How do we know when our Expectations are recognized (this is different from being met) by our partner?
We don't. Which is bad. What makes it worse is that our partners in fact don't seem to do a very good job of "seeing" our Expectations.
In re: @Thinker's tiredness and @Greek's evaluation of Mrs. SP (both upthread):
Dana V. Hiller and William W. Philliber, "The Division of Labor in Contemporary Marriage: Expectations, Perceptions and Performance," Social Problems, vol. 33, no. 3 (Feb 1986).
[A bit dated, but the pattern is probably not all that variable.]
Abstract: "In this paper we examine the marital role expectations and perceptions of spouses' role expectations with respect to childcare, housework, money management, and earning income in a sample of 489 married couples. We analyze the degree of agreement between spouses about expectations, accuracy of perceptions about a partner's expectations, the differences between expectations and behaviors, and the effects of expectations and perceptions of expectations on role performance. Results indicate that: (1) marriage partners do not want to give up their own traditional gender roles even though they are willing to participate in the traditional roles of the oppose sex; (2) spouses accurately perceive their partners' expectations about half the time, and husbands are more accurate than wives; (3) spouses think they carry more responsibility for household duties than their partners think they do; (4) perceptions of partner's expectations significantly influence spouses' role performances; and (5) the husband's expectations are powerful predictors of performance, indicating that male prerogatives in marital role bargaining are still quite strong." (Emphasis w/ respect to SP's sitch added)
WAW wants to be Soccer Mom and Hi-Powered Independent Woman; SP wants to be Mr. Mom and Medium-Powered Smiley's Person.
WAW assumes SP doesn't meet her expectations out of spite because he "should know" what they are; SP assumes WAW doesn't care about his expectations, since he has told her what they are and she still doesn't meet them, and so stops mentioning them.
WAW perceives herself "doing more" for the family unit than SP does; SP perceives WAW as doing roughly the same (but in different spheres) as he does.
