Life Is Full Of Expectations

This past week I have learnt a very valuable lesson about expectations. Almost 20 years ago I married a guy whom I had dated off and on for the previous 5 years. Within the first year of marriage we had our first child, our second 4 years later and 2 years after taht our marriage was over. For the next 9 years we could hardly speak to each other and then after some long discussions we rekindled our relationship, and 2 years ago we were married again.

Many people think this is a fairytale story and are so happy to see that love prevails all...unfortunately I have to say that our relationship is far from a fairytale, and you are probably asking why, well there are a couple of things that happen in every relationship that no matter how hard you work on seem to peek up their ugly head...that is expectations, fear and of course the emotional baggage. In this post I just want to talk about the expectations.

"Expectations have a lot to do with commitment. If your expectations include the fantasy of a perfect person or a perfect relationship, your commitment may wane when reality sets in. If you expect others to change in order to live up to your expectations, you may feel justified in giving up on your commitment when that doesn't happen." Jane Nelsen

Every one enters a relationship with expectations, whether it be a friendship or a romantic relationship we all want certain things from that relationship. But where do we come up with the expectations we have, from our original family, aka our parents; from our friends and now a days I am sure TV and movies have a huge role in expectations. I think every one enters a relationship hoping for the perfect spouse, the perfect fairytale marriage and of course many of us are dissapointed. Thus is the case with my first marriage...we were 20 years old and had no idea what to expect out of marriage. When you date someone for awhile you get to know them but nothing prepares you for living with them day in and day out. So no matter how much you love that person you have no idea what you are in for when you start living together...and of course every one expects the person they live with to be like them. If you are a clean freak you expect your spouse to be the same, and it isn't really that you expect your spouse to be a slob if you are but you don't expect them to get upset for having to clean up after you. I find that our mother's have the greatest role in forming our expectations, for girls if your mother was the type to wait hand and foot and keep a spotless home then you will either expect to be waited on or you will be just like her waiting on others. The same goes for the boys as if they were waited on they may expect that from their wives.

I learnt from my first marriage that expectations have a huge role in your relationship, if you and your spouse find that once you start to live together that you don't meet up to each others expectations things start to get difficult. For my first marriage my husband expected a stay at home wife that cooked and cleaned and looked after the children, and this was all foreign to me. His mother and step-mother had been 'clean freaks' and whether they worked or not the house was spotless and the kids were cared for and the father was just there to bring home the money and play with the kids, therefore this is what he expected. For me my mother was similar...wasn't so much a clean freak...but she kept the house tidy, looked after the kids and so on...therefore never teaching me how to do these things just doing them for me, so when I got married I had no idea how to cook, clean and look after children. So right off the bat we had issues with expectations becuase it is difficult to meet up to someone's expectations when you don't have the knowledge required. But the worst part of this difficulty is that these expectations were never voiced. He never told me this is what he expected of me he just got upset because his dream of the perfect marriage was ruined. Now don't get me wrong I had expectations of him as well, but this isn't about pointing fingers...I just wanted to show this part of the expectations as it is very common.

As years go on you start to build up resentments towards the people who don't fulfill your expectations of them, this isn't just in marriage. We get angry when our boss doesn't behave the way we think he should, or shows favourtism in the office, or we don't get the promotion we feel we deserve...all because we went into our job with expectations that weren't filled. We expect things out of our parents, both when we are living with them and after, and when they don't visit their grandchildren as often as you think they should, or they spend more time with your sibling than with you resentment roles in because once again you had expectations that are not being filled. The one that hurts the most I think is with children, so many of us have expectations for our children, we want them to behave a certain way, we want them to achieve certain things and when they don't meet up to the standards we have set for them we are disappointed...and this isn't fair to these children.

I struggle with expectations every day...as a daughter, mother, wife and friend I know that people expect things from me. Most days I feel I fall short of these expectations, I know that I can't be everything for everyone and I know that at times that is what is expected of me. I also know that I have expectations for the people in my life, some of them I am aware of and some of them are burried deep inside and I don't really know they are there until I start to feel disappointed in that person. As a woman who has been married and divorced, has children from two different relationships, married to a man who has children from a different relationship I have emotional baggage and fears for my life that also affect the expectations I have out of people. The more people you throw into the pot the harder it becomes to meet the expectations of them all as welll as the amount of expectations out of you increases. I have found though as I have gotten older, and I am not sure if it because of my age or the fact that so many people have let me down that I have started letting go of some of my expectations. I don't expect as much from some people, I can't be hurt by them if I expect nothing of them and as I am sure this isn't the right answer either it helps to lesson the pain.

So for the bottom line with expectations is this quote from Positive Discipline for the Blended Family by Jane Nelsen "There is nothing wrong with having fears and expectations; we get ourselves in trouble when we are unaware of them, or choose not to talk about them."