If you’ve ever encountered someone with a sense of entitlement, you know the frustrations of dealing with them. Entitlement interferes with your attempts at connecting with them and dealing with them straightforwardly.
Entitlement disrupts relationships. When it enters your relationship, you are dealing with a one-upmanship dynamic.
One of you is superior to the other. Once that happens, it poisons every interaction. The person in the superior position has expectations that exceed their acceptance. There is also conditions placed on acceptance.
Although accountability is a good thing, when there’s an attitude of entitlement with it, that accountability becomes a weapon.
There are many causes of an entitlement attitude. One that stunned me was a prominent affair counselor advertising “You have a right to a marriage filled with a fearless peace”.
I dread thinking about how many marriages will suffer from falling for such an expectation of entitlement. The very definition of entitlement focuses on having rights.
In marriage, you have responsibilities toward each other. When you twist responsibilities into expectations and rights, it sets the stage for conflicts over entitlement.
One sure fire way of slowing down affair recovery is taking on an attitude of entitlement where you expect the cheater to fulfill your rights while ignoring or denigrating theirs.
The two of two of you need some re-negotiating in your marriage. After the affair, some things need changing.
Since discussions about ‘rights’ in marriage leads to conflicts, I instead emphasize responsibilities each of you have in working through problems. Experience has taught me that discussions about rights in your marriage doesn’t solve the conflicts.
If you need a place to discuss the issues that concern you about affair recovery, join the support community at Restored Lifestyle.
Best Regards,
Jeff
