Want is a complicated thing
Jul. 11th, 2023 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
resoluteMy spouse and I are rearranging some of our house decor. While doing it I kept asking myself; what do I want?
It's complicated. I've spent my entire autistic life trying to determine what other people want. This was and remains completely mandatory if I want to have relationships with humans. Which I do! This is a want I can identify. I want a solid partnership with my spouse, I want to get along with my housemate, I want loving and respectful relationships with my adult kids, I want a caring relationship with my mother, I want connection with friends, I want a certain degree of social media clout, I want acquaintanceships with people in fandom and at conventions. I want my regular server at my local restaurant to think I am a good customer. I want my hairdresser to meet my requests. I want my many doctors to listen to me and respect my needs. I want my therapist to think I'm funny and honest.
I want things from people.
I have spent my life figuring out how to get those things.
What I have resoundingly failed to do is to first ask what else I want and then make compromises with others so that both our needs are met in relationship. Trying to figure out how to do that, now, is excruciating and I hate it. I'm honestly not even sure it has value, that it's worth it. Except that what happens over and over again in my life is that eventually I am depressed and angry because I never get what I want, and then the relationship ends.
I do not want that to happen in the relationships I currently have. I LIKE these relationships. I want to keep them. So it would seem that I therefore need to figure out what I want, what I would do or desire or avoid if I was NOT in relationship with others, and then negotiate with other people for some of those things.
This is exhausting and awful when I can determine a want or opinion. It's even more frustrating when I cannot. And the absolute worst is when I have managed to determine a want, an opinion, and the person I am in relationship with doesn't want that thing.
So there we are, hanging pictures. I realized that I really LIKE these pictures we picked up at a garage sale. I want them hung in the house. But every location my spouse and I try, she doesn't like that spot for that picture. The more places we tried, the more hopeless and checked-out I became. I kept thinking, "I told you I want these, I told you it's important, why are you rejecting the thing I want? Oh well, you are more important than a picture, I guess I just won't get to have what I want."
This is, by the way, NOT WHAT MY SPOUSE WAS SAYING. NOT AT ALL. This is just what decades of training myself to give up on my desires in order to keep my relationships has taught me.
We kept trying. We found a spot for the pictures that my spouse doesn't love but is okay with, and it's important to HER to hang the pictures because I said it was important to ME. This is what it should look like, this is how it should work. I just, y'all, it's just so fucking difficult.
Wanting things is so complicated.
It's complicated. I've spent my entire autistic life trying to determine what other people want. This was and remains completely mandatory if I want to have relationships with humans. Which I do! This is a want I can identify. I want a solid partnership with my spouse, I want to get along with my housemate, I want loving and respectful relationships with my adult kids, I want a caring relationship with my mother, I want connection with friends, I want a certain degree of social media clout, I want acquaintanceships with people in fandom and at conventions. I want my regular server at my local restaurant to think I am a good customer. I want my hairdresser to meet my requests. I want my many doctors to listen to me and respect my needs. I want my therapist to think I'm funny and honest.
I want things from people.
I have spent my life figuring out how to get those things.
What I have resoundingly failed to do is to first ask what else I want and then make compromises with others so that both our needs are met in relationship. Trying to figure out how to do that, now, is excruciating and I hate it. I'm honestly not even sure it has value, that it's worth it. Except that what happens over and over again in my life is that eventually I am depressed and angry because I never get what I want, and then the relationship ends.
I do not want that to happen in the relationships I currently have. I LIKE these relationships. I want to keep them. So it would seem that I therefore need to figure out what I want, what I would do or desire or avoid if I was NOT in relationship with others, and then negotiate with other people for some of those things.
This is exhausting and awful when I can determine a want or opinion. It's even more frustrating when I cannot. And the absolute worst is when I have managed to determine a want, an opinion, and the person I am in relationship with doesn't want that thing.
So there we are, hanging pictures. I realized that I really LIKE these pictures we picked up at a garage sale. I want them hung in the house. But every location my spouse and I try, she doesn't like that spot for that picture. The more places we tried, the more hopeless and checked-out I became. I kept thinking, "I told you I want these, I told you it's important, why are you rejecting the thing I want? Oh well, you are more important than a picture, I guess I just won't get to have what I want."
This is, by the way, NOT WHAT MY SPOUSE WAS SAYING. NOT AT ALL. This is just what decades of training myself to give up on my desires in order to keep my relationships has taught me.
We kept trying. We found a spot for the pictures that my spouse doesn't love but is okay with, and it's important to HER to hang the pictures because I said it was important to ME. This is what it should look like, this is how it should work. I just, y'all, it's just so fucking difficult.
Wanting things is so complicated.