Stop Ruining Your Relationship By Putting Expectations On It

You are not a storm and he is not a tornado but you love each other the way the wolves do. With the intention of mating for life. With the want and hope of making this last forever. You have wished upon enough stars to understand that dead things do not grant wishes and the truth is in this life, you need to work to keep love alive. The Cinderellas and Snow Whites that walked off with their princes into the sunsets and were never heard from again will tell you that the sunset is where the real fight begins. That dragons and potions and curses are easier than trying to keep a relationship alive – and the truest enemy your relationship is going to face is expectation. And the sooner you realise that, the more likely you are to keep your love alive.

You see, every story you will ever read makes love seem like a magical thing, true love is perfect and given to those who seek it and put everything on hold for it. But we all know that love isn’t something that is measured in quantities and handed to us according to the way we want. If you are fortunate enough to be with someone who wants to be with you and loves you, stop ruining it by putting so many expectations on them to be and act a certain way around you all the time.

Expectations are poison. They find their way into every relationship and have a habit of becoming heavier and heavier until the very foundations of you crack and become something they are not supposed to. Expectations teach you to believe in the singular. That there is only one way to love someone, one true way to show them they are appreciated. This is the biggest lie I have ever had to wake myself up from. The truth is, people are different. So the way they love is completely different. That’s right. Seven billion people in this world, love in seven billion completely unique ways.

It is a strange and beautiful thing how everyone loves in a different way. You have to really watch for it to see it. Some people love flowers and messages. Others with cigarettes and long walks in the rain. Some love without actually ever saying ‘I love you’, they just say it in different ways (‘I made you lunch.’ ‘Please be safe.’ ‘Call me when you get home so I know you’re okay’). Some people love in mellow silences and poetry, whilst others love in passionate arguments and heated debates.

And yes, people are not going to love you the exact way that you want them to love you. They will not love you in the way you think you deserve all the time. It will never ever be perfect. But you don’t want a perfect love. What you want, what we all want is a real love.

So stop expecting your love to invoke storms, instead, love each other the way that wolves do when they mate for life. Without expectation, with honesty and with open hearted acceptance that their love isn’t perfect but neither is yours.

But what you have is something real. And something that is real is so much better than something perfect. Always.