Eph75

@Hardkill The answer to this is simple. Of course, there can't be anything else, and there never was anything else. Progressive has always won every fight throughout history, always. What is progressive morphs, and adapts itself to become more effective to bring about change that is needed. In that sense the progressives are just running the errands of human development and how that development is destined to unfold itself. It's only when one's time perspective is myopic, and with impatience and lack of understanding how much time evolving society takes, that you fail to see that this is inevitable, and has always been. You can compare it with a stock index chart and how it's always moving upward even when times, from a myopic perspective, look grim and the economy appears to be a slaughter house. The next low is progressively higher than the previous lows. Same with this. At times the movement stagnate, plateaous, to build up pressure to make a stronger leap. At times, it takes multiple low lows to build that strengths and find the version of adaptation, progressive self-correction and self-improvement, that allows progress to ensue. It's the myopic perspective and emotional attachment to change needing to happen sooner than later that brings about doubt in the human system's capability to ever evolve developmentally. And yes, the sad part of this is that you and everyone else are just cogs in a system that doesn't guarantee you living the change you long for. Just as the children and children's children of today's generation will experience the exact same feelings as you do; the desire to realize their desired changes in their current society. And so progressives progresses. It's only the being in this moment, in this time, and trying to find an expression that can influence this systemtic machinery in any way possible that helps accelerate this process, to help building a perceived better tomorrow, for someone, not necessarily for you, but for our children, and our children's children. Find inspiration, motivation and joy in that, to stay optimistic and supporting rather than resisting that progress.

@Gianna Stretch that to include also direct experience, as direct experience is an interpretation happening based on current values and beliefs, and is limited by your current cognitive level of complexity, attaching meaning to what you experience. Also that will at some point be proven to be incomplete, incorrect or down-right wrong. Just look at your past, everything you thought you knew, say far into your past, is known to not be absolutely so. Awakening is a good example, turning everything you thought you knew on its head, beginning to operate from some other paradigm or point of reference. Unknowing is the understanding that there is naught but beliefs, other than the experience of experiencing, "I amness". Even conceptualizing what that is, is just that, conceptualization and belief. Unknowing greatly accelerates our development as it makes us recognize that belief is just a vantage point that "is not us", and more easily allows us to let go of that which we hold on to that is anchoring, and holding us back. Even without going to extremes, this is extremely valuable as it brings openness and curiosity, with healthy sceptisism that is "less" biased/ideological. Perspectives (products of beliefs) are no longer ours to hold on to but means to some desired outcome and can be replaced as soon as we allow ourselves to find beliefs that better serve those outcomes. In that sense beliefs are tools, and should be used as only that, tools.

@Manusia Deal with yourself and focus on your emotional management and anger issues as well as your triggers. They're not angering you, it's you angering yourself. Look at this as an opportunity to grow. It's only when you shift focus from externalizing your anger by engaging with some kind of aggression/aggressive behavior, that you can use your anger as it's suppose to be used - constructively. Use this awareness to work on youself and grow yourself to be better at handling the effects of anger, on yourself, and to grow more constructively influential in the process. Don't blame others or justify your anger issues. Gets you nowhere good. They're yours to own. No one else's. So are your triggers. Blue is only a problem if you make blue expression less worthy than something else. It's not "wrong" in itself, it's just a mismatch between expectations placed on "blue" that doesn't take into account that "blue" isn't "blue" by choice but by developmental factors. And it's only when you expect blue values not to exist and try to invalidate their existence that it becomes wrong. Truth is that they are there for valid reasons, and they will evolve when the time is right. The same goes for any stage that is creating some kind of perceived problem. You yourself fall into this group from some other perspective. E.g. mayhap create conflict that could be avoided, create polarization, ramp up aggression within others, having negative side effect on people and society. Better to start working on yourself today than keep expecting others to meet some, for them, impossible expectations.

@ertopolice Make a last post on each social media platform, just stating your intention to quit social media and let people know that if they want to reach you they can find you out there in the real world. It raises the expectation you place onto yourself not to post nor like or comment others posts. Others will know that you failed your intention if you do interact again. It also allows others to understand why you stopped interacting and prevent or minimize any strange thoughts happening with them, as people tend to think everything is about them, and any bad blood from coming back onto you. That I would consider being a "consciously clean break" with social media without burning any bridges, other than the social media one. Of course as already said, uninstall apps/delete links. Getting accounts erased would be an even stronger gesture, especially if you do find yourself checking back too often, or having relapses. I've done this exact thing myself but I do still have my account and I do check it out once in a while, but it's like with everything else, once you've cut the addiction to keep up with everything, and continuously scrolling/refreshing, it turned uninteresting and meaningless, and an obvious waste of time. LinkedIn is more problematic as the networking aspect of that platform has a purpose that can pay off in work life and success, and that's good, but a lot of the content these days seem to be Facebook like material.

It's just something that changes with time. It gets a bit meta on itself, to not be impatient and reducing the experience of impatience. Direction is important, so that you can make a strong connection between the steps you do take, and that direction. If you lack direction then movement isn't perceived going anywhere. It brings a sense of "darting around" , getting nowhere, generating no small "wins", represented by steps towards "something". Again, the direction doesn't have to be perfect. If it is, you're likely over-thinking, which is a kind of procrastination in itself. Focus on creating a sensation of making "some" progress. Not "much" progress, "some" progress is enough for now. You can achieve that every day, do something tangible that represents a clear step, or sub-step of a larger step. Anything can be broken down into reasonable chunks. The beautiful thing with movement is that it gives birth to more movement. It's hardest to get started, and create a strong enough intention to move. Once you get moving, say today/now, you're more likely to take more steps, or a larger step than intended. Manage you expectations, don't create intentions to create too large, unrealistic, unmanageable and demotivating steps. We need wins, and small wins are still wins. It's the procrastination that is the main problem. Start by creating strong intention to manage your procrastination, minimizing or eliminating procrastination. Once you have a solid habit of creating intention and to move, small, but consistently, you can increasing intention, and aiming for larger or harder steps gets easier, without increasing the resistance we feel, that triggers stronger procrastination. A big part of this is to manage the self-talk and the choice of words we use. We need to use words that create intent. Typically we choose words like could, should, must, etc. We essentially do this to avoid creating commitment towards taking action. Yeah, we're essentially sneaky devils even towards ourselves, leaving things we could do as optional, instead of using language that create clear intention around what we will do. Replacing those could's, should's, and must's, with will's changes how our brains look at the task at hand. Ideally we want to reach a point where we have intrinsic motivation, enough to have the disposition towards "needing to", change into "wanting to". The things that we want, we can't stay away from. A part of procrastination, that self-fulfilling prophecy, are the stories that we tell, about what we want to get away from, which actually means we're keeping focus on what we don't want, meaning we're not focused on what we do what, and where we do want to go, and to put efforts into generating change. It's a very energy costly process that gets us nowhere. The best motivation is looking for natural rewards, such rewards we get while being on the journey, to work with the steps, where every step feels is a win, where what we do matter more than where we're going. Where we don't feel impatient about not having reached some destination, and instead grateful for every little piece of the journey, life, that we've made, looking forward to the next one. Essentially building ourselves up to be unstoppable intrinsic motivation generators. Someone who has found their true life purpose, has found their unstoppable intrinsic motivation, not an ultimate destination. Start working on that building up of intrinsic motivation, and intention creation, focus on your next step and what you will do, and by doing what gives you natural rewards in that doing. Expanding our awareness around motivational frameworks and habit building can in itself be motivating, as it essentially educates us around behavior change strategies that we need to have to reinforce behavior changes in ourselves. Pure will-power, without strategies, won't work well over time. It can work as a burst, but without tools that help us, especially when we hit rough patches, which will happen, it's far too easy to quit or get demotivated if we haven't got some strategies that reinforces our intention and will. Coaching models can also help, such as the GROW model. Even if you're not going to be coached by someone else, we benefit from becoming our own self-coaches, and regularly self-coach. E.g. by using the steps in the GROW model we can greatly help ourselves to find clarity, to build motivation, to find or refine our direction, to identify what options there are that could be a next step, and to create commitment and intention around the options are most relevant right now, that we will act on - and by when we will do so. You, just by writing this, have a drive in you, that wants to get moving. You just need a nudge to get going, and to be kind to yourself, no matter what happens on that journey. What will you do, what is a step, that you will take today? You got this ❤️??

@Octagram Eye I admit that I didn't read through all of it, but enough to get a feeling that you identify strongly with this story, with the risk of that identification being a self-fulfilling prophecy, keeping you stuck rather than free. I hope I'm not off, and if I am, take it for what it is, or not at all It sounds like you need to challenge yourself to become independent of the story and the characters in this story, and create a life for yourself that isn't dependent on those others in your story. You seem to be aligned with what you want to do, and have a sense of calling in your ability of creativity, storytelling and drawing. Is that a path that you intend to pursue to create the foundation of creating that independence? "Escaping wage slavery" might be the vision, setting the direction, but it's the steps in the set direction that matters. Getting blinded by everything needing to be perfect is debilitating. It's the steps on the path to somewhere that matters, it doesn't have to be perfect, and it never is, but it's movement, fueled by dreams and aspirations. To be able to find natural reward in the journey of going somewhere, rather than the unmet desire of not having gotten there is the way to go. What's a first step that you can take today that represents movement? Maybe a small step, but it's a step that matters. From there it's just about finding the drive to take another step, and another, and... Sense of movement in a desired direction is hugely rewarding, focusing on being a better version of yesterday's self. It's a utopia to figure our your life purpose without having made movement. Life purpose shows up on the journey, or changes on the way. It's a part of the process. Not getting demotivated by not knowing is a mistake. So what if you start of in a direction and than realize that you need a shift? It's never a waste, experience is gained, and most of all, clarity, and the ability to go on moving in a "more true" direction. Internet makes it seem as we should know everything right off the bat, and that we should have what we want now. But that's an illusion. It's the grit that we put into effort that makes us move that gets us somewhere. What that somewhere is, can and will change, as we move, and gain new perspective. Focus on making the journey enjoyable. That's more a mindset than something absolute to hold on to. And have faith, that whatever positive movement you find, today, if the right step, for now.

@Danioover9000 Shifting from looking for happiness in say orange value base, through success, money, status, job titles, your material possessions and so on, and towards looking for happiness by making a difference for people, nature, climate, the world, and so on, is a deeper and "truer" gratification. That doesn't mean that later stage people are immune to mental pathology. Managing your inner processes to be more resilient and less needing of pursuing happiness, finding happiness in being, is more a spiritual journey than related to cognitive and perspectives development as SD stages imply. It doesn't mean that people in each stage wouldn't claim to be happy, by their standards, just that your sense of what happiness is keeps changing as you develop. Looking at happiness indeces and mental illness indices for Scandinavian countries, they show up high for both. Less survival, less "real" problems, and we make up problems in our minds.

@Hardkill Maybe you're looking at this from an unfavorable perspective, which brings about a frustration of change not happening fast enough, rather than bringing acceptance that change cannot happen as fast as one might like. Change is inevitable. It always was. It always will be. But change doesn't happen fast, and not in pretty little sets of undisputable improvements. It's slow, messy, iterative, occasionally regressive, but always moves forward from a larger perspective. It's not about someone passing something that is green that will make a country this or that - which could be done by force, but would never be sustainable. It's not about something controlling the whole, the whole needs to maintain that control on its own. Something green may very well be passed, but that doesn't mean that the people have developed into green. It would rather result in polarization, conflict and excessive resistance that either delays progression, or increases the pressure in the system until parts of it collapses, pushing more people towards changing how they think, while others up their resistance and keep on fighting change. So, differentiate between content - what is, and structure - how that system functions and the parts of that system functions. To be green, and not just to act green because some people in power make "greener" choices, it require a large enough portion of the population to develop into stage green perspectives, values and beliefs, so that green values emerges as the expression of the larger system/whole. It's not about controlling, its about the whole allowing for green to emerge as the unified expression of the values and beliefs that is the sum of the individuals within that ecosystem. The problem with the US, for example is that there is a vast spread of stages. It's a set of more or less separate ecosystems that come together as "The United States", but is less unified or conformed than the appearance of there being "one country" implies. Different parts of the country are very different, greener on the west coast and bluer in say the bible belt, and even red in that mix. It doesn't matter so much, as people are what they are and it shifts focus onto the system itself. The vastness of that spread creates larger challenges than, let say, the country was divided into 5 part. Part 1, assuming being the most progressive lot, would no longer be held back by the 4 other parts, and would also not feel entitled to push part 1 values and beliefs onto the least progressive parts, in order to progress their own sub-ecosystem. Looking at the most progressive part of US and using that as the metric for where the US "should be" is flawed, or "dreamy". Dreamy in the sense that it creates and illusion of the country being close to breaking free and into that stage, but reality is different. But looking at the whole, and you could use Trump election results as one metric, implies something else. The US has a long way to go before "green" can come true. If you'll live to see it, remains to be seen. Solid green? Dreamy. Developmemt isn't clean, it's messy, and doesn't move from one clear state to another, but from one messy state to another messy state. And in that progress, the mess we're in, right now, will be relatively less "dysfunctional" than a messes of the past. The presidential situation in the US is an example of this. It's a mess. The polarities are growing, one part wanting to move forward, wanting change that they desire, and one holding back, resisting being changed. The gap grows, and expressions like "Trump" emerges. Interestingly "Trump" is an expression of the time, of the change resistence of the system. He's not a separate phenomena that isn't related to the system. He's a product and expression of the system itself. It's just so easy to make him out to be the devil, for representing the resistence to change. Maybe in the past, the great presidents were truly different, or just appears different because of a more unified or less widely polarized society, or fewer and stronger polarities, great causes to surge around, or them being products of time and space, where the system was ready and set up for a larger, noticeable shift. Making it so easy to make them out to be the heros, representing the drive for change. Sorry that was long way to say that it comes down to being impatient, and my early morning rants tend to be longer than otherwise When the time is right, new, and great leaders will emerge, making the shift happen, and by being there, at that tipping point, also appearing greater because of the system's readiness to shift. Anyways.. All you can do, is to tend to you own development and try get ahead. Then use that to influence anyone within your sphere of influence, and to expand that sphere of influence, to be the catalyzer that best helps others to develop themselves. So that they can change themselves, not you trying to change them. Their change, and what to change into, it theirs to own. Development, or increasing the cognitive complexity that produces our values and beliefs is what's important, and increasingly healitier values and beliefs will emerge as the product of that development. Do that, and it will spread. It's gritty, messy, takes effort, and you're not likely to be depicted on a future statue somewhere, but these kind of people, that relentlessly work the system from the inside, are the true heros that allowed president like the ones you name to be remembered as great people. We all stand on the shoulders of giants. Edit: Just realized this wasn't the OP and went OT Oh the morning haze

@Preety_India Okay, I'm sorry, didn't mean to distract, was more-so just pointing towards there being a choice to fully shift focus from any external phenomena towards the internal world, which is the only factor that you can control, and the rest follows.

@Preety_India If you were to shift focus from the external and from others and onto, into yourself, and focus on your own self-development that can help you to better cope with the expressions BPD has for you, the chain of cause and effect would gradually change the world around you, in a positive direction. As long as you revert to engaging with external triggers, things will burn. What do you think you could do to build coping skills that might help you to handle yourself in a better, more constructive way, and to better understand when the shifts in emotional state happens? Have you tried anything so far? And if so, what change has that made for you?

It can be helpful to find a root cause, but it's as often is with trying to find the reasons why things are, that we look externally to find a justification or blame as to why we are the way we are. There's something here right now that is maintaining that low self-esteem, and it's ultimately not going to be out there, in the external world, it's going to be found within yourself, and that's where the change needs to happen. Changing ourselves is easier when we have a fuller back-story, but at the same time, we're much more likely to justify why we are the way we are, and to assign blame to those external factors. Focusing on what it is we are doing right now that maintains low self-esteem, and changing that behavior so that we promote self-worth is most important. And as we do that, the way we think and the way we see ourselves will change, and with that our view of and the meaning we attach to the past also changes. A god place to start is to become aware of what the self-talk that we're subject ourselves to looks like, and then manage self-talk, by having less of it, breaking negative self-talk and bending ourselves toward positive self-talk. It takes time and consistency. It's not easy. But it does work. If it took you a good portion of your life to get here, to dig your own hole, we have to accept that it will take time to climb our of it. We are in full control of this inner world of ours. Once we stop looking for external reasons, letting go of what was/is, and make it an internal journey of growth, that time can be dramatically reduced. So what is it that is holding on to "what was/is"? Where are you holding yourself back? What are you not doing that you want to do, that you are insecure about? When do you get anxious? Challange that, consistently, repeatedly and you will get more confidence in yourself, and build self-efficacy, a belief that you can succeed if you try. With that confidence that you can pursue whatever you want, and with reaffirming self-talk, self-esteem and self-worth will rebuild.

@Bob Seeker What causes you to "bum out"? There's always an event of sorts. The rest is just coping mechanisms, noise. Resilience is needed. To build great resilience we need an understanding of what lies beneath. It's hard to stand fast in a storm, being torn and tossed about. And it takes great effort. At some point we get exhausted, and break. When in good flow, we are resilient and won't allow ourselves to be "bummed out" by what lies underneath the surface. But bad flow will come, it's a matter of when, not if, and then we need positive coping strategies to "bounce back" from being dragged down by whatever bagage has made itself known. We're only as resilient as circumstance allow us to be. If we carry old bagage in our backpack, it will make itself known at those times. It's better to empty the bagage bit by bit until there's nothing left. At that point, what used to be known as storms are nought but us waving in the wind, with a cool breeze brushing through our hair.

By no means does being authentic mean easy. It takes courage. Courage to be ourselves and not be what is expected of us, or what we think we should be to fit in and be accepted by others. I'm not sure I fully follow but choose to interpret is into this direction: Yes, you do make up or imagine the world based on your thoughts, which is in par with your values and beliefs. These are the product of how you think. Change how you think, which happens all the time to some degree, and you shift your values and beliefs. With that also shifts what is authentic. Authentic means that we need to challenge ourselves. Into that which takes effort and where we feel resistence but know it's right. We need to invest. It's a transition into. In that transitioning we need to challenge ourselves to resist the urges that keep us away from being who we need to be. Minimum effort ≠ Authentic With great ego, comes great struggle. Deconstruct ego and what will be left is a reconstructed ego. We cannot be here and function without an ego. And that ego flows well with what is and authentic comes with the being with that flow.

Let's not conflate "truth realization" and "being authentic", it just confuses the situation. Everyone has a need to be authentic. Truth realization isn't for everyone. Unfortunately you can be an authentic asshole. The benefit is that others can see and know that you are authentically an asshole, and they can deal with you appropriately. That's the "good thing" with Trump, he, at least appears not to be hiding who he is. Too impulsive to hide it. But who knows if he sleeps well at night. By contrast, a psychopath is likely authentic. If you don't have a continence for doing bad, you can't be fixed, since you're not, per that definition, broken.

@Manusia Investigate, through your self-awareness who you "need to be", what your values and beliefs are, and then observe your actual attitude and behaviors. Do they match up and they feel intuitively and morally right? If not, there's likely a sensation within you that is telling you that you should regulate your attitude and behaviors. Regulate and become authentic and you will feel it. What's something that you know you shouldn't be doing that you have a hard time to shake? Sort that out and experience the positive sensation that follows. Repeat, over and over again and you get closer to authentic. Authentic is relative, there's no right or wrong that fits everyone, but we're generally pulling in the same "direction", as human nature wants us to grow. Watch out for fooling yourself that "wrong" is "right", ego is a sneaky bastard.

@Vynce??

And it's not your mind that you have "desensitised" rather than it being a physical thing?

A question that comes up for me is "why?". Why do you want to measure this, what's the desired outcome that you want to reach by being able to assess the stage of someone else. Sentence completion tests is just a way to assess the complexity in someone's sense-making that is behind what shows up in the sentences themselves. You can sense the complexity in someone's reasoning by having a conversation where you take more of a coaching stance, ask open-ended questions, listen actively to not just the words but the holistic expression of the person. Coaching is in essence a way to help people structure themselves in such ways that they might learn how to get themselves unstuck from, and creating shifts in their current ways of seeing things. The complexity in their answers mirrors the ability to see multiple perspectives, hold contradictory information, and so on. This will be expressed through ever changing values and believes, into something increasingly complex. Which shows up in for example the sentences test. In that sense, a coaching conversation aim to be a developmental conversation, helping to grow someone developmentally. It doesn't have an agenda of itself, and what kind of development might be the result depends on the person and agenda. Think developmental lines from integral theory, or development being different fields, in which cognitive and ego development helps us create and develop how we see our version of the world. Assessing others is meaningless unless the purpose is to help them to grow, or to help yourself to grow by adding complexity to how you perceive them, without demanding them to change (futile) - which doesn't need an assessment but it helps with structuring your own thoughts, as long as you recognize that you are always more or less incorrect and that placing hard labels will lock perspectives down - which is the opposite of what we'd want. The need to assess someone, and the underlying reasons why, in itself says something about how your own sense-making is formed, and now it gets interesting, when turning the mirror onto ourselves. Or possibly when trying to solve a problem in which people are part of the equation, and the complexity that people brings into it, to see it from a more systemic perspective and how the parts interact to create something that is perceived as "problematic" (which would be defined by the level of complexity of your sense-making). When looked at from a point of higher complexity these levels or stages are easier to see, where people show up, and some people are quite "stereotypical", but many people are hard to assess, and you might very well misunderstand the underlying complexity by forcing it into your "frame" of thinking. It's easier when "interviewing" and observe a sequence of questions that "disects" the previous answers to see what is just words and expression and what the underlying, dynamic, sense-making looks like. Notice how something with a higher complexity can be perceived as "nonsense". The ego is great at making you think that you understand it, by effectively forcing something more complex into a less complex "box".

@Realms of Wonder Why? Simple, to avoid deconstruction of the ego. It's a defence mechanism to maintain ego - and to grow it stronger. Just imagine starting to find explanations why what we see as being desired outcomes not being reached, being within ourselves? We'd require ourselves to adjusting our attitudes, values and beliefs? Who knows where that ends. There'd be nothing left of "me" if starting out on that slippery slope. As already mentioned, 100% responsibility is the road. You could start with reading The Responsibility Process by Christopher Avery. This is closely connected to realizing that the world is a product of how we see it, and not something objectively defined of its own. And assuming responsibility dramatically, and quickly, changes the world as we see it, and the world as we experience it. That's the hard way forward. The easy way is stagnation, maintaining current world views. Blaming and justifying effectively pushes anything that we don't like away from us, onto others, so that we don't need to assume any responsibility to influence by changing ourselves. That's essentially it, we can't change others, we can only change ourselves. And by changing ourselves, others MIGHT change themselves as a by-product, but there are no guarantees. This is a great stepping-stone towards developing complexity of one's sense-making, and to expand into multi-perspectival thinking.

@Husseinisdoingfine Surrender the idea of knowing and of preconceived ideas being anything else than just thoughts. They're not you, and you are not them. They just are. With the disidentification with your thoughts, triggers disappear, as there won't be anything to be sensitive of. Contemplate this, often, as a proactive measure. Return to this when your triggers tingle, as a reactive measure. Piece by piece "you", as you know it, will fade away. What remains is the mere awareness, the act of observation, and thoughts rising and fading away.

This is culturally different. To me and from where I come this feels very obsolete. It's something that my 70 year old parents would say just because that's the way it should and need to be. They don't "understand" the options, they're just not right. Men used to be the economical dominance and paying for everything while women weighting in with other factors to maintain a dynamic in the relationship. With increasing gender-equality women want more equal rights, not only in society but also in relationships. This gets counteracted by the holding on to the man only being a man if he pays. Not anything needs to be this or that way. The who-does-what is an ultimately an agreement, between two people, where the cultural expectation needs to give way just like the expectation for women to be the ones that by default should cook, clean and take care of children. From expectation to choice. And of course this takes who has the majority of the income into account, but leave gender outside of the equation. This doesn't make you "room mates", does the definition of "more than room mates" equate to "man pays"? It also doesn't mean that the man can't be the one that pays. It just doesn't make that assumption. Men often wants to pay and take care of/spoil his partner. What happens in a non-traditional relationship between another combination than man-woman partnership? Are expectations different then, or does one assume the masculine role and is expected to pay as well? Very likely, but doesn't that more-so put the need for agreements more into light. It shouldnt be one way or the other. Communication is the key. It's a patriarcal phenomenon that is beneficial for women. Removing other patriarcal phenomena to achieve equality but maintaining that which benefits the woman doesn't support gender-equality. It's not surprising though. Essentially paying for the woman would be paying for her devotion/gratitude. The woman feels taken care of, and the man feels important, the care-taker. It matters where in the world we are, and how progressive our specific country is. There's not one answer. The more ridig the answer the more likely holding dogma. The US is still very traditional from many aspects. Everything in a relationship boils down to the ability to communicate in a creative and constructive way. As does this. Without communication there are unsurfaced assumptions and expectations. Expectations are resentments in the making. We can only control ourselves. All else, if need stay healthy, needs to be based on acceptance within others. If not, it's us pushing ego onto other. That doesn't mean we need to accept the opposite. We're free to choose. === Focusing on being one's own financial pillar and manage own spends is a form of freedom, a freedom that can be transcended. Dependancy is not. Dependancy holds us back, unless we surrender into it, from where it can be trancended too. You can only make this your own choice. It cannot be chosen for others.

@AliceK The reasons and expectations behind these kind of things are always complex. It's your responsibility to talk to him. Not accusing him of being cheap, treating you wrong or even to change his perspective. It's about communicating your perspective, and what you feel. Whatever he does with that is his choice. To work up the ability to communicate well with one's partner is fundamental, and essential when it comes to the very things that are difficult to talk about. Assumptions and delaying or avoiding saying how you feel only births resentment. It's also about you understanding his perspective, finding out what is it that makes hum "frugal". Maybe he has specific reasons. It's interesting how far constructive communication can go. It's also interesting how few couples that really can talk to each other. About him choosing a fancy restaurant and you paying sounds like it's more about you needing to set boundaries, which again points toward the kind of communication you want in your relationship. If he likes fancy, it's reasonable that he chooses fancy and pays for fancy. And when you pay, it's reasonable that it's based on choices that you are comfortable with. If not, again, resentment ensues.

@cjoseph90 If you don't want to "be a drinker" and can't resist the urge, then the guilt might be telling you that you need to be authentic and you should work on your authenticity. Is your image of your ideal self coming from you, or is it the adoptation of someone else's, or a cultural idea of what an ideal self should be like? It needs to be your self-made ideal so that it's you being authentic to who you want/need to be. If the guilt is wholly irrational, and the drinking is benign, then you need to work allowing yourself to enjoy the drinks without feeling guilt. If the drinking isn't benign and it's posing some risk or threat, maybe past experiences with alcohol is telling you someting, and that needs to be explored. You need to listen to and feel into that guilt to figure out what it's really telling you. What do you think yourself, about what it might be telling you?