Why I Stopped Expecting People to Love Me Like I Love Them

“Expectation is the root of all heartache.” ~William Shakespeare I turned forty this year. And I am only now figuring out something I wish someone had told me at twenty. Most of my pain—the kind that sat in my chest for days, the kind that made me replay conversations at 2 a.m., the kind that made me wonder what was wrong with me—was not really coming from other people. It was coming from what I expected them to do. I know. That is not an easy thing to hear. It wasn’t easy for me either. My Mother Never Knew She …