Last summer, I wrote about the importance of managing your expectations when you’re just getting to know someone. But, what about when you have a history with someone? What if you know them well? Histories often come with complications. There are reasons you aren’t together or that you haven’t gone all in. How to manage your relationship expectations with someone when you’re further down the road?

In managing your expectations, it’s key to be honest with yourself and truth out the situation. This requires zooming out from the situation emotionally, to consider it more objectively. The good thing is, time can make this easier. You may feel strong connection to a person, but may no longer be in throes of excitement of the early days of connection. Your emotions may be more manageable with time. This, in turn, can make your expectations easier to manage.

You Know What You Know

If someone’s been in your life for a while, but it hasn’t manifested as a relationship; isn’t currently manifesting as a relationship; or isn’t manifesting at the level of relationship you’d like, you still have the advantage of information. You’ve been down this road and seen the landscape. You’ve had an opportunity to learn them; discern the dynamic between yourselves; and you have a shared history that you can learn from.

When we don’t learn from our history, we often doom ourselves to repeating it. But, we can choose to be intentional about learning from our histories, including our relationship and romantic histories. And, by doing so, we can make conscious and informed choices within those contexts.

You Know Them

Over time, you’ve had the chance to learn them–their strengths, their faults, their appeal, their annoyances. Be well-attuned to all of their qualities, not just their more attractive ones. We aren’t teenagers anymore, so ensure that you’re not looking at them through rose-colored glasses, but that you’re seeing them in all their human dimensionality.

For me, Isaac is one of the funniest people I know. He makes me laugh. Being with him is fun. When he invited me for a visit last summer, I happily accepted.

One morning, as I was making toast, he sidled up to me and asked, “Do you know what’s worse than a Cuisinart toaster?”

“No,” I responded, looking at him quizzically.

“Nothing!” He replied with a smile.

Isaac makes something as quotidian as making toast, fun. Yet, he’s not consistently reliable about showing up. Several times over the years, he’s backed out of our rendezvous, for various reasons. I know I can count on him in the general (he’s been there for me on some dark days), but not always in the specific. I know this about him, and I can’t expect it to change unless he demonstrates different behavior on a consistent basis. And it’s my job to pay attention and note if he does.

You Know Yourself

Not only have you had the chance to get to know them well over time, you’ve known yourself even longer! Be honest with yourself about your own strengths and weaknesses, both as an individual and regarding them. Use this self-knowledge to help you discern how to handle the situation in a way that you can manage and that supports your best self-interest.

When I met Isaac, I fell for him immediately. In the intervening years, I’ve been through a lot. I’m a feeling person and an empath, but over the years, I’ve also emotionally toughened up. I’m a different version of myself than the woman he originally met. This affects my interactions, expectations, and choices regarding him in the specific, as well as more broadly in my life.

You Know Your Shared History

So you’ve been down the road with them for a bit, maybe taking off-ramps here and there, but you’re still on the same road, even if you aren’t always travelling in tandem. At this point, you’re cognizant of your relationship dynamic, the energy and chemistry between you. You also know what you’ve experienced together and done to each other–both the good stuff and the bad bits.

My History with Isaac

In my case, Isaac’s been in my life for twelve years. We’ve never been in a committed romantic relationship, but we’ve had several dates and rendezvous over the years. Over time, we’ve become friends, with complications. There were a couple of angry years where we went without talking to each other, but we’ve also seen each other through romantic disappointments, as well as flirted and found our way back to each other.

There’s always been a reason why we haven’t manifested as a couple. His reasons have changed over time, but he’s always had a reason. With time, I’ve come to a better understanding of him and his reasons. And, I’ve come to accept him as he is.

Admittedly, I don’t appreciate feeling like I’m somehow insufficient in his eyes, but he gets to determine what he wants. And to date, I continue to accept the terms of our relationship/non-relationship because I like having him in my life. My life is better for his presence in it.

My Managed Expectations

When Isaac invited me to come for a visit, I gladly accepted. We arranged for a three-day visit, longer than we’ve ever spent together. I didn’t know how it would go, but I was intrigued to find out. For everything we’ve been through, I find him compelling, and I care about him. And, whatever might happen, I knew at this point in my journey that I could handle it.

For the three days I was with him, I was happy. That’s no small thing. I savored our time together. And, perhaps that’s all I get. Regardless, it was worth it. And now, we’ll see what happens, or doesn’t, on the other side of those three days.

I’m an expansive person, and ironically, he both expands me, while putting limits on us. I accept that. He’s worth having in my life, even with limits. I can’t say that about every man I’ve cared for. But because of those limits, I’m cautious about how much oxygen I give to my feelings and expectations.

Should a man surface who makes me feel as expansive as I do with Isaac but without the limits, or should I tire of this version of what we are, I can always impose my own limits. Alternatively, should Isaac continue to broaden what we can be, I can give more oxygen to my feelings and expectations. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying him and us for whatever we are.

What Can You Handle?

For now, I’m at a place where I’ve come to accept my relationship with Isaac for whatever it is or isn’t, even with limits. I don’t have to, but I do. Absent Isaac expanding his limits, I can create my own terms for what we are, should I choose to, knowing that doing so might further limit what we are. For whatever reason, at this point, I’m able to manage living with his terms. But, I haven’t been able to accept every man’s limits.

Evan was upfront that he didn’t see a long-distance relationship “in the stars” for him, despite having had an international long-distance relationship with his ex. Nevertheless, he was drawn to my profile and wanted to get to know me better.

We spent over a year talking on the phone regularly, and we became close–so close that it became difficult for me to live with his limitations, even though he’d been very upfront about them. Because of this, I eventually put limitations on our interactions. Emotionally, it ended up being easier not to talk to him at all.

So, what can you handle? What can you manage without causing yourself undue pain? And what might be worth any fallout? Use your knowledge of yourself, of them, and of your shared history to help determine what you can handle. This will help you better manage your relationship expectations and navigate whatever relationship you have. And most important–make sure that you’re taking good care of yourself.

Beware of Hope

Hope’s a tricky thing. It can be a helpful coping mechanism, but it can also be a real bitch. A lack of any Hope is a dark place to live, but Hope indulged too much can set you up for disappointment.

Truth It Out

Truthing it out means being honest with yourself about the realities of your situation. It requires zooming out emotionally, and looking at facts, events, words, and actions through a rational lens.

I can Hope that maybe Isaac will continue to expand what we are even further. It’s even possible that Evan could have an Aha! moment and realize that I’m worth the work of long distance. Either of those could happen. But, I have a lot of experience with both men, and I need to factor that history into my accounting of each situation. So, how much oxygen am I going to feed that Hope with? I’m very careful about that. Isaac is still showing up, so that situation gets oxygen. Evan isn’t, so that situation is oxygen starved.

What are the Truths of your situation?

Keep Your Hope and Expectations Realistic

A more realistic Hope in my case, would be that someday I find right relationship with a man who I have a special connection with. Now, I have fifteen years of being single that would argue that might not happen. But, in those fifteen years, I’ve also dated a lot of men, had some relationships, and made some special connections. I only need one man to get it right with. By keeping Hope more generalized than specific, we’re less likely to set ourselves up for disappointment.

In the specific, regarding Isaac, we’ve grown closer over the years, and it wouldn’t be unrealistic to Hope that we continue to do so. But what that might look like, I need to be careful not to put any expectation on. And, as long as I can manage that, I can enjoy what we are, rather than worry about what we aren’t.

What hopes and expectations are realistic for you? Do you need to generalize any Hope?

Take Action. Or Don’t.

How do you feel about your situation? Is it acceptable? Are there aspects to your relationship(s)/situation that are upsetting or difficult to manage?

If your situation is manageable, then maybe you let things be. But, if it’s emotionally distressing or unsatisfying at some level, you may want to take action and do something different. With Isaac, it’s manageable. With Evan, the situation became emotionally untenable, so I stepped back from our connection.

Some other examples:

Tiffany

Tiffany has been dating Rob for several years. Rob is twice-divorced and has vowed never to get married again. Tiffany would very much like to get married. She’s stayed in the relationship because she cares about Rob, but she also hopes that someday he’ll change his mind.

Tiffany is playing the Hope and Wait game. It’s a gambling game with poor odds. Rob holds all the trump cards. He has everything he wants–their relationship is on his terms.

Last I heard, Tiffany and Rob moved in together. They upped their game. Maybe this will give Tiffany more satisfaction. Maybe Rob will even come around to wanting more someday. But for now, she either needs to accept what Rob willingly offers or, if it really isn’t enough, find the wherewithal to claim what she wants, even if it means walking away if Rob won’t give it to her.

The question is does she want this relationship, or does she want a certain level of relationship? Either way, pining for more doesn’t feel like a satisfactory way to live.

Stanley

Stanley and I dated for four years. When we started dating, he was “temporarily” sharing a house with his ex, an arrangement quaintly called “nesting,” where the parents move in and out of the house so the children don’t have to relocate.

I could easily fill a manuscript with how toxic and unhealthy nesting is, and perhaps someday I will, but for now, my point is that when we started dating, the arrangement was supposedly temporary. I was told it was a post-divorce transition to ease the children into their new reality. There was even a purported date to end this arrangement. If there hadn’t been, I probably never would have gone out with him at all.

The thing is, the date came and went. It was moved back from February to July. Then July came and went. At this point, I was emotionally involved, and though I found the arrangement nauseating, I tolerated it, playing the Hope and Wait game. Waiting for things to change. Hoping that Stanley saw my value and prioritized me. Hoping and Waiting, with my needs and feelings on the backburner.

Oh, what effed up martyrdom. Shockingly (read with sarcasm), my Hopes went unfulfilled. After all, I enabled him and his situation. I gave him all the trump cards. He was winning the game (By the way, a healthy relationship is NEVER about winning, but that’s another blog post.), and I let him. I only bested him when I walked away from the game altogether. There came a point when I simply no longer wanted to play. The thing is, we should have been on the same team instead of playing against each other.

You

It’s up to you to determine what you can handle in your relationships. Anchor yourself in truths. If you’ve been in relationship with someone for a while, there probably won’t be a sudden dramatic shift in your relationship, like an on-off switch, but the dimmer switch may move a little.

Some things to consider:

What are your needs? Can you advocate for your needs? If so, what does that look like?

How flexible are you about how the relationship manifests? What are you willing to accept? Where can you compromise? How long are you willing to Hope and Wait? Can you temper your Hope, managing your relationship expectations in a reasonable way?

And, where do you need to draw the line to take care of yourself?

Final Thoughts

When you’re just getting to know someone, you don’t know what you don’t know. But, when you’ve been in relationship with someone for a while, you have the advantage of knowing the lay of the land. This knowledge can you truth out your situation and manage your expectations about the relationship in a realistic way.

Unless one of you ends your connection in the near future, you’re still in the middle of whatever relationship you have. Enjoy yourself and the relationship as much as you’re able. And if you’re not enjoying the connection in its current state, it begs the question why, and it’s worth examining.

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Good luck out there!