Struggle with expectation (4)
I believe the answer is:
view
'expectation' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'struggle with' is the wordplay.
'struggle' becomes 'vie' (I've seen this before).
'with' becomes 'w' (abbreviation).
'vie'+'w'='VIEW'
(Other definitions for view that I've seen before include "Aspect, scene" , "thinking" , "Consider" , "'Aspect, panorama (4)'" , "The range of the eye" .)