Why do we constantly set expectations? Tonight my husband came home and because he didn’t praise the cleanliness of our kitchen – after my day of slaving to clean every square inch down to the baseboards and small appliances – my attitude began to turn. However I am not sure why I expected him to notice. This, after all, is the person who doesn’t even notice when I cut 10 inches of my hair off and dye it blonde! Whats worse is he would notice if I stopped cleaning all together, or didn’t bother to wash my hair anymore. In turn, it would be fair to say that he simply expects these things of me. Sometimes I sincerely hate it. Whats worse is when someone else doesn’t meet our expectations of them, it completely changes our entire attitude towards them…at least for that day. And yes, for women, our attitude is changed for the ENTIRE DAY! Not a good idea to disappoint us first thing in the morning. Using tonight as the example again, I was irritated by the smallest thing he did or comment he made. Because of this irrational irritation due to my own expectation, I misread his every move, over thought his every word, and was offended if asked or told to do anything (including going to bed which is why I am writing this now in the living room). Yet as I sit here alone, needing to get my words out, I wonder why the hell I set these stupid expectations to begin with?! I know that 80% of the time he has no idea what I am expecting him to say or do. He doesn’t ever complain on the days he comes home and I actually haven’t cleaned anything and its noticed by the dishes from that morning and sometimes the night before that are still sitting in and around the sink. I am sure that he expected them to be done at the very least, but his mood doesn’t suddenly spoil at the site of the mess. As a woman it is extremely frustrating to not have my feelings compartmentalized that way. I am sure he is disappointed, but it lasts maybe a quarter of a second and poof, it vanishes, compartment closed. Of course it vanishes into his compartment, like a file drawer, locked away until he might need it. Then conveniently one evening four days later you are letting him know how disappointed you are that he didn’t vacuum the living room on his day off and BAM! he slaps you with your undone dishes and lazy day. You didn’t even think he’d noticed. Whats worse is he really truly didn’t care. ‘So what, you didn’t feel like doing anything’. He only notices and files the occurrence for days like this when you again lose to your own expectations.
Why are expectations set? Well I think it just nature. We expect the other drivers on the road to signal when switching lanes, lower their high beams when they see an oncoming car, drive at least the speed limit, if not faster. We expect to wake up and have the weather be as predicted the day before. We expect our mailman to come by a certain time everyday. Hell, even my pets expect to be let outside and fed at a certain time everyday. Yet sometimes people switch lanes and don’t bother to look, or shine their brights in your eyes as you pass them on the road, or drive 40 in a 55. Sometimes the weatherman predicts sun and I wake up to rain and the mailman arrives behind schedule by over an hour. And whenever each of these things happens I am disappointed and frankly a little pissy about it, and so are my animals! I am not sure what I find more irritating, having the expectations, or having them not be met.
Since setting the expectation is clearly not a gender issue, I suppose I will try to suppress my attitude after these little disappointments. Try to not allow a domino effect ruin my entire evening and sometimes the evening of the victim of my expectation. Maybe, just maybe I can set my expectations a tad lower…like expect him to notice on Saturday that the house is clean, when its been that way since Tuesday. 🙂 Although I do wonder, how often is appropriate for a girl to expect flowers, and what level of disappointment is appropriate in this case??? 🙂
In my experiancd when I need to talk and I think that the subject sounds really picky and dumb but I am genually pissed off I text him and I feel better that at least he knows and there is no confortation it works for me Shawn knows after that kind of text he is not to talk about the subject but to try to help me in others areas to lighten my mood by lighting my work load good luck!