Marriage is not what we expected! Don’t get us wrong, it’s not bad; it’s just not going as well as we thought it would. How do we sort out what is realistic and what is not?

“And they lived happily ever after” is one of the most misleading sentences in literature, according to Joshua Lievman. He explains that it is a falsehood that has led generations to expect something from marriage that is not possible. Every young couple is plagued by a vast assortment of mistaken beliefs about what marriage should be. Even seasoned marriages have been overloaded by unrealistic expectations.

Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott point out that most mismatched expectations fall into two major categories: unspoken rules and unconscious roles. Bringing both of them out into the open can save years of wear and tear on your marriage. Most of us live by a set of rules that are rarely spoken. Just a few of the unspoken rules we’ve bumped into since getting married back in 1976 includes: never raise your voice, don’t ask questions while we’re watching television, dinner should be served at the same time every evening, and you should open presents on Christmas Eve, not Christmas morning. The more you get your unspoken rules out in the open and talk about them, the less likely they are to affect your marriage in a negative way.

The second source of mismatched expectations involves the unconscious roles that you and your partner fall into, almost involuntarily. Without knowing it, a young married couple is drawn into acting out roles they form from a blend of their personal dispositions, family backgrounds, and marital expectations. Like unspoken rules, there are an endless number of unconscious roles husbands and wives stumble into. Some of the more common ones include: the cook, the shopper, the money manager, the secret-keeper. If you are like most couples you will follow in the footsteps of the role models you grew up with. Being aware of this natural tendency is often all it takes to help you create a vision of marriage that you both can agree on and one that is unique to the two of you.

The expectations you bring into your partnership can make or break your marriage. We thought we’d share several of the more common expectations or myths to guard against. The first one to be aware of is: “Everything good in our relationship will get better and everything bad will disappear.” The truth is that everything will not get better. Yes, many things do improve in relationships if you work on them, but some things become more difficult. In the words of an attorney who handles many divorce cases, the number one reason two people split up is that they “refuse to accept the fact that they are married to a human being.” The closer you get to your partner, the more you’ll brush up against his or her humanity. Simply put, we marry an idealized image of a person and only later discover the real person. The bad habits and traits we carried around before we were married remain with us after we say “I do.” Although marriage cannot cure all of our ills, it can become a powerful healing agent over time as we care for and challenge one another.

Another common expectation in marriage is: “My spouse will make me whole and meet all my needs.” Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Our incompleteness and differences give iron its sharpening power. Marriage is a God-given way to improve ourselves, but neither marriage nor our partner can make us whole and meet all of our needs. True, there are some needs only your spouse can meet. We must not jump to the conclusion that all needs must be met by our spouse alone.

A healthy marriage is marked by realistic expectations. Everyone enters marriage holding onto some unrealistic expectations. And every successful marriage works to set straight any false expectations that disrupt marital happiness and harmony. This work has to do with identifying, discussing, and resolving expectations.

First, identify where faulty expectations are coming from. Whose expectation is it? Next, talk about why the expectation is important to you and discuss ways you can fulfill it in a non-demanding way. Then work together to resolve what to do with this expectation. Basically, you have three options when determining what to do. You can decide to accept and meet the expectation, adjust it so it is more reasonable, or abandon it altogether as unrealistic.

In biblical times the special status of “newly wed” lasted a full year (Deuteronomy 24:5). The beginning of marriage was a time of learning and adapting. It still is. Allow yourself time to settle into the realities of marriage. |L

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