Blessed Are Those Who Expect Nothing For They Shall Not Be Disappointed

Before I discuss the topics in the Resource List I shared last week, I am going to share the beginning of my journey of personal growth. Before my journey started, I was a doormat. Actually, I was the epitome of doormat. There was no one better at being a doormat than me. Let me give you an example. My first marriage happened when I was a teenager. I married a man from an upper middle-class family who I thought would give me a better life. He quit his job days after we were married, because his upbringing taught him to feel entitled. He thought it was my job to take care of him even though I came from poverty. Two weeks into our marriage, he had an affair with one of my childhood friends. I invited her to see the inner-city mess of an apartment I could afford, because I was proud of it. I never dreamed I would have anything that nice. At the end of the evening, my husband drove her home. My friend confessed by phone that very night that my husband took so long to get home because they had an affair. This is how much of a doormat I was - I got up the next morning and cooked breakfast for him, because that is what I saw my Mom do no matter what difficulty my Dad and she were facing. After cooking him breakfast, I caught the bus to work, so he could have my car, an old LTD I bought for $200 and drove for years, to do whatever a perpetually unemployed person does during the day. I came home that night and cleaned the apartment, cooked dinner, and performed all of the duties a good wife is supposed to perform. I even allowed the friend who had sex with him to visit the following weekend. I was such a doormat when my journey began that I was surprised when people called me a doormat years later when I had improved a lot. Didn’t they understand how far I had come? They were right – I was still a doormat, because it takes a long time to recover from something that is engrained that deeply. Those who read my book "The Blood Moon Sealed My Fate," probably won't be surprised that the cultural stories that inspired that fictionalized book could lead a person to being this much of a doormat.

There were several factors that led to me being that much of a doormat - cultural, religious, and maternal example. Most people from my culture would deny this, but my cultural background is very patriarchal. Any woman who steps out of what is expected of her quickly learns that truth. She becomes the scapegoat. This is magnified by religious teachings that women are to be completely submissive. Many times, I saw my church counsel women to return to abusive husbands, stating that them becoming more submissive would bring their husband to God and save him from the fires of hell. These teachings were so engrained I saw them modeled, especially by my mother who naturally had a sweet and submissive nature. How could I have known there was any other way to be?

I remember a Christmas celebration where a man brought a woman so young he probably shouldn’t have been dating her. She was too young to know how to buy a man an appropriate gift. She bought him a set of disposable razors, because she didn’t understand what else to give him. In contrast, she bought a woman she understood well a nicer gift. The man screamed at her for a couple of hours, because he said she didn’t care enough about him to buy him a gift as nice as the one she bought for the woman she better understood. No once comforted this teenager through her tears. What is even more revealing is that the women sat at the kitchen table talking about her behind her back, blaming the entire episode on her. Any thinking person could see she was completely innocent, but as the woman, she became the scapegoat. I am aware there are many times that even the women who cared the most about me talked about me behind my back in similar ways to cover up the horrible things the men had done. The women were the scapegoats, and that creates doormats.

I don’t know if anyone can escape being that oppressed unless someone who is not oppressed helps them. If they can, I don’t know how. I was lucky to be employed by a childless boss who loved me like her own daughter. Before she knew me well, she gave me a plaque with a picture of a dog lounging in a field that had written on it, “Blessed are those who expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed.” The picture I chose for this blog post is a picture of that plaque. After she got to know me, she became frustrated by me coming to work with bruises that had been caused by the man who drove my car while I caught the bus to work and who spent the money I earned once I was at work. She was a bold Italian woman, and she didn’t take any crap from anyone. She took me under her wing and taught me to have expectations for my life. She taught me how to use my potential, which included finding me a job in a company with tuition assistance and teaching me how to attend college (something I needed to be taught since I was the first person in my family to attend). She didn’t want to lose me as an employee, but she loved me enough to desire what was best for me.

I tell this story, so I can share what she said to me when she set me on this journey. She said the plaque she gave me was true. Those who had no expectations would not be disappointed. She was teaching me to have expectations, so I needed to expect disappointment. She told me improving my circumstances was not going to happen in one magical decision. On the contrary, the decision must fuel a desire that was so strong it would be my motivation for a lifetime of hard work. She said that self-improvement happens like peeling off the layers an onion. When I peel off the first layer, I will be better than I was when I started, but I will still have many layers to peel away before I get where I want to go. She said halfway through the onion, I would probably still be a doormat, but I’d be much less a doormat than when I started. She said I wouldn’t be healed until the onion was gone. She wanted me to digest that reality and let her know if I felt I could handle it.

I said I could handle it. I didn’t really know what I was saying yes to at that time, but my yes must have been sincere. I have been knocked down many times along the way, and each time I’ve gotten back up and continued fighting for what I wanted for my life.

I tell you this so that those who are starting the journey will be prepared and so those who are already on the journey and don’t understand why it is so hard might better understand. Each time I peeled off a layer of the onion, it changed me. Not everyone is happy when a person changes. People will get mad. People will try to hold you back. Some people who are really desperate for you to stay the same will try to wrestle you back. People will spread rumors about you. You have to be prepared for this. It also helps to see this as a gift – the gift of people revealing to you who they really are.

In my case, the journey got easier and moved faster when I admitted to myself that people who act like assholes are revealing who they really are. Pretending people were something other than how they acted was me being codependent and enabling, and I had to start being more honest with myself even if it hurt to admit what I saw. I began to distance myself from them – not in unforgiveness but in self-protection. I do not bad mouth them or retaliate. If their misdeeds become so bad that I must employ legal justice, I will do that, but I do not retaliate out of malice. I pray for them. But, I do not allow them to continue to harm me.

Recognize who cheers you on as you grow, because those are the people who really care about you. Those are the people you should pull into your inner circle and keep close to you. Those are healthy people who have developed enough self-esteem and healthy boundaries that they can be happy when others achieve successes. Draw close to those people, and your journey will become much easier. Rosemary was the first person I met who cheered my successes. She thought I was a model employee, but she released me from her employee, accepting the personal loss that required on her part, to set me on the path to a better life for myself. As the years passed, I gathered more people like her around me. They are out there, even if you can't see or imagine them now. Look for them.

Compared to many, I am still a doormat – and I have come a long way, too. When my journey started, I was surrounded by abusers, alcoholics, addicts, and people who did not desire to treat mental disease or personality disorders they were afflicted with. I was expected to manage all of these social problems for them. Now, I am still a doormat, but I have an inner circle of friends who cheer on my successes and have very few people close to me who have addiction issues. I’m also slowly learning to set the right boundaries with people who have untreated mental disease or personality disorder issues. Obviously, I am making progress. I was the epitome of a doormat, 100% so, when my journey started. Now, I’m maybe 40% doormat. I will continue this journey of self-improvement until I am 0% doormat or there is no life left in this body, whichever comes first, because the journey is that worth it.

I want to end by saying I realize no information is one size fits all. This blog is for the people like me who were ridiculed as being “too nice” all of their lives and need to develop stronger boundaries. The stories I tell here are not for the people who prey on those who are “too nice.” Those people need a completely different kind of advice, and it is unlikely they will find it here.

In future posts, I will tell how some of the organizations on the Resource List I shared last week helped me get this far and are continuing to help me in my journey of self-improvement.