It takes something besides expectation to bring things to pass.

Things went from bad to worse. I contracted the worry habit and I fancy I had always been subject to the habit of fault-finding, though I did not then realize it. It is these critical, self-righteous, well-meaning people, you know, who get all their ideals smashed and are disappointed in life. They are subconsciously certain they know just how everybody ought to behave and as nobody behaves as they expect, and they can't make them over, they are grievously disappointed in all, themselves included. That was me all over. I tried and tried to make over my husband, my children, my friends, my house, and even my clothes and myself. I strained and strove. The sole result was that I spoiled my temper and my health, and my husband, children, friends grew more and more contrary. They were too individual to be made over.

And I was too positive and self-righteous to give it up. I kept on until I felt I had not a friend in the world, let alone a real husband or child. I developed heart trouble, and chronic sore throat and nervous headaches, punctuated by acute attacks of all sorts of things from "malaria" to diphtheria. And my nerves were torn to tatters. If it had not been for magnificent natural recuperative power born of ever-springing subconscious hope, I would have died, or killed myself. Nobody who has not been through the same hell can imagine half the tortures of such a life. And it took years to go through this hell and arrive at the culmination of all things, as it seemed to me then and does yet.