[QUOTE=cielpur;5810221]Can you explain why you think I expect too much from people?

And, why aren't you including me in the "please remember that everyone is fighting a battle that you know nothing about" platitude.
Because it seems like you are intentionally excluding me from that platitude, to drive home your belief that my limits with people are unrealistic, maybe because my limits with people are different from the limits you set with people. That doesn't make my limits wrong or unrealistic. That makes them different from yours.

If you -- or someone else, chooses not to communicate what battles you're fighting, that is not my responsibility to guess. That is the other person's responsibility. We have to set limits with each other, we have to hold each other accountable. Otherwise, we can't evolve ourselves. If the other person won't change, that's their choice. I can't force anyone to evolve or change. And that's not my job to. Stop implying that it is my job. Because that's what you're doing.

You know, I'm also fighting a battle, so why should other people's limits matter more than my own? Is that what you're trying to tell me to do? Because that's what your platitude is communicating here. What it seems like you're telling me, is that other people's needs matter more than mine do, and that is certainly not true. Do you lower your expectations to put others' needs ahead of your own? Or, do you set limits with people so they know what you will and won't tolerate from them.

For example, in college, I'd go to house parties and sometimes the drunk guys there would hit on me. If I lowered my expectations (which is what your advising me to do in your previous post here) and put those drunk guys' needs ahead of my own, they'd get laid and I'd get raped. But according to you, that's ok, because my setting limits with people is wrong. Or this guy I dated 20 years ago. I was 100% transparent with him in person and in my letters. That's setting limits. He knew who I was, what I expected. Yet, he didn't want to meet my expectations then, or now, before he deleted me from his Facebook. He wanted to control me, to shame me, to belittle me for having a solid sense of self, for holding him accountable for being a total **** to me (he tried to deflect, but he failed, because I see his true colors finally and those colors are judgmental, emotionally abusive colors).

You seem to imply that I shouldn't even set limits (boundaries) with people. Is that a wrong assumption? I hate making assumptions but in this case, I am. I believe we have to hold each other accountable. That is necessary. And, if people hold me accountable for my actions and my words, I have the right to hold them accountable for the same. How does that make my expectations with people unrealistic? That's a legitimate question, not rhetorical.

I don't want to control or change other people, and I am not going to let anyone control or try to change me. I did that route in high school and college when my self esteem was low, and it still didn't earn me people's respect. So, no more. I know what my limits, expectations, and boundaries are. Now, I just have to find people to befriend and date, who respect those limits, expectations, and boundaries.

These articles support my belief in why its necessary to set limits with
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