Dear friend,
In all our relationships, personal or professional, new or old, there are expectations, and most of them are unspoken. They live in us like invisible background assessments. You have an idea of how things should be, how the other person should act, what they should and should not do. And when those expectations go unmet, we tend to fall into resentment and resignation. It happens in marriages, partnerships, friendships, between managers and employees. Expectations are present in all of it, and they almost always go un-negotiated.
The trouble is that we do not take responsibility for negotiating, for listening, for saying plainly what we actually want. If you have a complaint, that your partner shows no interest in something you care about, say, bring it up. Take full responsibility for what you want. Ask whether they are open to learning together, and invite them into the conversation.
Recently my partner complained that we do not do things together anymore. Honestly, I did not understand what she meant. So I asked her to take responsibility for teaching me what doing things together looks like. Now we go for walks, for dinners, we meet friends. Life is good. That is the essence of negotiation in a relationship: not threats, not demands, but a shared responsibility to teach and to learn from each other. Fail to do it and the relationship deteriorates.
More often than not, the two people do not have the same skill for navigating relationship. When one side will not learn or teach, resentment builds and an unhealthy future becomes inevitable. To break the cycle, we have to choose a different path, of openness, responsibility, and learning together. If you keep expecting things to happen without taking responsibility for your own satisfaction, you will get the obvious future, the one where nothing changes. But if you want a different future, one of workability, you have to be willing to change how you show up.
So when frustration or anger arises, do not reach for blame. Take responsibility and ask: what have I failed to talk to my partner about? Perhaps they have a condition for satisfaction that I have not been listening for. That shift, replacing resignation with conversation, is the key to authentic relationship. In love, friendship, or business, real workability comes from the willingness to listen, to learn, to teach, and to accept what genuinely cannot be changed, but only after you have truly explored it. Conversation is the foundation of a future that works for both of you.
With care,Saqib