Preconceived roles in our relationships
In today’s society, people give relationships and especially those romantic ones a new role in their lives and treat them quite differently than our great-grandparents used to. We often notice that most people have problems in this area of their lives, and it is no coincidence. There are many more and deeper layers to a relationship and without the right knowledge, without the right amount of empathy, we can hardly approach each other in a healthy way. Unfortunately, these abilities are very much lacking nowadays and it is no exaggeration to say that by now everyone is so emotionally injured that certainly all of us need shorter or longer therapeutic treatment.
The 20th century was plagued with so many horrific events, oppressing and vulnerable situations following one another that our social skills were inevitably distorted. Not only was human cruelty much more intense — also, there had been wars, populations, different groups had always been oppressed, natural and man-made disasters had occurred before — , but inherited, unprocessed traumas were emotionally turturing people and were passed from generation to generation rooting so profoundly in our minds that today we can see its negative consequences. Complete generations are emotionally and therefore mentally unstable, hurt and in need for help. But I do not want to discuss the historical reasons for this phenomenon, perhaps I could write about it in another article, but I’d rather discuss the emotional and psychological aspect now.
Anyone who loves historical novels may know that even in the not-too-distant 19th century, there were quite different expectations for a lasting relationship to today’s requirements. Marriage was conceived primarily as an economic institution whose main function were existential maintenance of family, procreation, and preservation or enrichment of prestige and wealth especially amongst the prestigious and wealthy. Emotions did not play an important role in choosing a partner, especially not against economic interests — or if it did, surely became a huge scandal and had to be paid dearly. If someone had love in their lifetime, they may have experienced it mostly in an extramarital affair, but very rarely on the side of their spouse. Thus, sexual passion, if any, was almost always pushed outside the walls of marital bedroom. The parties usually discussed their emotional whims with same-sex confidants (as far as it was customary at the time) and received practical help from their community and, in the case of wealthy ones, even from servants.
However, today we force all these functions that were once intended to be performed by several people in our environment onto one person: our partner. We expect them to have our romantic love, passionate lover, best friend, chief confidant, and faithful companion. Often a mother instead of our mother, a father instead of our father. We want this partner to make life calm and safe but also exciting; reveal themselves fully to us, yet remain so mysterious that we do not lose interest; not even to have to tell them what we desire, but still feel satisfied and always get our wishes fulfilled. We want them to be attractive, strong, stable, kind, considerate, honest, gentle, loyal, trustworthy, sexy, inquisitive, patient, exciting, stunning, funny… always, every moment, relentlessly. But how can we seriously think that a single mortal person can meet all these needs? Because we remember that it was once possible a long time ago. In love, our world of infancy comes to life again. There was someone who could tune in to us without words, who in one person could give us everything we needed, who meant life itself and the whole world for us. That person was: our mother. And in adulthood, our love.
In the first emotionally heightened phase of love, we can experience that all of this can become a reality again as an adult. As a result of hormonal changes, self-boundaries become temporarily more permeable, and our unconscious become attuned to our partner’s. We feel like the two of us are almost one and often we can really figure out each other’s thoughts, desires without having to say anything. Everyone is familiar with the situations when this happens. ‘That’s exactly what I wanted to say,’ ‘I wanted to call you too right now,‘ ‘But how did you know?’, ‘How did you figure it out?’. In this period when a sort of pink mist descends on our brains, everything seems perfect. The whole world seems perfect — or if it isn’t, nothing else matters as long as our love is there with us. They alone are important, they are the whole universe as we often think from a slightly narrower perspective due to hormones. In this case, we even idealize them as a small child does with the parents: we see their strengths very accurately, and often magnify them, we even dreamily associate them with traits they don’t have, and we don’t notice their mistakes — more precisely, we don’t want to. At this time everything comes spontaneously, easily, and effortlessly in our relationship — things just happen to us, we have almost nothing to do but drift through the waves of love.
Yes, but the hormonal changes disappear legally in a maximum of two-three years — there is a demonstrable decrease in the levels of dopamine, oxytocin and phenylethylamine in our body (the concentration of the most important brain compounds involved in love). Self-boundaries are solidifying again, and instead of this fairy “US” that has collapsed, we find ourselves more and more often in the “I”. Now that the pink mist has taken off, in the daylight, our true features are much sharper and we see each other more realistically. It is a completely natural and normal process as it is an inevitable part of a relationship that starts with love, just like aging is a part of life. There is nothing to do about it. And especially: it is not a tragedy. It doesn’t mean that we can’t be happy with each other after that, or that we were wrong when we chose our partner. It’s just that we’ve moved on to the next stage of the relationship, and things are a little different. Yet, we are expecting the same things from our partners that we have received so far. Even without words, they should feel and know what is going on within us, be aware of exactly what we need, and satisfy all our needs with deep inner motivation. Always! But unfortunately, they will never be able to meet these expectations again to the same degree as in the first period of love. And it is not their fault. That beautiful, effortless, perfect period is over — let’s be happy about it and we now have to focus on other challenges and as unromantic it sounds, work hard to keep our relationship running well. And trust me, there is beauty in that period too as long as the wish is shared.
At such times, however, many people are already feeling disappointed. The flaming love is gone, which itself seems to be a proof that our partner is not the “One” after all. The “One” is amazing because all things shall be perfect with them forever. (Yes, in fairy tales and damaging rom-coms!) And in this frustration, we begin to demonize the hitherto idealized partner. Which means while previously only the positive qualities were noticed and the negatives were generously ignored, now suddenly their unfavorable traits are cluttered in our eyes and we’re easily forgetting everything that is attractive and lovable about them. We attribute negative reasons to their manifestations and actions and see them in a completely different color than before. More and more often, the thought of something very bad is creeping into our mind, and while we’re still hoping for improvement, we expect the partner to do something about it. After all, the relationship has failed because of THEM, so they have to fix it! We think very wrongly.
Both parties feel that only the other party should change in order for things to work well between them again. This is a common starting point for couple therapies. There are two people sitting at the psychologist’s, and they both want the therapist to “fix” their partner so that they will finally behave the way they should. We feel that while the other is full of flaws and injuries, everything is fine with us. Both parties list their own expectations angrily, but they are very much offended if the other makes an objection. They often even claim if their partner really loved them, they would accept them with flaws. While they criticize their partner, they idealize themselves. At most, they only blame themselves for not noticing the warning signs, the red flags earlier, as the other must have always been like that “awful” person. Of course, I’m only talking about relationships here where there is no mental or physical abuse present. No one should stay in unworthy relationships, of course. There is nothing to work on in such cases. And an important note before we go any further: there are, of course, couples blessed with high emotional intelligence too who have been actively seeking and taking on their own role in both their relationship problems and their possible correction of it from the very beginning of a therapy. But in an article on expectations, I understandably talk less about them.
Levels of Relationship Expectations
Many of my dating friends and acquaintances have a pretty serious list of expectations for a possible partner — and then they date someone who doesn’t meet 80% of the criteria listed and yet fall in love with them. It also shows that we may have a lot of firm and clear ideas about what the other should be like, while our essential aspects may remain completely unconscious.
Our expectations can be divided into three major categories, though.
- Conscious, Open Expectations
These are our wishes we are aware of and we clarify them with our partners. For example, we ask them to take off their shoes in the hallway, we make clear cheating on us is unnegotiable, ask them to be honest with us or even go together to Capri to sail in the summer.
2. Conscious but Hidden Expectations
However, we may have expectations we are aware of but do not share with our partners. This is often driven by the feeling that if they stayed as they are now, we may not love them. So, we think: we will and can change them! If they really love us, they will lose weight, become more attentive, more orderly, more passionate, sexier, and learn a hobby that they don’t care about at all. We’ll get it out of them! When we don’t succeed, we get tremendously disappointed and our partner feels deeply offended too, which is quite legit because we went into the relationship with a conscious but hidden expectation.
3. Unconscious, Hidden Expectations
These are aspects that none of us are aware of — although the basic motives for choosing a partner come from this very category. Our unconscious, hidden expectations are closely linked to experiences and injuries gained in the early years of our lives. We are looking for someone with whom we can create and relive the familiar — though perhaps very painful — world of old experiences. And with whose help (in a luckier case) we may be able to heal from former wounds.
If we can put our hidden expectations into words in a therapeutic framework over time, we ourselves will often be genuinely shocked, for example, to say, “You’re going to help me prove that I’m not worth anything and I don’t deserve love” Or, “You’re going to love me the way my mother should have.” Or,“ I can demonstrate with you again that no one is good enough for me. Not even you.”
The more injuries we carry, the more our hidden expectations may differ from those stated. We may want to use everyone to heal us, and when that fails, we blame them for being wrong.
But what’s really wrong?
A significant proportion of people experienced basic emotional deprivation in their childhood because their parents could not or did not want to be available to them adequately. On the one hand, such a child has a deep desire for the love of a parent and wants to love that parent, and on the other hand, these children are full of anger and often even repressed hatred for not being able to get what they needed from the parents. They would cling to them with both hands, but the parents can’t be trusted and the child doesn’t feel safe with them. These — often unconscious — emotions and frustrations are later projected on the partner, because the deeply painful and frightening experience is linked to their attachment style. In other words, it’s the fear of not being important enough for the loved one who can let them down at any time. While a person says they long for a relationship and most of their actions suggest that, they do something over and over again to push their partner away. They are driven by two opposing forces: they really want to be attached, but they are afraid of getting really close to someone and thus giving the other the power to cause them as much pain as they had to experience as children. They are afraid that they will be pushed away again, so they do it first and create for this partner the torturous world of experience they already know well. This is the essence of “pull and let go” relationships. One step forward, two steps back. Sometimes a warm inviting emotional gesture, then a quick setback, a backward face. It’s all about having to “come to mind” in time before they become completely vulnerable to their partner. Such a person is afraid of a deeper attachment, because it would push them into an addiction deprived of the already familiar, dangerous, warm emotions.
There are those who keep saying they desire nothing more than a truly loving, respectful, and faithful companion, but deep in their soul they cannot believe that they can ever be in such a relationship because, based on their childhood experiences, they are convinced that it doesn’t work or exist. And if someone might approach them who could and would prove otherwise, they would talk themselves out of it and chase the “brave” one away. The average person usually says this phenomenon is when one does not need “normal” men or women but the “jerk” ones who are unreliable, selfish, unfaithful — because that is familiar to them and they already know what life is like with people like that. Although they are constantly in pain, it is a pain which they have become well aware of and been accustomed to since childhood. If someone treats them differently, it’s already “suspicious,” or “boring,” or “uninteresting,” because it represents something they’re unfamiliar with and don’t know what to do with the situation. In such cases, they either run away or, with some effort, produce a well-known painful situation with this “normal” partner. For example, they treat the partner unreliably, insult, cheat, or abuse them, who in turn change their style or even leave them after a while.
Whatever we do not feel is real and we do not believe could happen to us, we won’t be able to accept, or we will ruin it ourselves.
This is how it works until we recognize the toxic pattern, mostly in therapy sessions. We begin to think consistently about the situations that recur in our relationships and discover that the very same problems arise over and over again, and we always come to similar conclusions. For example, we see our partner as unsuitable and we consider ourselves a loser, someone who can’t really be loved. We realize that these repetitive failures may stem from a fear of intimacy. We don’t want to believe that our partner really loves us, because if we believed them, we would become as vulnerable again as we were when we were waiting for our mother but didn’t come or we reached out to her but she rejected us. If we trusted our partner deeply, we would be giving them power to abuse us. And we don’t want to allow that, we’re rather hiding behind an armor so we can protect ourselves. It’s a deep inner dynamic that can ruin even the most beautiful love story — until we recognize and understand it. From now on, we can begin to consciously question our beliefs and reactions that we previously took for granted, and slowly (so very slowly, it is a process lasting several months even years!) we can increasingly imagine that a partner and a relationship can be different from what we have experienced as children. And we are less and less blaming our partner one-sidedly for our problems, but we understand that it is much more worth thinking about interactions and processes than cause and effect scenarios.
