Oh, to be newlyweds again. (And all the long-marrieds just collectively sighed a happy sigh.) The early years are exciting years! Full of planning, promise, and … pitfalls. Didn’t see that last one coming, did you? Googly-eyed at the altar, many young married couples don’t either.
In this article (and the next several) we’re going to pick up an ongoing series that equips young couples to start marriage on the strongest footing possible. We’re going to tackle the almighty expectation.
Much of the unhappiness we experience in marriage is due to unhelpful expectations. Notice that I say “unhelpful,” rather than “unrealistic.” The latter is also true, but it can sound as if we’re suggesting we lower our standards—which we aren’t. But neither do we want to create heartache by holding naïve assumptions about what we’re walking into when we walk down the aisle. There is a sweet spot in the middle where we land on and live with helpful expectations of marriage and our spouse.
Since so many expectations are unique to how we tend to think differently as men and women, we’ll look at four expectations common to women this week and four for men next time. These are by no means universal, but these are mental (and often subconscious) patterns common to each gender.
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