Ndeshi had a list. Not the cute kind people joke about on social media, but an actual note on her phone titled "Non-Negotiables," updated every time a relationship ended badly. By the time she met Uatjavi at a friend's braai, the list had 43 items on it, ranging from "must own a car" to "must never raise his voice, ever, under any circumstance, even in traffic."
She was proud of that list. She believed it had protected her from heartbreak. What she did not yet understand was that somewhere between item 12 and item 40, her standards had quietly become expectations no real human being could survive.
This is where our story begins with a woman sitting on a friend's veranda, watching a kind, funny, slightly awkward man struggle to light the fire for the braai, and feeling annoyed that he did not already know how.
That small moment of judgment, so easy to dismiss, is actually the exact place where healthy standards and impossible expectations start to look identical.
A standard protects you, while an expectation controls the other person. A standard says, "I need to be treated with respect and honesty." An expectation says, "You must never disagree with me in public, never have a bad day, never need space, and never be anything other than exactly what I imagined before I met you."
One comes from self-worth. The other comes from fear, or from wounds nobody has properly looked at yet.
Ndeshi did not realise her list had crossed that line until Uatjavi, three months into dating her, sat quietly across the table one evening and said, "I think you are waiting for me to fail," not angrily, just tired.
"Every time I make a small mistake, you look at me like I've confirmed something you already suspected."
She wanted to argue. Instead, she went home that night and reread her own list with fresh eyes, and for the first time, she felt embarrassed by some of what she found there.
Why This Confusion Is So Common
Many young people today have grown up watching painful examples of what happens when standards are too low, when people stay in relationships that hurt them because they were taught to endure rather than choose.
In trying to correct that, an entire generation has swung toward building emotional fortresses instead, mistaking rigidity for wisdom. It is an understandable overcorrection, but an overcorrection nonetheless, and it deserves honesty rather than judgment.
Here are some patterns worth recognising directly to loosen their grip:
- Healthy standards focus on character and behaviour, such as honesty, respect, and effort. Impossible expectations focus on control, such as demanding someone never change, never struggle, or never need anything from you.
- Healthy standards allow room for someone to make mistakes and grow. Impossible expectations treat one mistake as permanent evidence of who a person is.
- Healthy standards are usually short and few, because they protect what truly matters. Impossible expectations tend to multiply endlessly, because fear is never satisfied.
- Healthy standards can be explained calmly, in a single sentence. Impossible expectations often require long justifications, because deep down, even the person holding them senses they are unreasonable.
- Healthy standards leave room for cultural, financial, and personal differences. Impossible expectations often quietly demand a version of a partner shaped by comparison to someone else's life, without acknowledging the different realities people come from.
- Healthy standards can bend without breaking under real, human circumstances. Impossible expectations shatter entirely the moment reality does not match the fantasy.
What This Means for You, Reading This Right Now
Ask yourself some direct questions.
1 - Does this standard protect your safety, your dignity, or your basic wellbeing?
2 - Or does it demand perfection from another flawed human being, the same kind of perfection you likely could not offer them in return?
3 - Are you willing to explain this standard out loud to a trusted friend without feeling the need to justify it endlessly?
If you find yourself constructing elaborate reasons for a rule, that reaction itself is worth paying attention to.
Noticing is not failure; it is growth. Many good, loving people carry expectations shaped by past pain, by cultural pressure, or by fear of being hurt again, and unlearning that takes patience with yourself as much as with your partner.
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