Hope Floats

There is a difference between hope and expectations. The dictionary defines hope as "the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best". It defines expectation as "the act or the state of expecting; to wait in expectation; the act or state of looking forward or anticipating."  So what's the difference? They sound almost the same don't they? Well, there is definitely a difference.
 
When you hope for something, you are leaving the door open to things not turning out the way you want them to. You hope that the person you love will love you back. You hope that the the things the person you love are saying to you are in fact true. You hope that you actually mean something to that person. This is in the beginning, when you have no choice but to hope, because it's all you have, you don't know. You are dealing with an absence of information, no experience with that person, a lack of connection. You're also dealing with that ever increasing "butterflies in your heart", hot flushed felling when you hear his voice, see his face and you can't help but allow yourself to hope. But in the beginning you know that there is a possibility that things won't go your way. You hope that he'll treat you with honesty, respect, and kindness, but the minute he doesn't, your hopes are dashed, the rose colored glasses ripped off your face, the cloud of attraction and desire dissipates and you easily give up the hope that you had that everything will turn out OK; because it's the beginning, and in the beginning, it's easy to give up hope, you're not loosing very much. What, you've had a couple of months or less with this person and they're already not treating you the way you should be treated? So you move on; a little stung, but you learn to hope for the next one. And there's always a next one...until there's not. 

Once you've been in a relationship with someone for a while, that hope that was so prevalent in the beginning has now turned into expectation. Once you have experience with this person, things have been said, promises have been made, and a connection has been forged. The expectations get higher and higher as your time together increases. You don't just "hope" that he'll treat you with honesty, respect, and kindness, you "expect" that he will. You expect that he will call or see you on special days, your birthday, Valentines day, holidays. You expect that he will show up for special events in your life, or at the very least, plan to. You expect flowers, on special occasions, or sometimes just because. You expect him to express how he feels about you, and you expect him to not just "want" to see you, but to actually see you, spend time with you face to face, in each other's presence, because this after all is what makes the bond between you grow stronger. Some of us, as we get further along in a relationship, expect marriage and children. For others of us, we're getting a little long in tooth for those sort of expectations and so we're just satisfied with the expectation of growing "older" together. Maybe we don't even expect marriage because at our age, we quite possibly have already been through one or more of those and it didn't turn out too well and has soured our view of the institution. As Henry Louis Mencken said "Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution".

So, what do you do when your expectations haven't been met? You've gone so far into the relationship that your hope turned to expectation and your expectation turned to bitter disappointment, anger, heartbreak and now, hopelessness. You are left with a pit in your stomach so large you could fit the Olympic Stadium in there. You constantly ask yourself why, why did this person do this to me? And how, how could this person who said and did all these nice things to get me involved in a relationship with them, now is acting like the biggest asshole that ever walked the earth? And the ever important, what is it about this person that causes me to still love them even though they are being such a jerk? What is wrong with me that I still care about this person when they couldn't even behave in a normal way, or treat me with the respect, dignity and honesty that every one of us deserves?

To be completely honest here, I have no earthly idea what you do! You can try to make it right, try to reason with him but there's one thing I do know, you can't be reasonable with an unreasonable person. And let's face it, any one who cons you into a relationship for their own purposes, who can't be honest, and who is so self absorbed that they can't see past the nose on their own face, is not really going to give a crap about how you feel. I'm sorry if that's harsh but I'm trying to keep it real. Not just for my readers but for myself as well.