Your Expectations Have The Power To Ruin Your Relationship

There is saying that goes 'no expectation, no disappointment' but why do expectations hold so much power.

Our expectations for our romantic partner have never been higher. We want our partner to be our travel buddy, our therapist, our best friend, our family and the person we are most sexually compatible with. It’s a lot of requirements for one person and it is my belief that one person cannot be your everything. As our communities get smaller and more distanced, we lose touch with our neighbours and work takes time away from our friendships, we have become so reliant on our romantic partners to meet all our needs and be there at all times when in need of support. This increased expectation though quickly amounts to pressure if you aren’t conscious of how much you are asking.

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If you have never thought about how much you expect from the people around you, I implore you to take a moment to pause and reassess whether your expectation is realistic.

Ask instead of assuming.

We have all been raised differently and therefore we have all had different examples of long-term relationships. It can be easy to assume that the adult relationships that surrounded you in childhood are the same as your partners and that's not always the case. For example, in your home, you might have always eaten around the dinner table, phones weren't allowed and TVs weren't allowed and so, therefore, conversation together at the end of the day is important to you but in their home, they would go to their separate rooms so your partner is used to space. Talking about things like routines like this start to air out the assumptions and you can design your own route as a couple which possibly combines both your upbringings

Milestones and occasions can become invisible tests.

The problem with testing your partner is that they might fail without even knowing that they are being tested. For example, if you like a big deal made over your birthday, then say that. Sometimes you can even get really specific. Words are really important to me and I'm an author so they come easier to me than some. My boyfriend finds that harder so after our first Christmas passed without a card. For Valentine's Day, I communicated that I would really like a card and I didn't just want a card with two words in it but with proper sentiments and ideally, you would write on both pages - yes, I was that specific. I might sound needy or demanding but at the end of the day, if he didn't want to do it, it wouldn't have. By asking for what I wanted, he had a roadmap on how to make me happy and it was more useful to him to know

Different people show love in different ways.

There are many conversations about Love Languages but in my opinion, they are quite narrow and reductionist because people showing love in different ways isn't actually limited to 'loving moments'. A person can show they care in an argument by leaving you alone and the other person can interpret that as abandonment when their intention was to give you space to process. Every human works differently and so more communication is always better!

Sometimes your expectations will be unrealistic

Especially in a culture where we are always talking about how low the bar is and the 'bare minimum', we become in danger of expecting too much and not allowing enough room for humans to be human. People will mess up and not meet your expectations at times but you are only able to realise your expectations are too high if you converse about it. It gives the other person the opportunity to tell you that they can't meet every need and to readjust to a level that is realistic. We need to be able to add more nuance to this conversation and understand someone who does not meet your needs is not a bad person but instead might simply be an incompatible one. Sometimes it can be resolved through conversation and sometimes the conversation leads to the realisation that you are mismatched

If your expectations are continually not being met…

Be very clear with yourself about what is a 'need' and what is a 'want'. It is also important to look at what is a 'deal breaker' and what can you live with. The latter is less discussed, especially online, but choosing a partner long-term means there will be things about your partner that you don't like or that annoy you and that's because no human is perfectly designed for you or identically compatible. I would then ask yourself where your expectations are coming from because a lot of times when we over-romanticise especially in long-term relationships, we set expectations that are achievable in the short-term but in the long term, place a lot of pressure. For example, the expectation for a relationship to be continually exciting and interesting - the reality is life is filled with boring moments and if you are not able to be satisfied in the mundane then that leads to a relationship that is less sustainable as you will always be chasing the high.

Have you ever noticed that you expected too much?

Lots of love,

M xx

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