How unspoken expectations create disappointment

Giving voice to your needs and desires empowers you and others to be who you are meant to be.

Me in summer 2021 wearing a shirt that says, “If a conversation is hard, it’s probably one worth having.” From Madison Peach Steiner’s Hustle Kindness line of clothing and accessories.

Give words to your loneliness and poverty, because you’re helping others identify theirs. Every time we speak, we are given an opportunity to name and empower truth. Be someone the world needs, not who they want you to be.

For the audio version of this essay, please click on the link below:

“I feel so lonely,” I confessed to my spiritual director during one of our monthly phone sessions. “Very few of my family or friends ask me about my creative work, or seem enthusiastic if I share what I’m working on. They usually change the subject.”

A brief moment of silence fell between us. I could tell she was turning this over in her mind.

“We can’t expect the people closest to us to understand this work,” she finally answered. Mary Sharon is also an author, so I knew she was speaking from experience. “I remember trying to talk about what I do with my siblings a long time ago. They do the same thing to me—change the subject, politely smile. There’s never any engagement. So I realized I needed to move on from needing their approval.”

“I’m not sure how to do that. My family and close circle of friends have been my bedrock for decades. But that seems to be shifting,” I tell her.

“Take this poverty of lack of connection with them and remember that the loss of connection can be born of love. It won’t change the people, but it will bring forth greater love and compassion in you,” she told me.

Though Mary Sharon could not see me, I was weeping silently. This was not a loss I expected, not something I wanted. But then again, what loss is ever invited in our lives? What I wanted was the familiarity of my childhood, to be enveloped in that safe blanket that shielded me from loss. But it was clearly time for me to confront a jarring truth: that my expectations of others needed to be shed, in order to make room for me to grow as a person, as a writer.

“Family isn’t always able to journey with us,” she continued, since I remained mute on the other end of the line. “Do not be afraid to step away from them in this journey. The faith, and life, you had before has grown too small for you.”

This was in 2019, five years ago. I took copious notes to revisit on an occasion like this, to siphon the heart of the message for universal application.

Here’s what I’ve learned these past five years: that unspoken expectations in our relationships are often at the root of hurt feelings, misunderstandings, and disappointments. What we need or desire is seldom what we verbalize. Instead, it’s the caustic remarks about how someone didn’t show up for us.

An example: not long ago, Ben and I were sparring about something petty. Our evening plans had changed: a friend had canceled a dinner outing, and I thought Ben and I could spend some time together, chatting and catching up on our week. But Ben wasn’t aware of this change in schedule, so he had made plans to hang out with a friend. I was disappointed and felt that my feelings were excessive, unwarranted. I was embarrassed to be honest about the more vulnerable underpinnings of my reaction.

So I pouted for a short bit and told him, “Oh, okay. I thought we had the evening together, but I guess not.”

As soon as I said this, I regretted it. I hadn’t invested the time necessary to unveil the truer message, so I hastily spouted off something immature instead. The thing about expectations is, to me, a multifaceted issue. We don’t want to be honest about our needs, because we don’t want to come across as helpless, weak. Admitting the need for connection to Ben was, in that moment, trifling.

Also, expectations reveal a lack: I am missing something vital in my life. Belonging. Laughter. Intellectual stimulation. Physical touch. Understanding. Conversation. Whatever it is, we don’t want to reveal our poverty, as my spiritual director called it. And poverty in this sense is metaphorical, a chasm of the spirit, of the heart. It’s what happens when our well has dried up and we desperately seek refreshment.

What happens when we don’t share our expectations with others? We remain unfulfilled, unsatisfied. The frustration of not getting what we need or want compounds inside of us and tends to manifest externally, as acting out or projection or sulking; or internally, as depression and loneliness.

If I had said to Ben that day, “Since my evening plans were canceled, I’d like to spend some time with you this evening,” what might have resulted? He could have said, “Oh, I didn’t realize that and already made arrangements to hang out with one of my friends.” And that would have been my opportunity to be vulnerable, to take that risk in sharing my heart with him: “I’m disappointed, because I feel lonely and need to connect with you, so maybe we can talk tomorrow night instead?”

My spiritual director, at a later date, asked me these rhetorical questions, which I now ask you:

1. Is there grace working beyond your fatigue and resources?

2. Are there messengers sent to encourage and give you strength?

Give words to your loneliness and poverty, because you’re helping others identify theirs. Every time we speak, we are given an opportunity to name and empower truth. Sometimes people in our lives do not want to be challenged. And we don’t want to upset them, or disrupt the status quo. This agitation can be a signal that what stirs inside us is meant to be spoken.

Be someone the world needs, not who they want you to be.

Honor your needs. Own your emotions, especially when they are difficult to admit, even to yourself. Claim your space and your right to speak. Give words to your experience, which often provides language for others. Words clarify. They convict, startle, rouse. They center us, connect us to others.

Don’t stifle what needs to be shared, especially the emptiness you may feel in your life. It takes courage to tell someone you love, “I need to be seen. I need you to hear me. I need connection.” But it’s a greater risk to say nothing at all.

Your expectations are guideposts to your needs and desires.