When the Person You Loved Never Existed: How Projecting False Expectations Destroys Relationships

You know that quiet sinking feeling when someone you love shows you, again, that they're not who you built them up to be? The moment you realize the storyline you've been holding onto no longer fits the real human in front of you? Maybe it happens with a partner, a friend, a parent, or even a colleague. You notice the gap, the disappointment, the grief you didn't expect to feel.

Most of us have lived this. Many of us are living it right now.

For so many white women, especially those of us raised in communities where we were culturally centered and affirmed, there's an inherited habit of projecting our worldview onto others. We create internal storylines: This is who they'll be. This is how they'll show up. This is what our relationship will look like. And then we cling to those stories long after the real person has shown us something different.

That gap between the story and the truth is where so much harm grows.

In a recent podcast episode, Karen and I talked about how often we, as white women, struggle to accept people as they truly are; not because we're intentionally controlling, but because projection is familiar, comfortable, and deeply cultural. And when those projections break, we often experience grief, resentment, stress, or even self-righteousness.

Today, I want to unpack what projecting expectations really does to our relationships, why we inherit this behavior, and what research says about how we can begin to shift it.

How White Cultural Norms Shape Projection

Projection doesn't appear from nowhere; it's learned.

In predominantly white, Christian, individualistic cultures, many of us grow up with a worldview where our preferences, interpretations, and emotional experiences are treated as the default. Sociologists describe this as cultural centrism: the unconscious belief that our way of seeing the world is normal and shared (1).

When a culture repeatedly tells you that your lens is the universal one, you're less likely to check your assumptions. Less likely to pause before deciding what someone else will feel, do, or want. Less likely to acknowledge that other people's inner worlds are different.

Layered onto this is the legacy of what scholars describe as white emotional expectation; the belief that one's comfort, predictability, and preferences should be accommodated by others (2). When this becomes ingrained, projection becomes second nature.

So when we imagine a relationship unfolding a certain way or assume someone's values match our own, we're not just making a personal mistake. We're reenacting inherited patterns.

The Psychology Behind Our Imagined Versions

In the podcast episode, Karen brought up Self-Discrepancy Theory, introduced by psychologist E. Tory Higgins in 1987. It describes the internal gap between our actual self (who we currently are), our ideal self (who we aspire to be), and our ought self (who we believe we should be based on duty or obligation).

These discrepancies don't just affect how we see ourselves; they spill outward. We take the identities others present (their "ideal" or "ought" versions), and we build expectations around them. When their actual self emerges, the storyline collapses.

What we feel next isn't just disappointment.

It's grief.

When Your Mental Story Dies

This might sound dramatic, but it's true: when the imagined version of someone dies, we mourn.

On the podcast, Karen described grieving not the real person, but the story she created about them; the future she hoped for, the ideal she built in her mind.

Psychologists confirm this: when expectations break, our brains process it similarly to other forms of loss (3). The imagined version of the person was real in our emotional world, and its disappearance triggers:

• sadness

• confusion

• anger

• denial

• attempts to renegotiate the story

But because these aren't traditional losses, we rarely name them as grief. Instead, we turn that grief into something else: resentment that asks, "Why aren't they who I thought they were?" We might develop a sense of self-righteousness, convincing ourselves we know the "better" way to be. Or we attempt to control the situation, pushing harder in hopes that the person will change to match our story. And in white culture, where control and certainty are seen as virtues, those reactions can feel natural, even justified.

Knowing the Difference Between Projection and Broken Promises

During our conversation, I pushed back on one point: projection isn't the same as someone failing to follow through on who they claimed to be. There's a critical difference between projecting an identity onto someone and someone actually misrepresenting themselves. One is our work to address. One is theirs. Many white women collapse those categories. We're taught to doubt our own perceptions and assume the burden of emotional responsibility (4). So it becomes easy to think, "I expected too much," or "I'm the one who needs to adjust." Sometimes that's true. Sometimes it's not. The work is learning to identify the difference.

How Chronic Stress Harms Your Body

When we refuse to release the stories we've built about people, the stress compounds.

As we discussed on the show, chronic stress symptoms often manifest in our bodies in ways we might not immediately connect to our emotional struggles. You might notice your breathing becoming shallow throughout the day, or feel persistent tightness in your shoulders and neck. Your thoughts may race uncontrollably, making it difficult to focus or be present. Sleep becomes fragmented, leaving you exhausted but unable to rest deeply. And your emotional reactivity increases, causing you to snap at small inconveniences or feel overwhelmed by minor setbacks.

Research by Cohen and colleagues found that chronic psychological stress leads to glucocorticoid receptor resistance, which prevents the body from properly regulating inflammation. This inflammatory response has been linked to increased risk for depression, heart disease, infectious diseases, and other health conditions. And unmet expectations, especially in close relationships, are one of the most common sources of chronic stress.

As Karen reminded me in our conversation, chronic stress is as harmful as smoking. If you're in this space where you're not accepting someone, and part of it is because you haven't done your own internal grief work, you're going to carry chronic stress in your body.

Your body feels the story breaking long before your mind admits it.

Why White Women Struggle More with Projection

There's an uncomfortable truth here: projection is reinforced by privilege.

As I said on the podcast, white women are often raised in environments where our feelings are prioritized above others', where our preferences are seen as universal rather than personal, where our expectations are assumed to be reasonable by default, and where our desires are rarely challenged or questioned.

This creates what I described as "a very centric individualistic view." We're taught to be the focus. Society is built for us. And because we hold majority culture status, we don't have to constantly think outside of ourselves or consider different perspectives the way people from marginalized communities do.

This learned behavior means there's often not a need to think beyond our own worldview. The habit of projecting our perspective onto other people becomes greater, more automatic. We expect others to "get it" because our experience has always been centered as the norm.

So when someone doesn't fit the version we've created, when they don't show up how we imagined, it feels like a rupture. But the rupture isn't them. It's the story.

How to Stop Projecting and Build Healthier Relationships

Here are evidence-based practices for breaking projection cycles and reducing the relational harm they create:

1. Name the Mental Story You Created About Them

Research shows that labeling internal narratives helps disrupt their power (6). This practice requires honest self-reflection. Ask yourself: What story did I build about them? When did I create it, and what circumstances led me to construct this particular narrative? Most importantly, what was I hoping for when I built this version of them in my mind? By naming the story explicitly, you begin to separate fantasy from reality.

2. Distinguish Between Your Projections and Their Actions

This is emotional boundary-setting 101. Your projection belongs to you alone; it's your responsibility to examine and release. Their choices, however, are not yours to control or claim ownership over. The gap between what you imagined and what is real represents a shared reality that both of you must navigate, but the work of letting go of the projection is yours alone.

3. Use Visualization to Release the Imagined Version

This was a practice Karen described on the show; a form of symbolic grief release.

Visualization, according to several studies, helps the brain reorganize emotional memory (7).

4. Practice Acceptance Without Agreement

It's essential to understand that acceptance doesn't mean approval of someone's actions or choices. Rather, it means seeing clearly what is true. Acceptance is about acknowledging reality as it exists, not as you wish it to be. This clarity allows you to make informed decisions about the relationship moving forward, rather than continuing to operate from a place of denial or false hope.

5. Examine How Privilege Shapes Your Expectations

This requires ongoing self-examination. Ask yourself difficult questions: Am I assuming my perspective is universal, that everyone sees the world the way I do? Am I expecting a level of comfort or alignment that isn't actually owed to me in this relationship? Am I centering myself in a situation that isn't fundamentally about me, making someone else's choices or struggles about my own feelings? These questions help reveal where privilege has created blind spots in how we relate to others.

6. Extend Compassion to Yourself Too

Remember that you learned projection from somewhere; it was modeled and reinforced throughout your life. This awareness doesn't excuse the harm projection can cause, but it does provide context for why this pattern feels so automatic.

Karen shared her own journey with this, talking about how she had to do significant grief work before she could truly accept my dad for who he actually is, not who she projected him to be. She had forgotten, when we first discussed acceptance weeks earlier, all the moments of incredible sadness, anger, and denial she had to move through to get to that place of genuine acceptance.

The good news is that what was learned can be unlearned. With consistent practice and self-compassion, you can develop new ways of relating to others that honor both their reality and your own.

Breaking Cycles of Projection

Every broken expectation is an invitation: to grieve, to release, and to grow in how we show up for others.

The question I leave you with is the same one we posed on the podcast:

What version of someone have you been holding onto, and are you willing to let that story go?

Stay curious, be open and keep waking up,

Jonelle

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This article draws from conversations featured in the White Women Wake Up podcast, Episode 51: "When Expectations Break Us: Acceptance, Grief, and Letting People Be Themselves." In this episode, Karen and Jonelle explore the uncomfortable truth behind accepting people as they are, examining self-discrepancy theory by E. Tory Higgins and how our inner narratives spill outward, shaping the expectations we place on others.

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References

1. Andersen, M. L., & Hill Collins, P. Race, Class & Gender: An Anthology.

2. DiAngelo, R. White Fragility.

3. Neimeyer, R. A. (2000). Grief and the Construction of Meaning.

4. Gilligan, C. In a Different Voice.

5. Cohen, S., Janicki-Deverts, D., Doyle, W.J., Miller, G.E., Frank, E., Rabin, B.S., & Turner, R.B. (2012). Chronic stress, glucocorticoid

receptor resistance, inflammation, and disease risk. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(16), 5995-5999.

6. Pennebaker, J. W. (1997). Expressive Writing and Emotional Processing.

7. Kosslyn, S. M. (1994). Image and Brain: The Resolution of the Imagery Debate.

8. Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94(3), 319-340.