On the way to give a talk, I stopped by a store. I put my items on the counter and wait. The clerk scans and bags them. Now, I can pick up the bag and walk out. Right? Of course not. I have to pay. There is an expectation to how business works. I get a coke. I pay before I leave with it.
Expectations exist in all interactions. In the environment, we expect the sun to rise and set. In our biology, we get hungry, we eat, and we are full. But what about relationships?
Relationships involve two people who grew up differently, have different ideas about how relationships work, and live according to what they expect from relationships.
No one likes non-specifics. Non-specifics are stressful. The sun going up and going down, the abated hunger after we eat, and people to treat us a certain way that is what we expect, that is what we believe should happen. For the person who believes them, expectations are specific, even when the expectations don't match reality.
Let’s look at an example.
I am a parent. I have a child, Amy, whom I love very much. During adolescence, Amy begins abusing alcohol. No matter how hard I try, what I offer, the alcohol use continues. It feels like I’ve lost predictability in my life. I feel helpless. The harder I force my expectations on Amy, the worse the emotional beating I take.
Amy made a choice against my expectations, to do drugs. It is not my choice, but I hold onto the expectation that things will go back to the way they were. I pay no attention to the reality of the situation, who made the choice, and who owns the responsibility for it. I throw all my resources at the problem and nothing changes. Amy makes the choice but I shoulder the responsibility to fix it.
Amy is arrested and goes to jail. I pay no attention. I go and bail her out thinking, expecting, that the punishment of jail frightens Amy into quitting alcohol. Within weeks, she is drunk again. Riding away in my car to pick up a person I know is a bad influence.
Amy lies, cheats, steals, manipulates me and others, but I know she is good on the inside. When I get two days of pleasant behavior, I forget what I know. I forget what I see. I expect the good to continue. But does it? Rarely.
Amy is adjudicated to rehab. She gets a good facility. She begins to work on herself. She cries. She struggles. All her old feelings arise. With good help, she resolves past issues and builds new expectations for herself. Her pattern shifts. Old thoughts and actions are examined. What is needed is kept; what is unneeded is discarded.
Amy makes new decisions. She practices her new decisions in rehab, a safe place, with good boundaries, and supportive/confrontive people. Amy decides her emotions will not kill her and begins to expect life to change. It does.
Tonight, I am coming to visit Amy. What do I expect? I haven’t seen the work she’s done. I haven’t read her journal. I haven’t seen her tears. I expect the old Amy is still operating. I don’t trust the change because I am not living it with her.
When Amy sees my caution, it is demoralizing. She did the work, made the change, and doesn’t understand that my expectation remains the same. We haven’t synchronized our relationship to Amy’s new self. This is a dangerous time for Amy. She wants so badly to show me how she has changed but I can’t see it because of old expectations. What to do? If I persist in my old expectations, unless she is very strong, Amy says, “You expect me to be bad, why shouldn’t I?”