Subtracting shapes not working? what the heck

Question

alright i've never had this problem.
-I created the white lines as strokes then expanded them.
-I put the expanded strokes in a new layer above the circle.
-I clicked on the expanded strokes, then shift clicked on the circle.
-hit my subtract button ( I also tried every other button just for kicks after I see it wasnt doing what i wanted)
-It fills in the circle black now instead of just deleting the black space that is underneath the expanded white stroke. The stroke on the right is fine. Just the circle is goofy
Any pionters on how to fix this, what did i do wrong? Below are the pic's to A/B
If it this helps, I created the circle from a letter...not the spiral tool.
thankyou

Answer 1

As depicted, the paths do not have to be compound paths. What you have depicted works with the self-intersecting black path and the white path both being closed simple paths.
But one cannot tell with certainty from your screenshot what you actually have because the paths are not selected, and we can't see the objects' types. (That screenshot could look identical if either or both of the objects are simple paths, compound paths, or groups.)
Normal-select (Black Pointer) each of the two objects (the white square is superfluous to the problem; leave it out of it) and state what kind of objects they are.
Take a screenshot with both objects normal-selected, and state the number of anchorPoints in each path (Document Info palette). State whether each path is open or closed.
ALWAYS state what version you are using.
JET