Thread: can a guy really learn and change?

Originally Posted by Livelaughlove

There are certain traps that relationships fall into. One being expectation. Once an expectations has been placed and is NOT met it begins to take shape as a form of disappointment, lack of caring, or even abandonment. However if they ARE met then it doesn't have any effect at all, meaning the reason it was placed in the beginning has become so repetitive you become numb to it. Rather it serves as a security blanket eventually causing both people in the relationship to not feel anything for each other which was the purpose of the expectation in the first place.An example of this is a couple going out every saturday, or calling eathother the same time before they go to work/school. Hope that didn't confuse you. haha

no no it didn't confuse me at all. thank you, that makes a lot of sense.. i think i have fallen into this trap. i seem to expect more from him because of the mistakes he's made in the past..and it has certainly led to disappointments. i'm sure if i didn't expect too much, i'd once in a while be pleasantly surprised by the things he does for me. how do you think a couple can pull themselves out of a trap like this one? i don't suppose it's very easy just to throw away all the expectations, is it?

Originally Posted by WildChild

The question is if the two of you continue to enrich each other's lives?

hmm..that's hard to say now. back when we were in the university together, we certainly did enrich each others' lives. we were both inspired and we did well in school. now he lives 2 hours away because of work and i've entered grad school so it's not as easy as it used to be. (this is also why i don't get that many opportunities to give positive reinforcement.) we're both quite busy, him more than me, and we only see each other twice a month when he comes to visit. we do text each other though.

recently he's been especially engaged in work and so he hasn't been texting much and that has cause some distress on my end, which led to this thread. i admit it has distracted me, i've been imagining unpleasant things, and my studies have taken a back seat. (i've noticed that when things aren't going very well with our relationship my studies suffer...) i suppose in that sense my life isn't being enriched. but i think that's partly my fault too because i expect him to text, which was LLL's point.