Expectation of others is a slippery slope. We can't know what to expect from them because we are not them, in their situations. We don't "know" them.

The best way I know of to get my expectations met is to voice them, both as what I would like from another person (so they know what I would like/am expecting; no fair expecting something from another who is clueless? :-) and after, if I don't think to let them know ahead of time and find myself surprised and with unmetedness - "Gee, I was hoping for X. . ." and discussing it with the other person so, with that person, in the future one's expectations are more likely to be met?

But first, recognizing that expectations are about what we would like, what we want and acknowledging that; that other people may not like, want or expect those things is important. My stepmother would stay up all night, the martyr, making me clothes or working on a project for me and then get all bent out of shape when I wouldn't get excited. Who asked her to stay up all night? She did! Her unmet expectations are due to her own actions, not mine. Waking a teenager at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning and dragging them out to the garage to look at the wonderful project she worked on all night is begging for disappointment?

I think we have a responsibility to be "reasonable". Yes, I should be thankful for gifts from my stepmother but I am not responsible for her disappointment; it is the storyline she created in her own head that got her in trouble, not me and my selfish teenage self. One has to want to do the things one does, not for praise, love, acknowledgement but for one's self, first, and all the rest is gravy.

There's a difference though between the storyline/fantasy of what we see happening in a situation and just lowering our expectations, I think. Lowering expectations means, "Okay, I'll give her this gift that I slaved all night on but she's a teenager, she isn't necessarily going to jump for joy; don't expect her to jump for joy. . ." it is still based on false assumptions about the other person and our view of ourselves and the situation; it isn't helpful to us?

Think about the bike under the Christmas tree scenario? Usually, it's a first bike and the parent knows the kid wants it desperately and it's Christmas morning, good setup for young kids. They jump for joy. When I was older, my brother and I got bikes for Christmas but we were 10 and 12, on the very edge of bike riding age, hadn't asked for bikes, they were no-speed, vanilla, cheap (not appropriate for our ages/tastes/interests/needs), we were not allowed to ride them, had to leave immediately for a 5-hour car trip to go out-of-state, up to the grandparents house, etc. Disappointment all around? I'm reminded of the checks my grandparents would send for birthdays/Christmas that I was required to immediately put in some savings account at the bank; how exciting was it to receive those checks? They were meaningless to me!