"You Owe Me and I Owe You!" Thinking. Really?!

After my last two posts about fantasy vs. reality...I had a thought.  What about all this "You owe me!" and/or "I owe you!" thinking that I know I've seen run rampant across all sorts of relationships in recent memory...

Think about it.  Who do you know who treats you like you "owe" them whatever they ask of you?  Anyone pop immediately into mind?  Why do you think they treat you this way?  Whatever happened in their lives or between the two of you over time and history to cause this type of assumption towards you?  What "do" you owe them exactly?  Your loyalty?  Your time?  Your money?  Your affection?  Your admiration?  I have no idea.  Maybe you don't either.  But whatever is going on there, don't you think that being in a relationship with ANYONE who treats you as if you OWE them is pretty darn dysfunctional?!?!  I'm just askin....

Of course, I can flip the script just as easily.  Who do you treat as if they owe you?  Anyone pop immediately into mind now?  Why do you think you treat them this way?  Whatever happened in your life or between the two of you over time and history to cause this type of assumption on your part towards them?  What "do" they owe you exactly?  Their loyalty?  Their time?  Their money?  etc. etc. etc. 

This "I owe you" and "You owe me" mentality is more commonplace than anyone would care to admit.  If it weren't true, everyone would truly pull their own weight in this life and have what they have purely due to their OWN efforts!  Think about that for at least a little while please.  I said in a post long ago, "You don't become comfortable serving others by becoming comfortable with being served by others."  This is so true.  When you get what you don't truly deserve by anyone, it is very easy to treat that person (or anyone else for that mater!) as someone who "owes" you things.  Yet they don't.  Just like you don't "owe" anyone anything either just because "they" say or think that way.

In reality, whatever you do that is "good" for someone else SHOULD be based on your desire to WANT to do good for that person, in that particular circumstance, and nothing more.  Not that they will now "owe" you back....not that they will "owe" you for life as a result.  Giving without expectation is an expression for a reason.  Don't expect when you give.  Just give because you want to and that's it.  Then you'll be good.

The problem is that too many of us DO expect "payback" for whatever it is we do good for someone else.  We want their time..we want their love...we want their acceptance and approval.  We want to be viewed as "all good" in the minds of those we give to.  Spare me.  Is that because when you do something wrong or hurtful, it's not supposed to count against you?!  No, relationships weren't designed to function in this way.  Though we do this all the time to each other.  Yet another example of the codependent lifestyle gone amuck!

My aunt is a great example of the "You owe me" mentality at work.  She's old and I get that.  She's 88 as a matter of fact and she doesn't drive.  Yet when she calls me, she really does behave as if she's the Queen of England and I'm some serf fortunate enough to have been "selected" by her to do her bidding that day.  Really?  No.  When I am not available to drive down to her neck of the woods and do whatever it is she is expecting, she often is surprised and taken aback by my lack of cooperation.  "Well, what am I supposed to do now?!" she often has asked.  And, as I have often responded, "Call a cab, that's what." 

It takes practice and patience to come out of an "I owe you" and/or "You owe me" lifestyle.  It really does.  Biblically speaking, we are called to help each other when someone experiences an "extraordinary burden" as would be the case during a sudden illness, calamity, or death.  But we are NOT called to help each other carry one another's own "knapsack" of everyday responsibilities.  I was not put on earth to brush your teeth for you or comb your hair...or go to work for you.  You were meant to do all those things yourself.  Unfortunately for way too many of us, we want help with our everyday "knapsacks" of responsibility...and yet ask for NO help when we actually do suffer extraordinary burdens.  Go figure.  What a messed up bunch of humanity we all are, aren't we?

So the next time you come across someone treating you like you "owe"them...why don't you stop and ask the following:  "That was an interesting remark.  Felt like you were saying I owe you that.  Can you explain to me why?"

And if you find yourself expecting someone else to "do" for you because you think they owe you something...give me a call instead.  At the very least, I owe you a reality check!







 

Fantasy vs. Reality: Fred & Edie

I just finished a post about how fantasy can ruin a person's reality.  I was inspired by a movie I watched just the other night entitled "Another Life".  Produced by the BBC, it tells the real-life story of Frederick Bywaters and Edith Thompson.  Both executed on the same day in 1923, Fred and Edie were a tragic couple whose respective fantasies caused not only the death of Edie's husband...but Edie's execution as well.

I am reminded of the saying "Everything in moderation" when I think of how much Edie liked to read and fantasize about her own future.  A voracious reader, Edie used that era's equivalent of graphic novels (Think "Fifty Shades of Gray" here ladies!) to drive and fuel her desire for a life of hot sex, an adoring and devoted man, and one adventure after another.  (Or should I say an adoring and devoted man, hot sex, and one adventure after another! LOL!)

Given that Edie (in real life) made more money working than both her husband and father, she was nobody's "b" if you catch my drift.  Free-thinking, free-spirited, and fantasy-driven...Edie really did want it all.  As her husband realized this, he became more sullen and controlling towards Edie.  Before that, it was clear that he "adored" Edie and was devoted to her as best as he knew how---however woefully lacking that adoration and devotion manifested itself in their bedroom.  The rest is pretty predictable;  Edie felt she was being "used" by her husband to satisfy only himself sexually.  Edie felt she was stuck with a socially awkward and intellectually inferior life partner.  Edit needed a change.  And when he happend to come by in the form of twenty year-old Frederick Bywaters, Edie was ready.

Fred was nine years younger than Edie and an old friend of her youngest brother.  Once the connection was made, Fred and Edie threw caution to the wind in spite of Fred dating Edie's younger sister at the same time.  The lovers were eventually caught by Mr. Edie and Fred took off on the next ship for what turned out to be a year.

Here is where the story gets twisted.  Over the course of that year, Edie send Fred approximately 60 "love" letters.  These letters spoke often of wanting Mr. Edie "gone" and how much happier Edie would be without him if and when Fred returned.  I read those letters.  They sounded like the musings of a self-absorbed teenager (Edie was 28 at the time).  Even though ADHD was nowhere near being a legitimate mental health diagnosis back then, ADHD was written all over those letters.  Edie jumps from one topic to another like a jack rabbit.  She might as well, in my opinion, been writing in a diary as her actual references to Fred and anything he may have previously written her were few and far between.  In short, Edie was a flaming narcissist with ADHD and a twist of sex addiction on top of her fantasy-driving thinking.

Fred, on the other hand, was an angry young man who felt he kept drawing the short straw in life.  Mr. Edie didn't even have to serve in the Great War as he had "heart trouble".  Fred, on the other hand, was stuck in the merchant marine and being forced to lead a hand-to-mouth existence while the object of his desire was making more money selling hats than any man he knew!  As he read Edie's letters, he took her fantasy-driven musings literally.  He needed to get rid of Mr. Edie.  Somehow and in some way, he needed to make it all "better" for himself by removing that fly in his own ointment. 

When Fred returned on leave, he followed the couple as they were returning from a play.  He jumped Mr. Edie and stabbed him to death.  Edie herself was shocked and distraught as she saw it was Fred who had stabbed her husband.  When Edie's letters were discovered after going through Fred's belongings after his arrest...the courts determined that she had "planned" Mr. Edie's death along with Fred.  Nothing in the letters indicated this to me as I read them.  If anything, they indicated how immature Edie was to get caught up in a love affair with someone who was equally immature but in a very different way.

When Fred and Edie were hanged on the same day in 1923, it was determined that she must have been pregnant at the time of her death.  (I'm sparing you the details there.)  As such, Edith Thompson's death was fuel for the anti-capital punishment movement throughout England and the world at that time.

In my own opinion, this case should have been fuel for every word ever said or written which leads anyone to believe that they deserve something for nothing.  That merit and/or favor is a right and not a gift (or a curse!).  That getting what one wants is always "good" no matter how much reality shows otherwise. 

Fantasy versus reality.  I guess it's just one of those realities we will all struggle with for as long as we are here on earth to struggle with it....