Dear friend,
Too often in our relationships we take other people’s expectations as a kind of declarative order. We work ourselves into the mood of a victim of those expectations, and then we either suffer in silence and do what is expected, or we fight it. We make the other person wrong: how could they possibly expect this of me? Resentment builds, and a relationship that could have been a source of shared power becomes a prison we want to escape.
The real trouble is that we fail to negotiate for our own satisfaction, for what genuinely matters to us, and we fail to listen for what genuinely matters to the other person. Perhaps they never learned those skills either, and so they reach for expectations as their way of trying to take care of themselves and of us. But the problem was never that they have expectations. The problem is that we receive those expectations as an order to be obeyed or resisted. We get caught in that duality, cut corners, and grow resentful.
What you are calling an expectation, see instead as an offer. Not a verdict on your future. You can decline an offer. You can negotiate it. And you can take care of the other person while you do, and let them take care of you. Those moves are available to you.
So let us be done with being a victim of expectations. Suppose your partner expects you to join her at an event with her family next weekend, but you have work to do, and you are afraid that saying no will hurt them, and all the while you feel short-changed, wondering how they could ask this of you when they know how busy you are. There are three moves.
First, take care of them. Tell them, and mean it, that they matter to you, that your relationship is among the most important things in your life. Build the emotional ground first, and make sure they feel how much they matter.
Second, with kindness, decline the offer, or make a counteroffer. Tell them you have considered it carefully and it does not work for you. Offer reasons if you like, but offer them to improve the mood, not to be right. I can’t come next weekend, but what if we had them over during the holidays?
Third, ask them to take care of you. Remind them, and re-minding, putting it in mind again, is part of this game, that you matter to them too. Say what is happening for you, what matters to you, and how you would love their support. If they cannot give you time, attention, or money, ask for their encouragement, and tell them it matters because they matter.
These moves restore dignity on both sides and open a real freedom for the two of you, in life, work, and career. At first, write them down and make them deliberately, by the book. With practice you will not need the book; it will simply become who you are.
With care,Saqib