Expectations
Over the past couple of days, I've had some things that have got me thinking. Spent Monday with M___ and there were a couple things in that time that I wasn't wholly comfortable with and on Monday night, there was a small and ongoing altercation with misskitty_79 that brought up the issue more. Expectations in relationships. Do you have them? What kinds of
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It's ok to need things from a relationship.
It's ok to expect things from a relationship.
Whether they're your Primary, secondary, tertiary, friend, business partner, parent, sibling or child it is perfectly natural to expect certain attitudes and behaviours from them. These expectations are formed by where we grew up, when we grew up, the attitudes of the people around us, our "church" group, our school, our social structure and our work environments.
There are a lot of things that go into forming what we think is "normal". The unfortunate part, is that we all have different things that teach us "normal". I have found that if I work on the assumption that nobody I know is always psychic and tell people what I need, want, expect, it gives them the choice to meet those needs; or not, as is their choice.
Hearing the words "if only I'd known you wanted that" can be very heartbreaking. Communication is the key, get everyone on the same page, or at least knowing what that page is, can save a lot of hassles.
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That's very true. And for two reasons. One, because often people think that they shouldn't have to ask - if you loved me you would just "know". (It doesn't work like that.) Secondly, because often people feel they didn't have the right to ask. It would be selfish, or bad, or what have you.
But yes. Expectations always exist. The real trick is figuring out whether everyone knows these expectations. Many are unstated, and sometimes have to be dealt with only when they are disappointed. But eventually (especially in poly, where the script is less reinforced culturally) you have to discuss them openly.
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