Expectations and Standards

Tammy and John have been dating pretty seriously for several months. They don’t live together but they spend many weekends together and occasionally spend the night together during the week. They are each divorced with children from a previous marriage.

John is an only child and feels lonely when he is the only one in the house. He likes having his children with him and enjoys having friends over. Tammy is from a big family and sometimes feels overwhelmed by lots of people and enjoys her time alone.

After a several day period of Tammy choosing to be alone, she called John on a Friday and let him know that she would be coming over to see him that evening. John was pleased and looking forward to seeing her but didn’t mention that he would have his two children with him and that his buddy, Frank, would also be there.

When Tammy arrived Friday evening John could see that she was put off by the presence of others in the house. He tried to engage her but was also responsive to the demands of his children and the game that he and Frank were watching on TV.

After about an hour, Tammy became very agitated and declared that she was leaving. She was clearly angry. John responded by being loud and demanding and demeaning and stated that, if that was the way she wanted to be, she could just go and take all of her stuff, too.

Saturday morning John was still very angry. He text messaged her (he knew she was at work) a couple of times saying mean things about her. He then realized that he was really scared about losing her. He apologized in a text message for his behavior. He called and left voice messages Saturday evening and Sunday. It was mid-week before Tammy called him back.

We sometimes use the terms expectations and standards interchangeably. I find it helpful to make a distinction between the two. I find it most helpful to have my expectations be exactly what is actually going to happen. I, of course, can’t always know what is going to happen, so I am sometimes surprised or disappointed. But the closer my expectations are to reality, the more I can accurately anticipate what my experience will be.

Tammy expected that when she got to John’s house that Friday it would be the beginning of a weekend alone with him the way so many other weekends had been. John expected that Tammy would join in the activities with Frank and his kids. They each harbored unreasonable expectations. They were both very disappointed.

Standards are the adjustable supports that hold the bar in the high jump. They can be set at different heights depending upon the ability of the high jumper. The height is set just slightly higher than the last jump that the athlete was able to make. Ideally, we want to have our standards be just a bit beyond what we are usually able to do. If they are too low, we sell ourselves short. If they are too high, we set ourselves up for continual failure.

Sometimes the standards that we set are not for our own behavior but for the behavior of others. We, in effect, tell them how they must be. We cannot, however, control their behavior. The result, then, is that when they don’t meet our standards we feel justified in abandoning our own standards in relationship to them. We start to make demands of them, they resist our demands, we get scared, and then we abandon our own standards for ourselves.

This is what John did. His standard for himself is to be considerate and calm in his relationship with Tammy. But he also set a standard for her wherein she was to be aware of and sensitive to the demands of other relationships in his life; willing to accommodate herself to his circumstances; and open to calmly discussing with him her feelings when her expectations are not being met. When she failed to meet his standards, he reacted by abandoning his own. As a consequence, he showed up in his relationship with her, not as someone who was curious about what to expect, or as someone who diligent about maintaining his own standards, but as someone who was demanding that she be who he expected her to be and punitive towards her when she was not.

Ideally then we are able to build expectations that are very close to what will actually happen, and have standards for ourselves that we maintain whether or not others meet our expectations. (See also boundaries, demands, tactics, and requests)

Feeling of sadness and disease of depression

Speaking Of Faith this morning is looking at the relationship between the feeling of sadness and the disease of depression. One of the guests points out that as a culture we have pathologized feelings, especially those that we consider to be "bad" feelings. If we don't like having the feeling, then we should get rid of the feeling. We do this by "getting over it." Sometimes we do this by just waiting and sometimes we have to actively suppress the awareness of the feeling, but what we almost never do is to pay attention to the feeling. "Don't dwell on it," we are told.

In contrast, what I tell myself and my clients is to use the feeling. It is important data. Emotions are a more refined form of sensation. If I feel hungry, I know to eat. If I feel sad, I know that I have experienced a loss that I will have to heal from.

The problem is that we don't always know what is causing the feeling. "Is this hunger or is it just the sensation I have when my stomach is empty?" Many of us can't tell the difference because we have always had food available. "Is this depression or is this sadness?" Sometimes we can't tell the difference.

And it becomes especially complicated because there actually is a connection between the two. Depression is the sensation we have when we have been working very hard for a long time to not feel our emotions. When I have many things going on in my life that are generating the feelings of hurt, fear, sadness, anger; and guilt and I have decided (though mostly not consciously) to not be conscious of the feelings; then it takes a huge amount of emotional energy to keep those feelings out of my consciousness. The result of that emotional effort is a complex set of sensations which form the syndrome we call depression.

I want to just add that I am only addressing here the awareness aspects of depression. There is also a set of causal factors that are related to physiology and genetics that give one a hindrance to emotional processing and a tendency for the appearance of depression. This is why it is so important to treat depression with medication when it lingers or is recurring.

So, remember that the thing to do with feelings is to feel them. They are information and we ignore them at our peril. When feelings arise…and they do all the time…feel into them and listen to them and allow them to teach you what they are about and where they are coming from.

Commentary on Northern Ireland

The power sharing agreement signed May 8^th in Northern Ireland between the Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionists, and Martin McGuinness, of Sinn Fein, is a huge step toward peace in a place that has been devastated by generations of bitter hatred, violence and bloodshed.

There are many reasons to suspect that the agreement will not hold. Among them;

· Each party remains committed to a political outcome that excludes the other;

· The two leaders are not co-equal in the agreement, and

· Even at the signing ceremony where Rev. Paisley and Mr. McGuinness were shaking hands with nearly everyone in the room, they didn’t shake hands with each other.

Still, this is such a huge step toward peace that it is almost universally seen as a tremendous coup for Tony Blair as he announced his resignation as the British Prime Minister.

“The Troubles” in Northern Ireland, as it has been known, has been one of the most intractable conflicts in the world. That the representatives of the most polarized parties to that conflict have been able to come together gives us reason for hope; and hope not just for other international hot spots like the Middle East and Africa, but even for our own work places, homes, and families.

Who among us has not thought, when considering a long-standing conflict with a family member or colleague at work, “That conflict just cannot be resolved.”

We may not yet see how or when a conflict may be resolved. But to say that it will not be, is to give ourselves permission to quit trying.

We can give thanks to the people of Northern Ireland that they have not quit trying.