Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with disappointment

The healthy way to deal with those little petty disappointments in a relationship?

Anonymous — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:03:31 -0800

The healthy way to deal with those little petty disappointments in a relationship? I've been dating someone for a few months now and things have gotten to a good semi-intense level. We kind of chat throughout the day via gchat or texts and talk most nights, just to give you an idea where we are at.

As I've gotten older I've tried my best to express the things I'd like or want in a relationship. For example you tell someone, "I'm having the worst day, can we talk later tonight for a few minutes?" I'll kind of get a few texts, but a brush off of "I'm drinking with friends" or something like that and no call. I don't really care if they're busy, but it just stings for some reason to me that they can't spare five minutes. Tell me if it's weird to ask that as well..but they'll come to me quite a bit if they are having a tough day.

So my question, how do you deal with those little things? Brush it off.. say something? I sometimes will go for a day long hike the next day just to kind of keep busy, but sometimes I come back to "where were you? what's wrong?" and honestly I really have no interest in fighting, I guess sometimes I'm not great in relationships. Please help me out. If I'm being too sensitive, please tell me and I'll really work on it.

moving past feelings of disappointment.

sucre — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:18:03 -0800

how to deal with canceled plans and disappointment in long-term relationships? background and concerns:

my boyfriend and i have been together for over 7 years. we have had a very positive relationship on the whole, with a few ups and downs along the way. we don't live together (never have).

my boyfriend has been dealing with chronic head and neck problems for a couple years. he has visited a few doctors in the past, and is continuing to search for some relief. these health problems have become somewhat of an issue for us. he does not like to be around other people when he is feeling poorly (whereas i usually like company when i'm feeling sick). this often results in him canceling plans (usually via text), and me feeling extremely disappointed. i often feel angry and almost personally offended, with a bit of a "this-is-not-fair!" vibe and feelings of self-pity.

in past instances, i have often called and texted him persistently after a plan has been canceled, in some cases trying to convince him to hang out (i know, i know). he usually doesn't respond, often because he doesn't want to have a dramatic, teary conversation with me if he's already feeling bad. he has told me that my attemps to persuade him make him feel bad, because i'm not respecting him and his decision not to get together with me. i have also, on occasion, had thoughts of doubt about these health issues, wondering if there's a chance that he's using them as an excuse. i think these creeping thoughts are an example of me taking the situation personally, when in fact that is not the intention. he's honest with me, and i know it. it's hard, though, when you have no way of really knowing how someone is physically feeling. i guess that's where trust comes into play, eh?

i know that these feelings of disappointment are rooted in something deeper. one underlying problem is my attachment to this person. there is evidently some unhealthy attachment going on here, because i don't think it's normal to start bawling and moping around when plans are unexpectedly canceled.

another connected issue is that i don't have many friends. i presume this is partly due to having a boyfriend for so long, and not necessarily feeling the need to have lots of friends. i know this is an area i can work on.

so, my question is this. what can i do to alleviate these feelings of disappointment? how can i get out my frustration without taking it out on my boyfriend? should i always have a back-up plan? is it normal to feel sad? how can i get over these feelings and move on with my day?

managing my expectations with no shows

so much modern time — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 03:53:25 -0800

Friendship-filter: How can I manage my expectations better when people cancel at the last minute? I find myself getting really upset and disappointed when my friends cancel at the last minute on me. As one of my friends put it, "I cared enough about you to invite you, but you did not care enough to see me." I'd rather have them let me know beforehand that they can't make it instead of overscheduling. While the excuses range from the usual work excuse to last minute emergencies, I've also literally had friends not show up because something better came up, or they forgot, would rather see their significant other, hungover and sleepy, etc...

At any rate, I'm very sensitive to this now, especially when over the last year this happened over both my birthday and my engagement party, and it's the one thing that pushes all of my buttons. Once, I ended up having to cancel a meal that I was really looking forward to altogether because everyone dropped out half an hour beforehand.

This issue caused a blow-up between me and a very good friend of mine last week. In the end, we managed to resolve our issues, but she thinks that my expectations are too high and that I should try not to be so easily disappointed, or place so much pressure on my friends.

So what can I do so that I won't make a mountain out of a molehill? I don't think I'm being unreasonable in expecting my friends to show up when they say they will, but I also hate feeling so disappointed when it happens.

I spent EIGHT months for you! And for WHAT?!

divabat — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:00:05 -0800

I feel like I'm going through a breakup - only it isn't with a person, it's with an intangible thing. I know intellectually that I'll get better, but it's just been the first few days and I'm hurting so much. How do I heal? Something I've been working on for about 8 months straight has ended for me (not in my favour) and I'm feeling very odd, strange, sick.

I'm going through all the stages of grief, and then some - angry because I spent all that time on essentially nothing, sadness that I didn't get what I hoped for, thankful that I don't have to deal with some people that don't respect me, disappointed that I don't get to deal with the people I quite adored, upset that the disrespectful people were chosen over me, sour grapes that "well if that's how they'll be then I'm glad I'm not going!!", lost because I don't know what to do next, etc etc. All those emotions are piling in the pit of my stomach and they are making me really really nauseous - though I can't throw up.

This isn't the biggest disappointment I've ever had to face. I've faced things of this level before. It takes time and I don't quite notice when I recover, but it happens eventually. There has been a lot that I've learnt through this process, so it's not a complete waste. I know that I'll eventually get better, move on, find something else. I know all that intellectually.

Yet I still can't get rid of all those emotions making me ill. I've got about a few days to go before I head back for Australia, and I'm in the middle of nowhere (parents' house), so there isn't much to distract me. I have a website to make and a few books to read, but I can't even concentrate - I just feel sleepy or ill. My parents are trying to help...but it's not quite working at the moment.

As soon as I arrive in Australia, I have a week-long summit, followed by my last uni semester. It's all work experience stuff so there aren't any regular classes, but even until now I don't quite know how my schedule is like (you have to apply for projects; I'm still waiting to hear which ones I've got. I also arranged them in the expectation that this project would work out and now I have to probably rearrange stuff). I won't be near my comforting boyfriend, or my other usual distractions/stuff that helps, till about the 11th. That's a while away. I'm looking forward to the summit, but I'm worried that I won't be able to concentrate or give my best.

This thing I've been working on was meant to be my next step after uni, and now I have nothing. (Some of my other plans have collapsed too due to factors outside my control.) While I know I still have a few months before I have to think about it, and I don't have to rush into anything, I can't help but feel totally empty and lost. I was counting on this to be freedom, but now I feel just as trapped - doesn't help that my mum's pushing me to get permanent residency when (a) the rules change so quickly (b) the likelihood is rare.

I'm trying to look for other options, but at this point I don't know what I even WANT to do. This massive fall is making me wary of bringing my hopes up. I gave up on a lot of opportunities so that I could focus on this one thing - I felt that if I didn't give it enough attention I wouldn't do so well. Didn't work anyway. So now I don't know what to do.

Is it strange to feel like you're going through a breakup, when you haven't even broken up with ANYONE? I've heard the reasons for what happened and they actually paint me in a good light - but that doesn't make me any less sad. The last time I was disappointed it took me about a month to recover, so maybe I'm just being impatient, but I hate having only my anguish to wallow in. These manic emotions and sickness is driving me mad.

What can I do? What could I do at least for the next few days before I head back to Australia (or even when I'm there, because I'm sure I'm not going to recover THAT quickly even with a summit, work experience, and boyfriend to distract me). How do I get myself past this disappointment and be brave enough to look out & explore other opportunities? Will eating a pint of ice cream help?

(I have gone through a breakup, but it wasn't long and we were back together, and the time in between was mostly spent trying to fix our issues.)

What do I do? How do I cope? This sucks.

Baby Daughter Daddy

jasondigitized — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 08:33:10 -0800

Help me with gender disappointment. My wife and I just had an ultrasound and found out our baby will be a girl. I was hoping for a boy because I never knew / met my father. My dad was a completely absent f*ck-up. I was hoping to somehow fill that void by giving my son what I never had and teaching him the things I had to learn on my own. I know I will be overjoyed when my daughter is born, but right now, I am feeling quite sad. What is a good way to look at this, and what can I look forward to with having a girl

Should I be happy with a partial salary increase?

aftermarketradio — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:41:29 -0800

How should I deal with being given a raise, but not given the agreed upon amount? Last week my boss brought me into his office and gave me a promotion with a higher salary.

This week, my paycheck does not reflect the salary he agreed to give me. It is certainly considerably more than what I was making before, and I appreciate the valuation, but it is a bit shy of the amount my boss said he would give.

As I said, I am very appreciative of his offer, and part of me just wants to forget about it and be happy with what I have. But the other part wonders where the discrepancy came from. Was there an accounting error; did he back off a bit after looking at the budget with more scrutiny; did he misspeak during our meeting? What happened?

How should I confront him about this without sounding too, uh, confrontational? Or, should I just shut up and be happy -- which I am -- and which I would have certainly been if he had initially offered me what my current paycheck indicates.

OK, that's fantastic. Not.

strawberryviagra — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:37:05 -0800

What are the benefits of camouflaging or down-playing disappointment? I find it difficult to conceal my own disappointment at times; I also find it virtuous that others seem capable of such artifice. Does concealing disappointment benefit society in any way or could it be construed as being, somehow, dishonest?

Lost my passport. Keep my boyfriend?

frumious bandersnatch — Fri, 23 May 2008 11:37:51 -0800

Help me reconcile losing my passport and disappointing my new SO. Hey Hive: My first question here. Was supposed to fly out today at 2:45 pm.

Been dating a wonderful guy, who is 11 years my senior (I'm 36) for two months. We hit it off immediately and everything has been absolutely wonderful and we agree we are "right" for each other, whatever that means for two way old never-married people. My friends from home love him, he loves me; I love him. We totally dig everything that's going on.

Before we starting dating he'd signed up for the Edinburgh marathon. He kept asking me to go prior to my making a "commitment" to him, and I hedged. Finally, upon realizing how much I dug him, I acquiesced. We booked flights together and I signed up for the marathon - I'm a marathon veteran myself.

I travel at least once a year, for work or pleasure, ex-US. I always keep my passport in my desk drawer at home. IT IS NOT THERE. When I realized last night there might be a problem, I left him a VM, called Mom, and she and I tore my home apart looking for it. No dice. We searched everywhere for over seven hours...nothing. Car: yes. Office: yes. Every stinking place in home: yes.

He was very sweet about it. He was disappointed that I couldn't share the adventure with him and called his own mom for commiseration. We're sad. It sucks. Yes, I took my birth certificate to the post office and they said two weeks minimum. I called for an appointment in NY and DC and there is nothing until next week.

Unless it suddenly turns up, and at this point I think it is stolen, I'm out for the trip. I took him to the airport and we said a sad goodbye. I want him to enjoy but he is sad and I'm sad.

My question is: How do I stop beating myself up and "know" that in every life, some rain must fall? How do I stop worrying about his eventual resentment of me over this? How can I cope? I'm sad, but I have tons of friends and lots of plans for the week - actually kinda relieved because I can get things done I was putting off. I'm just so worried because the relationship is new and I don't want to be the sucky person. FYI: He sees me as more responsible than him (I am and have a higher powered career, whatever that's worth) and my friends an family are *stunned* that I lost something; it's not like me.

Thanks in advance, O Exalted Hive Mind. I'm hurting here.

Me And Bobby Eat Ghee (freedom's just another word for 'nothing left to eat')

spoobnooble — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:25:33 -0800

Would anyone in their right mind eat vegetable ghee, or any kind of ghee, straight from the can? Good day. A while back I posted a question looking for info regarding a minor point in a novel I'm writing. I thank everyone for their input.

So here's another (weirder) question:

In the second half of the novel the narrator (the punk rocker), now in his twenties, has married a Canadian woman of Indian descent -- her family moved to Toronto when she was three. While she is pretty westernised, her diet includes a lot of Indian staples like rice and curry. She tries to introduce her husband to some of the foods her family eats, and he ends up snacking on a certain traditional food that seems natural to him (a white guy who tends to eat mostly fast foods), but in a manner that ends up mortifying his wife and amusing his Indian in-laws.

I had it in my head several years ago that he would develop a taste for eating vegetable ghee straight from the can. The only basing I have for this idea is a commercial I saw several years ago on one of the local multi-ethnic channels in Toronto which included some shots of happy Indian men and women eating what looked like white chunks of vegetable. Upon further inspection, it seems that ghee is a kind of butter made either from dairy or vegetable products.

Not knowing the taste of ghee, I am hesitant to claim that the narrator would start eating ghee 'out of the can' (or jar, as the case seems to be). Then again, when I was a kid I loved eating peanut butter by the spoonful, and some people have told me in no uncertain terms that eating straight peanut butter was disgusting, at least to them.

So is it possible that a westerner who doesn't know better would eat ghee in this manner? Or is there another Indian foodstuff I can substitute? Either way the wife has to be dismayed and/or horrified by her husband's actions, even if he's not doing himself any real harm in eating the food in a non-normal way.

(P.S. As of this writing I still do not have a publisher for this novel. It is possible that I may end up going to Lulu.com to print out copies once it's done. I'm still hoping to publish this thing properly -- four chapters to go! -- but otherwise don't go overboard thinking that you're helping out the next Norman Mailer or Margaret Atwood or whatever. But thanks in advance nonetheless!)

What "can't miss" movies actually missed?

unceman — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 05:10:23 -0800

What "can't miss" movies actually missed? I need help coming up with a list of movies that have been "Hollywood-ized". A promising film with a great story gets transformed into something worse during the film making process. Such as the ending gets changed, an obvious mis-cast of key characters, poor editing, whatever. I would like to keep the list of movies contemporary (within the last 25 years or so) Explanations for each movie listed is encouraged.

how do i learn to deal with disappointment?

kerfuffled — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 13:14:10 -0800

How can I learn to deal with disappointment in a healthy, adult way? or: Help! My boyfriend's babymama is ruining my life! My boyfriend has a ten-year-old son. The son's mom, CrazyBabyMama, has primary custody, and my boyfriend is supposed to have his son every other weekend, and two week nights a week. However, because CBM is, in fact, crazy, unemployed, money-less, car-less, and house-less (currently living with her parents after she got evicted), my boyfriend picks his son up from her house in the morning, feeds him breakfast, takes him to school, packs his lunch, picks him up from school, helps him with his homework, feeds him dinner, and then takes him back to her house around 8pm... she then lets him watch tv until whenever he feels like going to sleep and smokes in the room with him. So, yes, I'm not really a big fan of her.

The upshot of this all is that I really only get to see my boyfriend for a couple hours at night, a few nights a week, when he stays with me after dropping his son off. It's not really enough time for me, but I try to make it work. I compensate by planning special 'us time' when I know he's not supposed to have his son, but so often, that's when CBM randomly decides to not answer the door when he comes to drop off his son, or just drop him off at his house with warning, or just completely disappear for days at a time or whatever... so the fun things that I've been looking forward to for days or weeks is suddenly cancelled, and I'm left feeling completely disappointed and frustrated and upset.

For instance, CBM was supposed to pick up her son from my bf's house yesterday afternoon, and then he was going to come to my house and we were going to have our own little christmas. I had decorated, made hot chocolate, put on a silly holiday movie, and everything and was very excited... but then he gets to my house, explains that his son is still with him at his Grandma's house, and he can only stay for about a hour.

My normal reaction when this happens is to just completely shut down. "Ok, fine. Forget it. Go home right now. I'll just see you some other day. Thanks for ruining Christmas," and then things tend to get somewhat ugly from there. I hate that I get like that, but in the moment, I really can't help myself. I know it's not his fault, and I know his relationship with his son trumps his relationship with me, but I get really upset with him anyway, and I would like to learn how to handle it better.

When I try just not having any expectations, or not making any exciting plans, I find myself feeling very cold and detached, with nothing much to look forward too. My crazy expectations keep the relationship fun and exciting for me, and giving them up just doesn't work. So how do I learn to deal with disappointments like a normal person? How do I stop unfairly blaming him and turning into an angerball when things don't go my way?

(we are slowly trying to include me in more things he does with his son, but the son sees me as the reason his parents aren't together--not true at all, but I can understand how he feels--so i think it's going to take some time... and that's an askme for another day.)

A sad coming-out story

grrarrgh00 — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:22:38 -0800

I'm dealing with the fallout from coming out to my deeply religious immediate family. For years, I had prepared for their tears, their anger, their remonstrances, their appeals to the Bible, and all of those have come. What I hadn't prepared for was how disappointed I would be, and how fundamental and lonely that disappointment would be. Help? All my life, the person I've considered myself closest to was my older sister. I love her dearly, and I've always held her up on a pedestal as a rational, incredibly decent, and most deeply generous person. A little under a decade ago, when I first realized I was gay, and that it wasn't a phase, I knew my sister would be the family member I'd come out to first, because even though I knew she'd have some trouble with it, I also knew she'd understand and assuage my fears in a way no one else would or could. If I could depend on no one else in life, I could depend on my sister.

I've been living on my own for almost a decade, in a different state than any of my family members. I've been out at work and to friends for 6 years. After years of prelude, I formally came out to my sister at the beginning of this year, as best as I knew how. Our first conversation about it made me grimace and chuckle a little bit -- she said everything the textbooks tell you not to say when someone comes out to you -- "Were you abused as a child?" "And you're sure it's not a phase?" But she assured me she loved me, and was, on some level, OK with it, and understood I couldn't be the person I was if I wasn't the person I am.

In the ensuing months, though, our conversations became a touch more difficult. She started telling me in every phone call that she was praying for me, asking me to open my heart to God, pointing out the standard passages in Leviticus and so forth. I was taken aback, because although my sister has always been religious, she's never been a fundamentalist. But I assured her of my own time spent studying the Bible, reconciling my sexuality with my faith, and walked her through the numerous doctrinal interpretations challenging the fundamentalist position on homosexuality. (I attended Christian schools all my life; I've read the Bible basically cover to cover, and I've done a lot of intense Bible study to help inform my own faith.) I was trying to engage her at her level, although I was astounded that she'd brought it there. Leviticus, really? My sister?

Tonight was the last straw. My year of finally coming out to my family climaxed in what was more-or-less a coming-out conversation with my uber-religious mother. (A wonderful person, who commands much of my love and admiration and respect, but whom I will probably never describe as thoroughly rational.) It was tough, but I've been steeling myself for that for years. My mom is probably still wailing and screaming and asking what she did to deserve this. I don't know how long it will be before we speak again, but again, that I was prepared for.

But the giant blow was the conversation with my sister that followed, which included every distorted Biblical canard a fundie ever threw at a fag. (OK, she left out the Adam-n-Eve-not-Adam-n-Steve quip.) We each remained as civil as we could, but "civility" is a term I'd hate to ever use to describe an interaction with my dear, dear sister.

What I'm left with is my disbelief and disappointment that this was my sister. My decent, rational, generous, cherished sister, clinging to such uncharitable, irrational, bileful dogma in the face of all reason and loyalty and love. Something fundamental has soured in our relationship, even if things get better between us. It feels as though the person whose love and support I have always counted on in life is a different person entirely, and the loneliness and disappointment in that is just wrenching.

Give me some perspective. Point me to an essay, or a speech, or a book, or a song, or something. Lay down your words of wisdom. This was long, but I had to get it off my chest.

What's going on with my brain?

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 07:34:17 -0800

Is this depression, or is it something else? And what should I do to make it better? I don't feel sad or tired all the time. Just utterly, utterly unmotivated. My lack of motivation is messing with my life at home and at work. And I'm drinking, smoking dope and surfing the internet more than I probably should.

Six months ago, I was the happiest I'd ever been (this was me). I wanted more, I went for it, and things don't seem to be working out as well as I'd have liked. I think I'm sliding back toward depression, but I'm not sure if I'm actually there yet.

I'm exercising, I'm eating well, I'm in a good relationship, I'm paying off my debt. I started a new job, and it's got me back in in the city I was yearning for.

But I don't like my boss, and the job isn't what I'd hoped it would be. I'm a very career-focused woman, and I've been angling for this job for six years now. My disappointment with the job is pretty overwhelming, but I'm still dedicated to my career even if I don't like this particular employer. I feel stuck.

I have zero motivation at work. I'm smart and fast, which means I can get the minimum done fairly well in a short amount of time. But I probably spend six hours a day surfing the web and posting to various message boards from work, and two hours scraping by.

I have zero motivation at home, too. I'm leaving newspapers everywhere, dishes everywhere, bills, paperwork. The bathtub is a mess, the toilet is unscrubbed. There's moldy food in the fridge, and when I look at it I just groan and shut the door. I'm having trouble paying bills on time. I can't make myself do anything about it. I keep telling myself I'll take care of things next weekend, but then I never do.

I'm probably averaging 10-12 beers a week. Not as much as during my last depression, but enough that I get a buzz more than half the nights when I come home. I'm smoking pot 4-5 times a week. Again, not as much as I've smoked in the past, but I know it's all about escapism. Mixed with the drinking and my smallish frame it really zonks me out.

And I'm feeling overwhelmed by the stress of my recent move, my new job, my impending wedding, the death of a cat, and the loss of a friend/support network I had before I moved.

At work and at home, I feel like I'm sabotaging my future by slacking off so much.

I'm not sad, really, just weighed down, overwhelmed and unable to move.

I don't know what to do.

Advice?

Please don't tell me therapy. Unless you can recommend a genious miracle worker who takes Blue Cross in the Portland metro area, I don't want to hear it. My experiences with therapists have been universally disappointing.

Getting over specific disappointments

Falconetti — Sun, 10 Apr 2005 19:22:09 -0800

How do you get over specific disappointments in your life? I don't mean general depression, but dealing with the aftermath of a particular failure. I'm in law school and we just had our Moot Court competition. After a lot of preparation and practice, I made it to the final round and was feeling really confident, but I just found out that I didn't make the final cut. Now I feel angry, frustrated, and sluggish. I know in the grand scheme of things that this isn't that big of a deal and that many suffer far worse, but it doesn't change how I feel. Time heals all wounds, but do you have any tips on speeding up the process?

How can we get past her figuring out that I'm not perfect?

SpecialK — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 17:12:03 -0800

RelationshipFilter: In a new relationship where you fell for each other rather quickly, how do you get the other person over the hump when they find out that you're not their perfect, ideal knight in shining armor? I started going out with this girl several weeks ago. We hit it off great -- lots in common, we're weirdly in synch on a lot of things. We have very similar upbringings and our position in life is pretty similar.
However, I realize I'm not the best of all people, and there are some things where I feel very strongly about doing things differently than she does. For instance, I'm self-employed (started a company several months ago, and it's already fairly successful) and I'm focused a lot on how the business is doing and what I need to do next with it. I love my job and the way it gives me a lot of freedom. She has always thought of work as something you do to pay the bills, not something that's fun, and doesn't understand how I can spend pretty much every waking moment thinking about my business. She also regards my talking about building up one of my subsidiaries and spinning it to a larger company as 'money-grubbing'.

On top of that, I never wanted to have children until recently, and it was because I didn't want to give up some of my more dangerous hobbies -- motorcycles, learning to fly small airplanes, rock climbing, etc. -- and the freedom to just TRY new things that I currently have in my life. My parents sacrificed their hobbies for their children, and while I appreciate and respect some aspects of their sacrifice, it hollowed them out in a lot of ways. Repressing all of their hobbies and enjoyment made them more of soulless robot-parents, rather than loving parents. They're much more loving and we care for each other alot more now that they're picking up their hobbies again post-children. I recently spent time with a family that has avoided that, so now I'd much rather integrate the things I love to do into my family's life. I don't know how she feels about that, because we were talking on the phone about it at lunch and she started to sound uncomfortable and changed the subject.

There's been a few discussions that go along these lines ... while there's so many areas where we mesh (and how often do you get to discuss your favorite sci-fi books over a first dinner date?!), as we've gotten to know each other, there are some very major areas where we don't mesh. I don't mind so much, because I expect it. She, on the other hand, goes all quiet on me every time I prove to not be the perfect knight in shining armor of a mate, almost as if she's hurt by me having different opinions. (As happened today.) I haven't dated in almost two years and it could be said that this is my first adult relationship, and I really do like the woman.

Is she just being a woman and needs time/space to think about it, am I a backwards asshole, or should I just forget the whole thing and say we're not compatible?