High Expectations - Are They Realistic?

Some adults forget they are no longer children and want to continue to play at being a prince and princess even as they grow older. They expect to be treated the way they think the world should treat them, just as spoiled children do. Unfortunately, life is not a world of make believe and most of us get treated the way people want to treat us.

In these situations, they may make too many demands, possibly on one relationship, and if that person doesn’t respond as they wish, they may feel betrayed. As an example, one woman I know of said that she couldn’t count on her daughter for anything and could no longer trust her because the daughter had disagreed with her. The issues of ‘trust’ and whether they ‘agreed’ or not are like apples and oranges but she could not be made to realize it. This placed a lot of unreasonable guilt on the daughter. At other times if her daughter went out for the day, she phoned everyone she could think of who might know where she might be, usually with a story of supposed ‘need’ so that they would track her down. And when the daughter went on a much needed vacation, she angrily begrudged her the time she was away.

According to research most unrealistic expectations have to do with manipulation and control. This behavior can be partly as a result of a lack of independence whereby they become emotionally dependent on someone closely connected to them. Often they will demand attention because of their dissatisfaction with life.

Those who feel dissatisfied are looking to others to fill this void. Unfortunately, the more they demand of others and the more unrealistic their expectations, the more people will draw back from them. And the more people pull away, the more they expect and the more dissatisfied, frustrated, resentful and angry they become because their needs are not being met. It becomes a vicious circle where no one is happy, least of all the person making the unrealistic demands. They have not learned that others cannot meet their needs – they are the only ones who can do that.

As in all situations in life, we must set boundaries and not take things personally when someone is unhappy with the boundaries we have set. And most importantly, we must not allow ourselves to be forced to cater to someone else’s unrealistic expectations. We must remember that it is our life and we don’t have to take ownership of anyone else’s unhappiness.