Disappointment: A Failed Hope or a Plot Twist?
Disappointment: A Failed Hope or a Plot Twist?
By: Grace Spencer, Psy.D.
July 1, 2025
“It’s not supposed to be this way.” The thought echoed in my mind, growing louder like a bell’s reverberating gong. Six months pregnant with my first child, just two years after losing my mother to breast cancer, I sat in my therapist’s office, grappling with what it meant to enter motherhood without her. The life I imagined—full of Thanksgivings at Mom’s table, family vacations, or late-night phone calls for parenting advice—was far from my reality. The grief of these unmet expectations was crushing.
The stories we tell ourselves about how life “should” be are our expectations. We prepare for a job interview, so we “should” be a finalist. We help our kids with homework, so they “should” excel academically. We invest in friendships, expecting mutual care. Yet, life often shows us that effort doesn’t guarantee the outcomes we desire. These “shoulds” that don’t materialize become disappointment.
The word “disappointment” comes from the Old French desapointement, meaning a “failure of hope or expectation.”1 That’s exactly how I felt—my hope for a mother-guided entry into motherhood defeated. My mantra, “it’s not supposed to be this way,” captured the essence of disappointment: a life diverging from the story I envisioned.
Curiously, forgiveness shares a similar theme of upending life’s “shoulds.” When someone wrongs us, we expect justice or repayment, but it often doesn’t come. Even when it does, it may feel hollow. Forgiveness, however, transforms this emotional debt. Instead of resentment, we offer compassion—like speaking kindly to a spouse after a fight or gently reminding a forgetful child about chores. Forgiveness shifts what’s “owed” into an act of undeserved mercy.
The weight of my disappointment began to lift as I let go of my idealized life story and embraced the one I was actually living. In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, this is called psychological flexibility2—or, more simply, embracing the plot twist. Forgiveness was the key to activating this shift. It revealed my deep disappointment toward God and myself for how my motherhood journey unfolded.
Forgiving God, or a higher power, may feel unusual, but viewing it as an interpersonal relationship makes it accessible. Robert Enright, a forgiveness scholar, offers a clear process for this in his model:
1. Uncover the Hurt: Name the pain and specifics of the disappointment, whether toward God, a person, or yourself.
2. Commit to Forgive: Recognize that clinging to “shoulds” traps you in the past. Choose to forgive to move forward.
3. Work Through: See the offender (even God) beyond the offense, fostering empathy to soften anger or resentment.
4. Deepen: Reframe the pain to find meaning, releasing bitterness and recognizing that we, too, receive forgiveness from others.
Disappointment is universal, marking moments where our stories don’t align with our hopes. Forgiveness challenges disappointment’s narratives by expanding our understanding of the past to support a more fulfilling and hopeful future.
