"He was swimming in a sea of other people’s expectations.

Men had drowned in seas like that."

Robert Jordan

"We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel."

Luke 24

We all bring so many things into our relationships. No person can possibly live up to the things we project on them. Ronald Rolheiser talks about the futility of trying to find the "magical other," the one who will fix our flaws and fill the void inside. But there is no human being alive who can do that, yet sadly you cannot know this when you fall in love.

So much of the pain that comes with maturing in our relationships is about understanding and navigating expectations. Sometimes we have unrealistic expectations and live with an idealism rooted in childhood deficits or cultural distortions. Other times we have selfish expectations that push the relational burden onto others in an unfair way. But mainly we have unspoken expectations. We have an inner world of hopes and desires and longings that we assume the other person knows, but we rarely clarify. This can lead to frustration, hurt, disappointment, and distance between us and those we love. So how can we learn to clarify our expectations?

HOW TO CLARIFY YOUR EXPECTATIONS

In Emotionally Healthy Relationships, Pete Scazzero has a simple but powerful framework for strengthening our relationships through clarity. He notes there are 4 main primary ways expectations go wrong. He writes,

• Your expectation is unconscious. You didn’t even know you had an expectation until it was violated.

• Your expectation is unrealistic. It is not reasonable given the person or circumstance.

• Your expectation is unspoken. You did not clearly articulate your expectation to another person.

• Your expectation is un-agreed upon. The other person never agreed to follow through with your expectation.

This shows up in almost every area of our life.

It affects our friendships. We can get angry when others don’t show the same level of interest, inclusion, or vulnerability.
It affects our romantic relationships. We can become defensive, possessive, or needy in our demands of our partner.
It affects our parenting. We can live from our past, our own vision or desires without our kids ever understanding where the pressure on them is coming from.
It affects our work. We can put too much weight on the position or employer to fulfill our vocational goals.
It affects our faith. We can project onto God our family issues or assumptions based on consumer spirituality, idolatry, or bad theology.
It affects our church experience. We can come to church with unclarified and unspoken needs and desires without taking into account the community’s stage, season, and health.

So what can we do to bring healthy expectations to our relationships? Scazzero says the following things should be focused on to bring clear, fair, and life-giving expectations:

CONSCIOUS EXPECTATIONS: I am aware of my expectation, and in touch with my real need.

REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS: This means there is evidence to support that the expectation is reasonable. Either it has been done in the past or the person has the capacity and willingness to do it. It can happen in the time, pace and flow of the circumstances and season.

SPOKEN EXPECTATIONS: I have expressed the expectation clearly in such a way that it has been heard and understood.

AGREED UPON EXPECTATIONS: The other person has agreed to the expectation by saying ‘yes’ and there is a shared framework in place for what will happen.

THE POWER AND GRACE OF CLARIFIED EXPECTATIONS

Learning to clarify expectations has transformed my life. It has helped me understand broken relationships from my past, enabled me to love more freely those closest to me, and relieved unnecessary ministry pressure I tend to put on myself. I am not perfect at this, but I am growing, and it is helping me love people with more insight and skill.

If you are feeling pressure or disappointment in an area of your life, it may be helpful to do an expectation audit this week. Are there expectations that have been unconscious, unrealistic, unspoken, or un-agreed upon? And how can you become more conscious, realistic, clear, and work toward agreement in them?

Brene Brown says, "Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind." Here’s to building relationships on clarity and kindness.

Thanks for reading,

Cheers.

Jon.