Everyone goes into a relationship with some kind of expectations.
Expectations about how they want to be loved. Expectations about how often they will communicate with each other. Expectations about what their sex life will look like.
Truly, the potential number of expectations someone can have when starting a relationship is endless.
There are reasonable expectations and then there are unreasonable toxic expectations when it comes to relationships.
What is reasonable for one couple may be different for the other.
Examples of reasonable expectations include:
I expect my partner to remain loyal to me since we agreed to a monogamous partnership.
Related: 13 behaviors of people who have very little self-respect, according to psychology
I expect my partner not to physically hit me in any context unless mutually agreed upon in a sexual play scenario.
I expect my partner to express any concerns he has when it comes to emotional health and overall connection in our relationship.
As for unreasonable expectations, I’ve heard hundreds, if not thousands, of unreasonable relationship expectations over the years as a relationship coach. Some are more subtle than others, some are painfully overt.
Unreasonable expectations hinder intimacy. By consciously or unconsciously writing down a laundry list of what your partner should be like and how they should act to please you, you are setting your relationship up to fail.
This is especially true when meeting these relationship expectations is nearly impossible for anyone to achieve.
Here are the three most harmful and common expectations that kill relationships.
Related: 10 types of people in life you simply cannot trust, according to psychology
Here are 3 very toxic expectations that are killing your relationship:
- “If they loved me, they would know what I need.”
People are not mind readers. No one can know what you want from him at every moment without you expressing your desires. When you withhold your needs or desires from your partner, you give up on yourself.
If you want to be in a highly effective relationship, learn how to communicate your desires. Some people think it’s easy to tell their partner what they want, but that’s often not the case.
It might be the scariest thing in the world to tell someone (you care deeply about) the truth about how you feel or to be the one to initiate sex after a week-long dry spell.
If it’s too scary to tell them what you want, start by telling them where you are.
If you want to ask for something new or different in bed but are nervous about bringing it up, you can start by saying, “I want to ask you for something right now, but I’m feeling nervous about it… and it may be silly once it comes up, but I’m still worried about it.” What you’ll think of me because I want it.
Communicate your sincere desires. Be as forthcoming as possible. If you are nervous or apprehensive for any reason, just let them know where you are.
Related: 10 behaviors that make people resent you almost instantly, according to psychology
- “I must love my partner unconditionally.”
No, you absolutely shouldn’t. Healthy love between consenting intimate partners is not unconditional.
Although you should certainly make an effort to have a deep, resilient love for your intimate partner, there are some circumstances that, if broken, will have an impact on your love for them (or on the relationship itself).
Maybe they hit you. Maybe they come home drunk every night for weeks on end and this affects the relationship. Maybe they haven’t said a word to you in over a week despite living together.
Wouldn’t your love become conditional if any of these things happened?
Healthy love is conditional. If you expect reasonable things to happen (“being treated like a king/queen every day” doesn’t count) those things aren’t a reason to end the love/relationship.
- “It doesn’t have to take work.”
I hear this often just because of my line of work, but I’ve heard it from clients, non-clients, friends, family members, and people from all walks of life.
There is a romantic idea that if a relationship is to work, it must work, without any effort or intention on the part of the partners involved. It must run on autopilot. It should be an effort. There should never be anything that feels like “work.”
They are brilliantly effective communicators because they have read books, attended seminars, and worked to figure out how their partner uniquely needs to communicate with him/her.
They have an exciting sex life because they take the time to learn about their unique bodies and cycles. They go on week-long reconnecting vacations to explore each other’s bodies and talk about their dreams for the future.
When conflict arises between them, whether subtle or obvious, they address it head-on and see if they can come to an amicable solution that meets their emotional needs.
Whatever it was that was a problem for them, they had come to a mutually agreed upon agreement that it would not remain a problem for long.
The bottom line is that people in high-functioning relationships do their best work. And it pays off.
All relationships are for healing. And yours is no different. So, if you think the idea of scheduling date nights on your calendar is unromantic, you may want to question that belief and ask if it’s serving you and your relationship.
An intentional love life is a thriving love life. If you ignore the little things, your relationship will eventually suffer. If you prioritize the little things, your relationship will eventually flourish.
