The Gentle Haven

Disappointment has always felt like enemy number one.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve worked hard to avoid disappointing anyone. It felt like the worst thing I could do to another person — a kind of emotional harm that couldn’t be undone. At the same time, I was just as afraid of allowing myself to be disappointed by others. So I adapted. Avoidance became my superpower.

To protect myself, I tried not to expect anything from anyone if I could help it. Disappointment, after all, comes from unmet expectations. And if I didn’t have expectations, I couldn’t be hurt — at least that’s what I told myself.

The problem was that while I lowered my expectations of others, I held impossibly high expectations for myself.

I believed the world expected perfection from me. I lived as if the people I loved were constantly evaluating my worth, waiting for me to fall short. Those expectations — most of them unspoken and unchecked — kept me in a near-constant state of anxiety and depression. I felt like a failure. Like a disappointment. Like my worthiness of love depended entirely on how well I performed.

I was in a constant fight — but not with anyone else.

I was fighting myself.

And here’s the hardest part to admit: I was the one setting those expectations. No one else.

I never actually checked in with my family, friends, or spouse to ask if these expectations were real. I never asked what they needed or expected from me. I just assumed — and then punished myself for not measuring up.

So why did I expect so much from myself, while feeling guilty for expecting even the bare minimum from others?

Because I was terrified of disappointment. Terrified that if I asked for too much, I would be seen as a burden. Terrified that unmet expectations would confirm my deepest fear — that I was unworthy of love.

Recently, I found myself in a situation that forced this pattern into the light. I ended up disappointing two people I deeply care about. Someone was going to be hurt no matter what — and it stemmed from my own avoidance.

Instead of communicating clear boundaries and honest feelings to one person, I tried to protect both people from discomfort. I wanted to shield them from the possibility of not meeting invisible expectations I believed they might be placing on each other. I thought I was preventing pain.

But in reality, I was postponing it.

When a situation unfolded that crossed boundaries I had been clearly given, but didn’t pass along because I wanted to avoid discomfort, everything fell apart at once. In trying to protect everyone from an uncomfortable moment, I created something far more painful. Both people were hurt — and so was I.

That realization hurt deeply — not because I disappointed others, but because I saw how my avoidance had caused the very pain I was trying to prevent.

So now I’m learning to ask a different set of questions.

When resentment or overwhelm starts to creep in, I pause. I take a breath. And I check in with reality.

Whose expectations am I trying to meet right now?
Are they real — or imagined?
Are they attainable?
And what would actually happen if I stopped trying to meet them?

I’m learning that disappointment isn’t always a failure. Sometimes it’s simply the cost of honesty. And honesty, while uncomfortable, hurts far less than abandoning myself in silence.