I agree with you totally! It is supposed to be a supportive partnership. My ex thought that anything I asked him to do was "trying to change" him! Well, if spending more than 5 minutes a day with me is trying to change someone.......or helping around the house.....or paying the mortgage.....or not watching porn....or cheating then there is a problem.

I think those things fall under the categories you already described as basic, i.e. honor, respect, kindness. If you have those, of course he would go to your family dinner and you to his work thing because you love each other and realize what's important to the other. And, if it's really something the other person doesn't like, if you love, honor, etc., you won't ask them to do it. You will understand. Maybe I am too basic in my outlook but to love is to love, to promise is to keep it and to cherish is to cherish. Everything else should fall into place if you have the basics.

Yes, being in a relationship means compromise and sometimes doing things you'd rather not because you love someone. But there are limits to everything and even loving compromise can become routinized and painful obligation.

There was an expectation in my marriage that we spend a lot of time either with or at her family that was filled with coldness, alcoholism and dysfunction. She never REALLY separated adequately from the family enmeshment. I was so unlike what they had pictured the husband of their daughter to be..I couldn't stand to be around them and I'm pretty sure they didn't like me either.

My point is, if you love someone you sometimes do things because you love them even if unpleasant, but if it gets to be often and in an otherwise uncomfortable place for your partner, you would do better to shield him/her from that to protect the relationship rather than have that extreme an expecation.

Look at the real issues and then talk about how the issues make each of you feel and work toward a win-win.

I'll share my experience...
Any expectations I had, I verbalized to my Ex prior to our marriage. He in turn did similarly.

Before we separated, we went to marriage counseling. The counselor asked me about what my expectations were of Ex. I listed them-many of then listed above. She nodded and said "Wow, you have a lot of expectations." She turned to Ex and said, "Although, Nancy has alot of expectations, they are very reasonable ones when you are in a marriage." She asked him the same question. I dont remember what he said, but the remainder of the session wasabout each of us compromising on our lists.

I know I have high expectations. I hold myself to a really high standard. However, I know everyone is on a different path, and I always thought I gave people (including my spouse) room to work those things out. However, it is painful to watch people with talent and gifts waste them. It's hard to watch them run around in circles, get nothing done and then feel horrible about themselves. I have been thinking about this a lot lately, partly because of things my stbx has said, but also my children. I have been working on following my own dream, and my own path, and encourage (especially my adult kids) to do their best but understand I am behind them, win or lose. It's a hard thing to communicate sometimes... Just by being ambitious... I must give off the air that I expect everyone around me to be this same? Still working on that one....

I feel uncomfortable about expectations discussion I am reading.

I am thinking that this discussion should about acceptance and less about expectations. It seems like expections is taking something where acceptance is about giving something.

Expectations is something I would apply to a retail product that was purchased as in " I paid for this and I expect it to work.".

Not sure about this thread. I feel uncomfortable with expectations in relationships. We all have them but I feel that is the selfish side in each of us. I think we should express how something makes us feel and then see if our feelings are accepted and valued and do we accept and value the feelings of the other person. Then work on a solution.

Maybe I just don't get this expectations discussion. It feels like someone is listing specifications for a purchase. I feel uncomfortable with dating someone that is going to tell me what they expect of me.

I don't think there would a second date or a good relationship if either person said "I expect the following:..."

Godspeed

RR, sorry you feel uncomfortable, and maybe it's too vague. I would expect, or hope, that my spouse would want to attend my mother's funeral. And he did. I would expect and hope he would want to be there for me. He did not come with me to the nursing home for her last days and hours and I didn't expect it. My sister's husband was there, but mine was not. I invited him and he chose not to come. So, on some level, I accepted that he did not want to come to the nursing home, and I didn't judge him for that at all. Even seeing my brother in law there. So, when he apologized to me later, I was confused. I didn't expect him to do anything but be there for me, especially at the funeral.

Does that make sense? Sometimes, the expectation is as small as showing up every night after work. Is that expectation too much? It might be for some. But for you, it might be a given. While this thread might seem harsh to you, it does not to me. It's all relative. To me, expecting my spouse to come home right after work might be too much for my spouse. He might think he deserves to go have a beer with friends. You might not even think twice about it. Coming home right away might seem natural to you, and therefore, it's not a big issue to you and your spouse.

I think it really depends though. My stbx husband never wanted to go to anything I did and in 14 years we went on maybe 9-10 dates. However he always expected me to go to his family things, and I did to support him. His family was quite mean to me, putting me down, saying horrible things to me and treating me bad. When I seperated I talked to my therapist about it and he said I should have never felt like I had to go to anything that he wanted me to in regards to his family if it meant I was going to be treated badly. So in that case if he expected me to go and deal with it just to make him happy his expectations WERE too high and I should have protected myself first.

I agree Red, if his family treated you badly, he should have stepped in and defended you and told them you were not coming back until they could be polite and cordial. And if that is and EXPECTATION and not ACCEPTANCE, then I will stand by that standard. I would expect his family to treat you kindly. You deserve that. If they don't agree with something you said or did, they at least owe you the courtesy they would show strangers! REALLY!

Unfortunately, many expectations are unspoken, or take away a person's right to be true to themselves. Expectations give rise to resentment and power struggles.
Communicating desires, but respecting a mate's right not to fulfil them, seems the way to go. Then it is your job to take personal responsibility for any feelings that you have about your mate's choice.
Of course, if your mate's choices continually leave you feeling unsupported or alone, you may need to reevalute whether the two of you are well matched and, if not, it may be time to move on.

I dont believe in obligations anymore. So in order to minimize getting disapppointed, I will try to be better at looking for things in common, good synergy. Opposites attract? Being man and woman is opposite enough for me. My 2 cents... :o)

Thanks- I really appreciate the different perspectives.... I suppose it does come down to goodness of fit- if, at the end of the day, two people in a relationship are continuously disappointing each other and falling short of expectations... it's probably not a very good fit.... I think for me "expectations" is just another word for unconditional love and support... but perhaps that is too high of an expectation in and of itself... hmmmm... more thinking to do on this one.... Thanks again!

My expectations are going lower and lower down, unfortunately, so if you have some, that's good.