My husband and I slept on our new sheets. After a stressful day, there was no time for anything else but sleep. During our brief pillow talk he said: "I was expecting something more from these sheets." His observation took me by surprise because I thought the sheets were a little slice of heaven. My cotton t-shirt and sweatpants slid around on top of the smooth (un-pilled) surfaces. But for him,the sheets didn't meet his expectation. Maybe it was the hours of preparation, from shopping to washing to fixing the bed. Whatever the case, the sheets weren't "doing it for him." I think expectations are a big part of what gets in the way of experiences. So often we build things up in our minds: by 'fixing it" or "managing it" or "solving it." And then we bring our solution to our partner and it doesn't "do it." Both partners end up crushed because the expectation is that the solution will fix the problem. But what if we didn't identify the true problem.
There is a great line in the movie: "Is He the One?" Reese Witherspoon reluctantly seeks counseling. In her brief counseling encounter she asks if the counselor could give her one piece of advice, what would it be. The counsellor says: "Figure out what you need and ask for it."
This is priceless advice. It removes all the expectations that our partners can read our minds are fix our problems. It puts the responsibility on us, to spend time figuring out what we need and self-actualize enough to ask for it!
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