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What Do You Expect?

Navigating your relational expectations

By Johnny LambertPublished 5 years ago 2 min read
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My wife and I have been married for five years and it has taken a painstaking majority of that time for us to settle into roles and responsibilities in which we can be content and successful. The reality is that my wife and I are two totally different people, who problem solve and manage situations differently. Because of this, we have found ourselves going through conflict while attempting to navigate roles and responsibilities within our marriage. We have invested much time and work in our relationship which has revealed that many of these conflicts are a result of an unspoken or unmet expectations. It’s incredible how much of an impact expectations can have on a relationship. I have developed three questions I ask myself which help me to regulate my relational expectations.

What are my expectations and why do I have them? I can get so irritated by the simplest of things. As I found myself getting frustrated about the same things over and over again, I realized I need to figure out why I was getting frustrated in the first place. What I discovered was an extensive amount of subconscious programming in my brain. How was this handled during your childhood? What have you learned from culture? What did your church teach you about it? There are a myriad of influences which contribute to our expectations. Most of the time something upsets me, I can uncover and expectation I didn’t realize I had.

Is this expectation realistic? Maybe I have an expectation that dinner will be prepared and ready to eat the minute that I walk in the door. I could easily get frustrated and upset at my wife when she doesn't meet this expectation (My wife doesn't have a job is currently a stay-at-home mom so this is a realistic expectation for her to meet, just kidding!). Not too long ago, my wife ran an in-home daycare out of our house and managed the wellbeing of four tiny humans under the age of four. There were many days that a delicious meal was prepared for me upon my arrival, but in reality, the expectation of a hot dinner awaiting me upon arrival may not have been a very realistic expectation for her to accomplish. Sometimes we have to choose to adjust our expectations in order to allow someone else to successfully meet them.

Have I ever expressed this expectation? Expectations are not a bad thing. They help us meet deadlines, accomplish goals, and develop healthy relationships. I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to allow many of my expectations to go unspoken and that is, however, a problem. Failing to communicate an expectation is like setting and expectation to fail. Within the context of a caring and healthy conversation, the establishment of mutual expectations can be a liberating and encouraging experience. I greatly appreciate having a set of expectations which have been agreed upon. It provides me with a base level of accountability and creates an environment I can thrive in.

I realize that I’ve framed the post through the lens of my marriage. It is because my marriage is the relationship in which I have learned these lessons and developed these principles. I encourage you, if perhaps you are not married, to ponder the application of these three questions in other relationships you are involved in from your relationships with parents or children to relationships with coworkers or employees.

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