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  • Heke te ua

"I expect you ..."

​A Key to Staying in Love: Owning our own expectations

​by Silvia Purdie
 
In the years before we get married, we accumulate quite a collection of hopes and expectations of our future partner. While we are dating, and even living together, we tend to be careful not to load too much onto the other person. But starting from Day One of marriage, out come all the expectations. Let's picture them as something tangible; which I hand to my partner when I expect something of him. These might be trivial or huge, they might be what we take for granted from a husband or wife, they might be practical or emotional. I hardly notice that I am handing him an expectation because it feels obvious to me, it feels perfectly reasonable and normal to me. Of course I have the right to expect this of him.
 
I might expect:
- him as the man to take out the compost and dead animals
- that he will stop what he is doing and listen to me when I need to talk
- that he will call his mother on Mother's Day
- that he will get the kids to do the dishes when I go out for a meeting
- him to tell me that I am beautiful occasionally
- him to have a good job and earn good money and get out of bed and be at work on time
- that he'll consult me before spending more money on the landrover
 
When he fulfills my expectations it's like he holds onto it.
But how does it feel to try to hold all these expectations from someone else?
... people sometimes suddenly leave a relationship and drop everything all at once, complaining that they've had enough they can't do it any more
... the more of someone else's expectations you are carrying the less you can see of each other
So what if you drop one, and don't do what I want you to do?
You could either do it openly and tell me you're dropping it ('defiant'), or pretend to take it but drop it when I'm not looking ('passive aggressive'). Then what happens?
I'll be cross, it'll stay lying around and we'll both stub our toes on it. The more unmet expectations there are lying around the less freedom we have to move in our own home and the more charged each argument becomes because all those other ones are at stake ('walking on eggshells').
 
Marriage can become a trading station, I'd do this if you do that, a transaction, ongoing bargaining process of promises and compromises.
 
When we are little it is perfectly reasonable to expect other people to meet all our needs. Two year olds are famous for having tantrums when they don't get what they want. The challenge of staying in love is to grow up. To become an adult, and to relate adult to adult.
Too often we express our emotional needs and practical expectations to each other either as a child, or as a parent. As a child I might pout or whine or rage when I don't get what I want. As a parent, out comes the wagging finger or the threat of punishment, do what I want or else.
Growing up means choosing to be a grown up, which means taking responsibility for how I feel and what I need.
 
So what do we do about all these expectations lying around?
Pick them up, just one at a time, and hold it. Own it, accept it as mine, my problem, not his. Investigate the expectation in your hands. What do I really need here? Who's problem is this?
Where might this expectation come from? (Possibly from what was normal in your family growing up?)
How else could I address this?
 
The goal for healthy relating is to create space between wanting something from your partner and demanding it ... space in which each person can clarify what they need and what they are willing to do or not do, space to negotiate expectations as equal partners. This clears space to appreciate each other as the wonderful person you are married to!
 
Exercise:
 
Think of one thing that your partner does or does not do that annoys you.
 
Name your expectation of him/her
 
If this expectation was met, how would this make you feel?
 
So what emotional need in you does this express?
 
If you fully owned this (if you accepted that you can't change this person and gave up nagging or controlling or bargaining!) how else could you meet this emotional need or address this situation?

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Written by Silvia Purdie 

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