On Marriage and Unrealistic Expectations

I saw a post on Facebook today that said, “Every woman deserves a man who looks at her everyday like it’s the first time he saw her…” Now, first let me preface my thoughts that I am about to share with the assurance that I am not cynical or bitter, or unhappily married. I have simply been married for going on seven years now while simultaneously working on a counseling degree (including a marriage counseling certification course) and have learned a few things along the way. I see this type of post all the time, and I have to be honest, they bother me. Don’t get me wrong, they are incredibly sweet in sentiment, and what girl wouldn’t love to have a man look at her that way? The problem I have with it is that when we go into marriage with the expectation that this is what it is supposed to be like forever, we are setting ourselves up for discontentment and our husbands up for failure. I know this, because I am guilty of it myself.

When my husband and I finally started dating (those of you who know me and our story know it was a long road…lol) it was amazing and wildly romantic and spontaneous. It was the stuff you see in movies. *sigh* And I thought, “This is it! This is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life, and this is what it feels like when you find the right person…the one you were meant to find!” I knew the stories. The “old wives tales” I called them, that the “honeymoon” stage of sunshine and rainbows wouldn’t last forever, that we would have days that we couldn’t stand one another even, but I thought “Us? No….WE will be different!” I simply could not foresee my husband ever not looking at me with those puppy dog eyes so full of love or jumping at the chance to fulfill my every desire…(okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little but you get the picture.) So when real life began to set in eventually, and the “new” of our relationship began to wear off I was terribly discontent. To say I was blind sighted would be an understatement. I am ashamed to say that I moped around for years before I finally figured out that my unrealistic expectations were a very big part of the problem, and the only person that could fix that was me! All this time I was looking to my husband to somehow find a way to make me happy and I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to realize that making me happy just wasn’t his job or even within his ability. I am the only one that can control that. I can choose to be happy no matter my circumstances. My husband is not perfect, and once I stopped expecting him to be our marriage got a whole lot better. It’s almost like I could actually hear him take a deep breath of relief!  

I began to look at myself at this point and wonder what it was like for him to be married to me…what a thought, huh? I can be terribly pushy and opinionated and I can attempt to control a situation like nobody’s business! I always got angry with him for not communicating, but to be honest, I don’t think I would want to communicate with me either sometimes! I can be pretty scary! So instead of focusing on my husband’s faults and what he should or should not be doing to fit this mold of what I thought the perfect husband or the perfect marriage should be, I decided to start working on myself, because I am far from the perfect wife, and the only things that are within my control are my own thoughts, beliefs, and behavior.

The bottom line is this. The fairy tales are beautiful, girls. They really are. We all love to read them and watch them in the movies, and we love to be romanced and dream of being swept off of our feet, and sometimes we are! Sometimes we have a prince come into our lives on his white horse (or black jeep wrangler in my case J ) and ride us off into the sunset and it’s wonderful and amazing! Just don’t get married with the expectation that every day your husband will be able to live up to that same standard of romance. As sweet as it sounds, there will be days that he definitely will not be looking at you like it’s the first time he’s ever seen you. Rather, he will be looking at you like you’re the most annoying person on the planet…or is that just me? J Don’t get me wrong, there will still be beautiful moments in which he will do something ridiculously romantic, and there will still be times he sweeps you off of your feet, it just might not be every day, and that’s okay. Just wanted to put that out there. Be blessed!