Is a relationship all about fulfilling each others’ expectations?

When you’ve travelled the road so far together, the things you do can start to get automatic. You start to do things for the other person without knowing why, or just without much thought. Sometimes, we start doing or saying things because we know that it’s what the other person wants us to do or say… or is it?

The truth is, we don’t even always know what we want for ourselves. Remember the time we thought we needed a new phone but, in fact, all we needed was an update on the system? Henry Ford once said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Surely, the wants of the heart are deeply confusing and mysterious — no one can decipher it. 

One of the things we had to learn, and still have to learn until our hair turns grey one day, is that we can’t always get what we want. We have to resist clinging too tightly to our desires, and just hold on lightly. Another important life lesson is this: that the person next to us isn’t the one to blame for our unfulfilled desires. Part of setting boundaries is about knowing who’s responsible for what. And our wants, desires, and dreams — they are all our own responsibilities.

Part of setting boundaries means that we have to let go of some desires and expectations, because problems appear when we get confused about who is to blame for our unfulfilled expectations. If true love is a sacrificial love, then true love might not be about getting our personal wants fulfilled. True love might be about letting go of some selfish wants and put the other person first. One quote says, “marriage is about getting conflicting wants worked out.”

Remember that we sometimes don’t understand our own needs, let alone our hearts. Perhaps, the greatest remedy to all the hurt caused by unmet expectations is to communicate it… and just let it go.

Love,

Axioo