The ways expectation can sabotage your peace of mind

Dear Bloggers,

 

Do you ever find yourself feeling disappointed or angry because things haven’t worked out as you had expected? Maybe you recently expected your partner to do something and are annoyed that she didn’t do it. Perhaps you formed an expectation of achieving a life goal by this stage of your life and are feeling frustrated that things haven’t worked out as you planned. 

Expectation is defined as “a strong belief that something will happen or be the case.” We may place expectations on others or impose them on ourselves. You may find yourself making rules for yourself, starting with “I should…” - this is a clue that you have set an expectation for yourself. I set some life goals for myself in my early years that at the age of 65, I would be able to retire and would live free, as our home was paid for and there was nothing to worry about. The question is whether this expectation was healthy and realistic, or unhealthy and maybe even irrational. It became strange as the tax office took everything away from us. As they claimed all our money so I could not pay of our mortgage. When other people place expectations upon you and you do not meet them, you might find yourself feeling guilty. At certain points you thik that you are just a loser. It doesn’t surprise me that some became suicidal.

 

The expectations we make as humans are future-based predications of an outcome. This is flawed, as we cannot ever predict the future. Furthermore, we may consult the past and gather evidence of events that happened previously to inform our future expectations. Just because something happened a certain way before, doesn’t mean that’s how it will turn out this time around. This can be disappointing at best and life debilitating at worst; as mental health disorders such as anxiety, phobias and panic disorder can be defined as expectation disorders.

 

Most of your expectations will be formed from your own values, perspective or frame of reference. For example, you might feel disappointment after having expected to be given a leaving card by colleagues, because you have always arranged leaving cards for colleagues in the past. However, you did this from your valuing system - your colleagues might not value giving cards. If you judge the actions of others and form expectations based on what you would have done, you may regularly end up disappointed.

 

There is a way forward from this

The good news is, once you understand how your expectations are impacting your life, this gives you the power to adjust them if necessary. The first thing to do is spend some time reflecting on your expectations during past adverse events, in your relationships and life goals. This is a healthy way to use the past to inform your awareness, rather than to make predictions or underpin fears. Journaling is a useful self-reflection tool, or you could make mind maps or notes on your phone - find something that works for you.

Once you have identified your expectations and how they have informed past outcomes, you might recognise some patterns. When you become aware of patterns, you have the power to break them. It is pretty hard to break out of it sometimes.

To help inspire your reflections, let us consider some examples of how expectations can negatively impact different areas of your life:

In marriage/relationships

My wife is feeling angry and resentful. She cooks dinner every day and I, her partner, never offers to wash up. When my wife was growing up, if one parent cooked, the other washed up. Her silent resentment of me getting to sit down while she’s still in the kitchen, builds and she starts being snappy with him. I had no idea what I have done wrong or what her ‘problem is’. Now I know it’s me. Her expectation that I should wash up as that was formed by her past experiences. Her resentment is building because he is not acting in the way which she expects, but she has not communicated this expectation to me. I am just a simple man.

Here communication and explanation of her feelings of resentment could result in a change in my behaviour. If she continues keeping quiet, things will stay the same and her resentment will remain. It comes to escalation.

 

When i was about to turn 40. I always expected to be settled with a family and our own house by this stage in life. Instead I had to sell our house and buy something lived out and a lot smaller. And I find myself stuck in a lifetime with no prospects, after all those years being haunted by the tax office, I still have a little motivation to change it. For years I have not been aware that this is the reason for all our sadness. As the law suit against the tax office approaches, My mood dips lower and Iam still feeling hopeless about the future. To numb and escape from this feeling, I have started to join Facebook groups with fellow victims of this scandal.

Here I could benefit from working with a therapist to reflect on his low mood and hopefully realise that not meeting his expected goals by this point in his life, may be responsible for his low moods.

I am likely to have more enthusiasm to make the first steps to changing my life. Reframing my thoughts around the expectations I had, it will hopefully help me to realise he is not a failure. Feeling like a failure is often at the root of low self-esteem and low self-worth.

I have had many friends but due to the survival mode, I’ve lost many of them out of sight. There was no money to spend to arrange something; without communicating this to the rest of the world. We just stayed away from a birthday and all kinds of other parties as we could not afford anything. Furthermore, I was laid off at work, so I had to find a new job having no money for whatsoever even getting food on the table was a hassle, feeling let down by most of our friends. Some of them dropped off a box of groceries. Others never came by. Our kids helped providing food with their jobs and pocket money.

All of this could have been avoided if the Tax office had communicated with us about wat their intentions were. Instead, they made an assumption and set expectations based upon past salaries, when they decided to take everything from us, even our dignity. Furthermore, if they had spoken to us, it would’ve provided opportunity for us to explain how things were. That I worked under certain systems taxwise for a Danisch company. We could’ve made other plans and negosiations based upon this information. These examples show how important communication is in the real world the same goes for relationships and friendships. You cannot place expectations upon somebody, without even communicating this to the person. Although in the army there was only basic orders and low communication, only if something really happened you could ask them for help. It doesn’t matter how well you believe they know you, it doesn’t mean they can read your mind or pre-empt your expectations.

Similarly, it’s important to spend time reflecting on the expectations you have set for yourself. These may be from an internalised critical parent or authority figure from your own past; ask yourself is that “I should” your voice or somebody else's? Do you really expect this from yourself, or does somebody else? Perfectionism is underpinned by a fear of failure and can be so debilitating that a person can get into patterns of avoidance and procrastination; preferring to avoid, than risk getting it ‘wrong’ from their perspective.

Are all expectations unhealthy?

So far expectation has got a bad name in this blog, but not all expectations are unhealthy. Some are necessary and form boundaries in our relationships. For example, expecting your partner to remain faithful to you in a committed relationship is a healthy expectation.

Setting expectations in relationships and friendships collaboratively is a healthy way to ensure misunderstandings and resentment are less likely to occur.

Setting life goals can be motivating and end up as positive outcomes, but the way you react if you do not meet these life goals could be detrimental. Don’t aim to high and set your goals as possible ones and approach them with an attitude of patience. Be kind to yourself and flexible rather than fixed on a certain outcome by a certain time. Sometimes things don’t work out as you might’ve planned or expected, it can turn out to be the best thing.

It’s okay to hope that things will work out the way you would like and having future plans. Hoping is not the same as expecting.

If you have a painful life expectation that has not worked out, please seek the help of a therapist to work through this and grieve for your loss. Your feelings are still valid, even if you had set an unhealthy expectation, and you deserve space to work through them.

Understanding how ‘expectation’ can impact your peace of mind.

The Old Sailor,

  

Summertime is not always fun

Dear Bloggers,

This is the time of year to make the whole Internet smell like coconut flavoured sunscreen. And campfire logs things that I associate with Summer. And of course the smell of fresh-mown grass.

It's like when you imagine the Internet will sparkle like fireflies and humming bees and butterflies in the garden. Stretch yourself out on your lawn, with that scratchy grass tickling the backs of your legs. Reading a book and fall asleep in the morning Sun.

The smell of grilled burgers on the back deck in the garden. The sound of kids playing in the pool. The sweet taste of a fresh mixed Mocktail, with cubes clinking against the glass on a sizzling summer afternoon.

These are vacation stories. We want to do some crazy roller coaster rides and our summer BBQs and our trips to museums and our lazy days in the garden. Maybe this are our best vacations as we are poor and having trouble to plan a day out. Hopefully one day life will surprise us, we just should not lose hope.

Tell me: Where have your best vacations taken you? Or kept you? Did you go far away, or stay right at home? What are your best vacation stories?
While the stereotypical summer vacation usually involves a caravan or a beach, the vacations most of us take are much less nostalgic and far more varied than that. Or even if there is a beach or a caravan, it’s not the one we see in movies or read in books. They are most of the time less romantic. Some of the best vacations, in fact, don’t involve packing or traveling at all; they happen in the backyard or on the front porch. I am telling you some of our best vacation stories, the ones where things didn’t turn out as expected, where plans changed and so did we. As I share what happened when we step away from every days business for vacation.

We probably won't be lazing away your summer by the pool, but with a little extra planning we'll still be able to create your own kind of magical summer memories.

Lazy days aren't really a thing
My favorite part of summer vacation is lazy days without a single plan in the world. In a perfect world, I would sleep in, enjoy a slow morning while the kids played and then we would all take off on a spontaneous adventure. Yes, did you picture that! The reality is that my daughter, thrives on structure and needs to know exactly what's going to happen throughout the day. And my spouse needs to know in advance what she can expect otherwise she is not capable to manage all the signals from everything around her. Lovely thing that is called PTSD. My other daughter is having a job and so that means our summer activities during vacation need to be planned as it is a school day. Sigh.

To keep things manageable but still fun, providing structured activities for our kid and my wife can reduce their stress and help us all get more from our summer vacation. A bit of organizing nut fun for all of us.
Therapies don't take breaks.

Most of us look forward to the break from the school year. When you're in my position it's a never ending story. There's a seemingly endless round of therapies, and none of them pause for the summer.

If anything, summer is sometimes more hectic than the school year because we have to fit all of these therapies in around those memory-building moments we're we loose track of what day of the week it is. Good luck we need for finding the energy to have a backyard camp out after a long week of shuttling from therapy to therapy! The good news is that often our kids are much less interested in new adventures than we are, and they don't mind taking it easy after a long day of therapies. They drop on the couch with a book or a cell phone.

It costs a fortune to get my wife the care she needs
I swear by my wife's equine therapies and she loves going to them, but they aren't cheap. Plus, she has to be taken there as she is not capable to travel on her own due to panic attacks; she requires special needs for a summer break and needs to be prepared to make it work, and all of these specialized therapies and going to camp out come with a price.

As much as we might want to take our family to exotic destinations or even to the lake for a long weekend, the money we spend on fuel and specialized therapies can leave us with nothing left to spend on summer fun. It's bitter when you work hard but you don't make enough to cover the costs.

Summer fun isn't so fun.
Most kids love going to water parks or play spaces, but for my wife these places can trigger sensory overload. Heat, noise and crowds are the biggest trigger hells, and that can leave us scrambling to fill these endless summer days. There are few places that appeal to kids and that don't get to crowded during the summer, so often we find ourselves spending more time at home (even though we'd really rather be out and about).

This is even more challenging when we have a neuro-typical kid, too. Balancing the needs of kids who are begging to go to the lake or the splash park is always a challenge when the same places they love create anxiety and fear in my spouse. There's no right or wrong answer, but it's easy to feel like we aren't meeting any one's needs during the summer.

Going on a trip is sometimes like a really bad trip to the dentist
I've always loved to travel. But for my daughter, going on a trip is extremely exciting and for my wife anxiety-inducing, even if it's only for a day. She relies on her dogs for comfort and the familiarity and of our home for stability, and being away from them for any period of time is eating all her energy and due to the anxiety she is getting easily upset. 

No matter how much we talk through the details of the trip ahead of time, there's no predicting how it'll go exactly. We've had terrible meltdowns on road trips and perfect planned rides, but the one constant in our travel experiences has been the lack of consistency.

Through the years, I've learned to plan the best I can and just ride the wave of whatever happens. My daughter may have meltdowns and my wife will get triggered in public places, and people may be huge jerks about it, but we enjoy the day out, and the rest of the world can just suck it up and deal with a meltdown once in awhile. Part of being a partner and a dad is the part learning to accept what you can't change and letting go of any and all guilt or embarrassment about it.

There's no break ... for us
It's important to find ways to take care of ourselves over the summer, not just our kids. That's easier said than done when there's few breaks to be found, but if we don't prioritize ourselves we can't be the moms and dads our kids need us to be or the parents we want to be. Being an caretaker dad/husband/man is a huge part of my live, but it's important not let our entire identities become consumed by our parenting either. I need to do silly man things and be a lover even though it's hard sometimes.

Most of all, we all need to remember that it's often a tough path but we're in this together. Find your support group and share your experiences with fellow spouses who have to deal with it as well. Just don't forget the drinks.



The Old Sailor,