Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash

I think that expectation is one of the biggest things that can cause problems in a marriage or in life in general. If you think about it, life and love is full of expectations. From the moment we wake up in the morning to the time we go to sleep, we are meeting expectations.

The more I talk to people about their relationships and marriages, I realize that some people have a lot of things expected of them that is exhausting and stressful. For example, I have a friend that agreed when she married her husband that she would always cook every meal and that they would rarely eat out. For over twenty years she did exactly that with having five children. Now that her family is raised she definitely enjoys eating out and not cooking as much, but she still cooks on a regular basis. She is an angel for many reasons. Another example is expecting your spouse or significant other to dress a certain way and have a certain appearance. It is very specific to each couple what expectations are expected of each other. A big issue that can cause HUGE problems is money. Who pays bills, how much can you spend and save? Do you keep money together or separate? You get the idea. I won’t keep naming examples but when those expectations are not talked about and instead, assumed, It can be a deal breaker or cause for a very unhappy couple.

I definitely believe in expectations in relationships and marriage. I think that they need to be talked about, flexible and agreed upon by both partners. If you truly love your spouse, you will take their feelings into consideration. I feel that expectations, when done together and not in a controlling way, can enhance your love and will make your relationship stronger and stable.

I have been married for twenty-six years and let me tell you, we have battled over expectations. In my experience, our battle hasn’t been because we don’t consider each other’s feelings, but because we didn’t talk about them before we got married. We didn’t lay the foundation to be able to have healthy boundaries and expectations with each other. As a young married couple we thought we would just always figure it out as life happened and all would fall into place. Listen to me! Don’t be nieve to believe that if you love each other that you will always be happy. Life is hard and it can hit hard. I am just being raw and honest here. Obviously the ideal time to talk about expectations is while your dating and before you get married. This will put you at such an advantage to have a successful relationship and marriage. I am in no way saying that this will happen over night and that BOOM, your going to sit down with your spouse and have it all figured out in two hours. It may be a work in progress and that is very ok. Take the time to perfect it. Take the time to change things if something isn’t working. One thing about expectations is that they can change depending on your scenario. For example, if you are the person in your house that always gets up first and makes breakfast for your family and you have a new baby on the way and you are going to probably be up several times a night feeding the baby and doing what all new parents do, it might be a good idea to talk about the expectation of you still doing that once the baby arrives. These expectations can be put on hold, changed, thrown out the window or what ever you make of them.

Expectations can come in many forms and are specific to each person. What is important to one person may not be important to another. It is helpful to identify which expectations will be most important. If that expectation can’t be met, how will that affect the relationship? Will it cause anger? Animosity? Jealousy? Feelings of being unnoticed or unimportant? I know this may seem deep and scary. It is at times. But I promise once your freely talking about these things you will be glad that you did.

In a relationship, from my experience and viewpoint, you should never be expected to change who you are unless it’s for the better. If expectations are being asked of you that make you feel like less of a person, embarrassed or humiliated or degraded in any way it should definitely be evaluated and you should consider looking at the motive of your significant other or spouse. Putting unreasonable expectations on a person can be abusive and controlling. There is a healthy balance. You should always feel free to talk about changing an expectation if one person is stressing out trying to meet it. The idea of expectations is to make life easier so your more content in your relationship.

10 Expectations To Discuss:

1. Will you keep your money together or separate? Be specific as to what that means to each of you.
2. Will you be a one or two income family? Especially after kids.
3. Who will be in charge of paying bills?
4. Do you want kids? How many? It is a big problem if one person wants six kids and the other one wants one kid.
5. How soon after baby arrives will mom go back to work?
6. Will we have pets?
7. What are each other’s sexual expectations? Waiting until marriage?
8. Who will do the household chores and will one person be expected to do specific ones?
9. Will we loan money to friends or family? This can be a problem if before your relationship one person was generous with helping others while the other one doesn’t feel comfortable continuing that way.
10. How involved in each other’s family will you be? Will you be included like one of the family or be expected to just go along with things.

I hope this has given you something to think about and you feel it was helpful. Be blessed!