Year 2, Week 45: Don’t Assume He Can Read Your Mind

I don’t know why women do this. Or maybe it’s not even all women. Maybe it’s just me.

I have a picture of how I’d like Cody to act. Said a different way, I have expectations of what he might do or say that I hope become reality. Example? When I have a big concert coming up, I assume Cody will see the event on our Google calendar and make plans to be there.

But then, that day, if I don’t bring it up and invite him, he probably won’t go.

He would have expected me to communicate my desires with him earlier. That I hadn’t said a peep (even know I brought it up almost every day and brought up stories of me preparing for this concert for a few days now…)

Arrrrghhh. SO frustrating.

Maybe, when we first started dating, I didn’t communicate my desire because I was “testing” to see if he was the ‘right’ guy. That was a failed experiment.

How in the world was Cody supposed to read my mind? He didn’t know me well enough. By not telling him what I wanted and then got mad when he didn’t deliver, I was setting him up for failure.

It’s like asking my students where their project is, getting mad when they don’t have it, and ignoring them when they cry, “But you didn’t even tell us we had homework!”

To which I would reply: Well you should have known, students, by all of my passive-aggressive comments and subtly dropped hints this week that there was going to be a 10 minute presentation from each student today on the beginnings of civilization. Looks like you really messed that one up. Sorry, kid, you fail, for not being a better listener. 

As much as it pains me to be so darn detailed about something I’d love to be a surprise, mysterious expectations are a lose-lose situation. Sure, such explicit communication makes me feel like I’m being demanding when I’m laying out exactly what I’d like, but it makes Cody more than happy to listen and accommodate when he can.

Moral of the story – explicit communication of expectations totally kills any romance, but the reality of peace and security in the relationship is worth it.

Don’t set your partner up for failure. Tell ’em what you want.