the people involved. Careful with overgeneralizations and absolute statements.

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Sorceress

Oh dear fellow! That is such a hard question to answer. I understand what you are both going through, because it happened to me a long time ago. It took me three years to get over the initial pain and 9 to stop blaming myself for that which could not have been otherwise.
She may feel that there really was no choice, but that she didn't really want to give it up. If that is the case she will waever in how she feels and it will be hard to be supportive, because she feeling so changeable. The only thing I can suggest is that you be very kind and patient, and ask her when she makes these comments how she's feeling now and if she would like to talk about it, and what you can do to help her feel understood. show her that you really want to understand and communicate and that you're trying. If you do that she will appreciate it. I promise.

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ratbastid

This is pretty off-topic, but what the hell.

The problem with "I'll be 100% responsible, create a 100-0 relationship with you from my end, but you've got to do the same" is that it's NOT 100% responsible. That's like, "l'll be 100% responsible, as long as you pony up your part," which is another name for 50-50, which never works. I know for me, I mostly have to see evidence of their 100 before I'll put my 100 on the table. It's always a total train wreck when I do that.

By some non-linear miracle of the universe, when you're really, honestly 100-0 in a relationship, and really truly, authentically expecting NOTHING back, no desires or sense of entitlement or deserving, what you get back from the other person is everything you could ever want or dream of. You can pretty much take that to the bank.

Now, the bad news is, you can't be 100-0 in HOPES that you'll get back what you want, or IN ORDER TO get back what you want. This isn't a trick or technique. That'd be manipulation. At best it would be like 99-1, which also doesn't work. That 1% will work on you and eat away at you until you're 1% resentful and furious. And we all know how that tends to go.

Nope, 100-0. Completely, unconditionally. The other name for that (in case you hadn't picked up on it yet) is love. Anything else is deal-making, not love.

Sorceress

Ok I missed the original 100-0 % post thing. But what it comes down to is this ... Love is neither selfish nor selfless, it is unconditional without being taken advantage of. In other words love your partner and yourself unconditionally and you'll find balance, and you'll find out if they're capable of real love.

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Born of mist and dreams, chapters from an alternate mind.

pig

I included that little quotey-quote to indicate what I was responding to. In my experience, it takes some 50/50 before you get to the (hopefully) mutual 100-0. Or else you have to give everyone 100-0, which pretty much = enlightened individual, in my opinion. It's one thing to say "I'm in 100-0," it's another thing to love someone 100%, regardless of what they do. And you're absolutely right, that is the definition of true love. My opinion is that something approaching a "conventional" relationship isn't usually long term stable unless it 100:100, or 50:50, or 1:1 or however you want to state it.

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Sorceress

I agree with that!

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Born of mist and dreams, chapters from an alternate mind.

ratbastid

Well, let me try saying it a different way. It can be 50-50, as long as you don't have to see their 50 before you pony up yours. And as long as you're willing to give your 50 even if you don't see their 50 on the horizon, or any evidence that their 50 will ever show up. If you can take on faith that their 50 will get provided eventually, and you're okay even if it never does.

I'm not talking about a relationship with somebody you've gone out a couple times with. I'm talking about what works in a long-term committed relationship, though not necessarily only an intimate relationship. This is how it works best with family or close friends, too.

bubonico

Do you really believe that? Maybe I'm a piece of shit, but I can't imagine myself being engaged in a relationship giving myself fully to that person and having absolutely 0 expectations of anything in return. Maybe you're wired differently than me. Have you always been like this, or is this tactic of your something I can teach myself?

Your words are really making me thing about my take on love/relationships. In my relationship I do build up certain expectations. Maybe I'll have to learn to expect nothing out of a relationship in order to get everything I want. You seemed pretty certain of yourself.

Sorry to hijack your thread apolian.

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Sorceress

it is good not to have expectation. To love unconditionally. But this doesn't mean that you can't have things you would like to have. Things you want. You just have to learn not to expect it. However, and this is the big thing....You have to know where the line is that keeps you from being taken advantage of. Don't let anyone cross it. Love them and yourself and you'll be golden!

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Born of mist and dreams, chapters from an alternate mind.

ratbastid

I'm absolutely not wired differently than you. I have to deal with my desires and expectations constantly. Only difference is, I've seen very clearly what they look like and how they get in my way, and I've trained myself to have an eye out for them. When you expect or desire or want things, you start grabbing for them, which (heh heh) doesn't work so well in a relationship. We tend to push away the very thing we want.

Desire is the root of all suffering. If you can give up your desires--and I'm NOT saying it's easy--then anything becomes possible. You can't give up your desires just by giving up your desires, though. First you've got to own that those are YOUR desires. There's no "good thing" and "bad thing", like an absolute. There's no "one thing better than another", either. All there is is YOU desiring stuff, and stuff out there getting desired. You're the one imposing desire on things.

THEN you've got to start to see what your desires do to you, and it ain't pretty. For most of us, you either get what you want and to hell anyone who gets in your way (including the people you want it from), or you don't get what you want and you act like a pouting child about it. I know that's how my automatic responses work, anyway. It's very automatic for me, almost robotic.

Once you've seen all that and own it as your mechanism (which isn't bad, btw, it's just how you're wired to work), you can start to set it down and create something else. You can catch yourself in the moment, interrupt nonproductive thoughts and feelings as they arise in you. You can authentically invent a 100-0 relationship, and see how it works.

It might have been irresponsible of me to lay out the 100-0 notion without all this background. I can see I've intrigued some people though, so that's good. I think the more people can think about how they actually ARE in relationships, the better things will work for them.

You can see this in action in this thread. Imagine this scenerio: I want to have better communication with my partner. So I want that, right? Want it and want it and want it. And she won't communicate with me, so that's The Problem! She won't communicate, and that's in the way of what I want. And so I bug her to communicate with me--because I want that so bad! And every time I bug her, she shuts down a little more. Which isn't what I want! Uh oh! Now I have to REALLY bug her, because I'm getting the OPPOSITE of what I want! And then I wonder why she hasn't talked to me in days!

Versus: I see that what I want in this relationship is communication. I see that I think she's not communicating like she should. I see that my tendency will be to bug her about that, and I'm clear the impact that's likely to have. I SET ASIDE my desire to get her to open up, and look to see what's there, after I've done that. What's there is for me to start BEING the communication I want to see. I tell her honestly how I'm feeling, I share this whole process with her. I share with her all my fears and thoughts and hopes. How do you think that leaves her, in terms of her willingness to communicate with me?

I should be clear: I'm not good at this yet. I've been studying it in some form for about seven years now, and I'm building my muscle at it, but I wouldn't say I'm good at it yet. But even beginning to work on it provides a huge amount in people's lives.

There's some concern here about being taken advantage of. That's valid, and you do have to watch for that. The time may come in a relationship when what's there to do when you set aside your desire (or your anger or your hurt or whatever) is to end the relationship. But that's more powerfully done when the emotional charge is set aside.

This is now a total threadjack. Back to abortion, stat!

kel

Well... It is going to be with her for the rest of her life. It's not often you do something like that... Maybe she is to afraid to make changes to her lifestyle that resulted in the abortion and is expressing that this way.

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