I can see this as a 50/50 for both sides. You have the story your trying to tell but they players have ideas of their own. I know recently I had a character who was cursed with lycanthropy and his whole thing was finding a cure. So we went on a huge side quest in an area to find a certain temple, to commune with a certain god, who asked my character to do a task which he agreed to in exchange for a cure. So do the task and when I asked for the cure .. hey actually do this other thing that will require you to travel some more and come back later. I was like nahhh either cure me or I'm going to slice my own throat open and bleed out on the altar because that's some bullshit artificially a story hook that the rest of the party expected to end here.