Promises Expectations and Assumptions

Why do we get so blindsided by certain people? Why do we think we can trust someone and then we are shocked when they betray us? How can we know someone so well and then be surprised by their behavior? Why do people break their promises to us? What is wrong with them?

If you’re really resonating with this or this describes nearly every relationship in your life, don’t worry. It is something that everyone experiences and it is not your fault, so to speak but it is your doing.  Every relationship we have, with everyone in our life, will disappoint, betray, abandon, or surprise us in some way and how badly that turns out to be depends on us because we secretly disagree on some very important relationship parameters, namely promises, expectations, and assumptions. 

Relationships are such a significant part of our lives and having strong, loving, fulfilling, and supportive relationships is something we all strive for, long for, and try very hard to achieve. For something that we want so much why do we have to work so hard to get it and why is it so hard to hang onto? 

If we are very honest with ourselves, we will acknowledge that one of the things we do in relationships is ‘fill in the blanks’ when someone gets close to us. Have you ever done that? Of course you have. It is what happens when we overlook habits, actions, and the things we don’t like and use a ‘weighted system’ to ignore their shortcomings or worse, we think they will change in time.

The real problem is that we do not honestly assess how determined we are to make something work that really should be left alone and, in our need for a relationship we set our standards and then expect others to meet them. I am not being cruel or unkind here, this happens all of the time and we have all done this.

If we want wonderful relationships we have to be willing to ask hard questions, make tough choices, and to be very clear about how we contribute to the bad behavior we often see in our relationships because we do not manage our own energy and how we deal with promises, expectations, and assumptions. This is what I call the PEA assessment and it is an uncomfortable examination that reveals how we sabotage our ability to have strong relationships and how we work hard to create relationships out of connections that do not exist. 

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Created, narrated, and produced by Jennifer Hoffman.

Artwork by Jennifer Hoffman.

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