Episode 37. Understanding 'Happily Ever After': Realistic Expectations in Marriage
Expectations play a crucial role in marital satisfaction, yet many couples struggle to align their expectations with reality. In this episode, we explore the intricate relationship between expectations and marital happiness, drawing insights from recent research and our personal experiences.
We discuss how childhood experiences shape our expectations, the impact of unrealistic expectations on marital satisfaction, and the importance of balancing high expectations with realistic investment in the relationship.
We vulnerably share a personal anecdote about our recent "Christmas leaf blower incident," illustrating how misaligned expectations can lead to misunderstandings and disappointment. This story serves as a springboard for discussing the need for regular check-ins and adjustments in marital expectations.
This episode offers a blend of scientific insight and practical advice, providing listeners with tools to enhance their marital satisfaction through better understanding and management of expectations. Whether you're newlyweds or long-time partners, this discussion offers valuable perspectives on creating a more harmonious and fulfilling relationship.
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Welcome to Marriage IQ, the podcast for the intelligent spouse.[00:00:08 - 00:00:10]
I'm Dr. Heidi Hastings.[00:00:10 - 00:00:12]
And I'm Dr. Scott Hastings.[00:00:13 - 00:00:31]
We are two doctors, two researchers, two spouses, two lovers, and two incredibly different human beings coming together for one purpose. To transform the stinky parts of your marriage into scintillating ones. Using intelligence mixed with a little fun.[00:00:34 - 00:01:04]
Welcome back, everyone. Do you love our new studio? People wanted to see our smiley faces, not just our voices. So here we are. World Marriage IQ is now in full color for your complete viewing pleasure on YouTube, Spotify, and wherever video podcasts are found. Some of you are still listening by regular audio and that's totally fine too. But check us out if you want on YouTube and you can see our new studio.[00:01:04 - 00:01:49]
We've also just recently launched our website, marriageiq.com. if you have questions for us, go on there and leave us a message. If you want new insights, sign up for our emails. If you want our free copy of how to Create a Scintillating Marriage, you can sign up for that there too. And we also have launched our Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube channels. So look up Marriage IQ and connect with us there. You'll see content coming throughout the week. Can you all do us a favor? Would you go on our social media websites and like us and follow us? That really helps us gain other followers and grow our community.[00:01:50 - 00:01:58]
Today we want to talk to you all about how to live happily ever after. Isn't that every person's dream, Right?[00:01:58 - 00:01:59]
Yeah.[00:01:59 - 00:02:39]
Well, we want to use some examples. Enchanted meets Shrek. You know the movie Enchanted where Giselle wants to meet her Prince Edward and live happily ever after and Shrek lives alone and he's on his own. Giselle approaches life like a six year old girl. Very scripted, predictable, happy, filled with nothing but rainbows and butterflies. She will find Prince Edward and be married. They will always think alike, act alike, desire the exact same things for the rest of their lives.[00:02:39 - 00:02:42]
Those are some pretty interesting expectations. There.[00:02:42 - 00:02:43]
There will be no sorrow.[00:02:43 - 00:02:45]
Oh, even better.[00:02:45 - 00:02:51]
No sadness, no disagreement. That is her expectation.[00:02:51 - 00:02:52]
Wow. Okay.[00:02:53 - 00:03:01]
Then we have Shrek. He approaches life like an outcast, as his expectation is that everyone wants to kill him.[00:03:01 - 00:03:08]
That's a pretty. That's a pretty tough reality to face in life. That would make you have very low expectations.[00:03:08 - 00:03:19]
I think he's cynical about the possibility of ever finding true love despite his incredibly tender hearts and the fact that he is, after all, an ogre.[00:03:19 - 00:03:20]
That's true.[00:03:20 - 00:03:44]
That is his expectation. So, coming into a marriage relationship, what are our expectations? We need to sit down, kind of explore ourselves, have a conversation with ourselves. What is my background? What is my upbringing, my identity? And how does all this play into my expectations in this marriage?[00:03:44 - 00:04:01]
You know, that's a really good point because our expectations really are formed by our experiences in life and often those experiences that we had in childhood, whether it's that we want to be just like how it was in our childhood or exactly the opposite.[00:04:01 - 00:04:16]
But regardless, you know, that's a good point. I didn't even think about this until just now. These studies that we're finding that these girls expect to be just like their mother growing up. So that. That's an interesting finding.[00:04:16 - 00:04:38]
Very interesting. It is important though, to know that those expectations that we had when we were six or when we were a single bachelor like Shrek, those don't hold, those don't stay constant throughout our life. Our expectations are constantly changing as we have new experiences and, and as we have new perspectives.[00:04:38 - 00:04:43]
You mean I shouldn't think like Giselle and expect a happily ever after?[00:04:43 - 00:05:19]
Well, we do know that expectations are heavily influencing the happiness that we feel within our marriage. When our expectations meet our perception of what is actually happening in the marriage or what we perceive to be happening in the marriage, then there typically is happiness reported. If our expectations do not at all meet what we perceive as happening in the marriage, then there's a lot of distress and a lot of dissatisfaction and negative feelings about the marriage.[00:05:19 - 00:05:46]
So I find it interesting that in that movie Enchanted, if you've all seen it, it's interesting how Giselle changed. Like you said, we change with. Over life. And she ended up with the divorce attorney. It's so like she was happy. And that's a, that's a, I think, a beautiful story of how our expect expectations can change over life. And that's. That's okay.[00:05:46 - 00:06:17]
Yeah. So Scott and I have talked about expectations quite a bit the last few years, and we think that we're pretty good at understanding each other's expectations. However, within the last couple of weeks, we've had several opportunities, two big ones, to re examine what our expectations are and find maybe where we weren't on the same page. And we needed to redefine some of those expectations. And I wanted to share one with you.[00:06:17 - 00:06:33]
Well, let me just say from the outset, this is, this is a little bit hard for me because it's very vulnerable what you're going to share. But I have agreed to share it because I want everyone to experience an.[00:06:34 - 00:07:03]
Example that we've worked through and to be Honest, we can laugh about it a little bit now. At the time, it was a little bit distressing. But Christmas Eve, this is like a few weeks ago, midnight. I'm sitting down in my office wrapping all the presents for all of our family. I was listening to Christmas music. We'd gotten books for all of our children for Christmas, and I'd asked him if he would write a message inside.[00:07:03 - 00:07:06]
I was watching It's a Wonderful Life, because I do that every year.[00:07:06 - 00:07:44]
That's right. It's a Wonderful Life. He walks in my office and sees all of the Christmas stockings that I have filled. And then there's mine sitting there empty. And this look of horror comes across his face. I didn't say anything other than, do you have things for my Christmas stocking? And he said, no. And I said, it's okay. I have presents here on my desk that my sister sent me for Christmas. I'll just put those in the Christmas stocking. Nobody will know the difference.[00:07:45 - 00:07:47]
But you know the difference.[00:07:48 - 00:08:06]
Well, most of our marriage, he has filled my Christmas stocking. But I also wasn't too ruffled by it. A little disappointed, I'll say, but not too ruffled by it. I had some things sitting there on my desk that the kids hadn't seen, and it. It worked.[00:08:06 - 00:08:09]
Okay, but wait, there's more.[00:08:09 - 00:08:16]
That night, I take all the Christmas presents upstairs. We have.[00:08:16 - 00:08:17]
They're wrapped very, very nicely.[00:08:17 - 00:08:26]
Sections for each child and for each of us. Where all the Christmas presents go. And I had several Christmas presents for Scott.[00:08:27 - 00:08:27]
Several.[00:08:27 - 00:08:46]
And then he brings up one present, and he puts it in my space. I thought, oh, this is exciting. This is good. This is going to be something pretty nice. Christmas morning, we're opening all of the presents, and then it comes. My turn.[00:08:47 - 00:08:48]
Your one present.[00:08:48 - 00:08:54]
I had one present that I opened, and lo and behold, it was a leaf blower.[00:08:55 - 00:09:17]
Look, you were complaining about the leaves that collected in our front entryway. And so I thought, wow, this is a great idea. But it happened to be the only idea. And so there we are. So one wife and one leaf blower.[00:09:17 - 00:09:36]
My Christmas morning, my expectation was that he would follow the pattern that he'd followed other years. Not every year was something big, but he'd always thought about me and. And done something thoughtful. And so I was really confused about that.[00:09:37 - 00:09:38]
Okay.[00:09:38 - 00:09:47]
Tried to laugh about it a little bit, make some jokes about it and say, yeah, I have really been frustrated by the leaves that are accumulating on the front porch.[00:09:48 - 00:09:59]
Look, I was wanting to. To fulfill a need that you Had. I was embarrassed.[00:10:00 - 00:10:02]
Why were you embarrassed?[00:10:03 - 00:10:45]
Because I had not thought things through well enough. Now, I did spend a lot of time on Christmas Eve wanting to write something really memorable. These were very special books. There are travel books, which is. Travel is very important to me. And we wanted to give them to each of our children to kind of show them ways to travel the world and very meaningful messages. I wrote in the front of each book for each child. And I ran out of time to think about my wife. So there you go.[00:10:45 - 00:11:17]
I was really confused. He was projecting his feelings of shame and embarrassment onto me, thinking that I thought he was a terrible human being and that he didn't love me and that he didn't care about me. But it caused him to be even more distressed. So we did an autopsy and we talked it through. And I was able to change my expectations to come up with a different scenario that would help both of us.[00:11:17 - 00:11:21]
I don't do a lot of gifts, I guess, for Christmas.[00:11:21 - 00:11:22]
That's not a high priority for you.[00:11:22 - 00:11:24]
But I love Christmas.[00:11:24 - 00:11:24]
Okay.[00:11:25 - 00:11:25]
Yes.[00:11:25 - 00:11:29]
So the gift giving is not a high priority for him.[00:11:29 - 00:11:31]
Well, it is on certain years.[00:11:33 - 00:11:34]
Okay.[00:11:34 - 00:11:36]
This is part of the problem, folks.[00:11:36 - 00:11:37]
Yes. Yeah.[00:11:37 - 00:11:49]
So part of the problem is that I have been very inconsistent in how I show my wife how much she means to me on Christmas morning.[00:11:49 - 00:11:53]
One year it's a diamond ring to replace mine that I'd lost three years.[00:11:53 - 00:12:05]
Earlier, and another year it's a leaf blower. There's no consistency. How could she have an expectation, really, of what to expect? And so we had to work that out.[00:12:05 - 00:13:02]
Right. And what we came up with was I would always fill the Christmas stockings. This seems to be really stressful for Scott, so easy peasy. That's taken care of. No problem. As far as his giving gifts to me, I ask him, do you have something in mind or would you like me to send you links to things that might be possibilities or gift cards? Scott has other areas that he's so generous, and I am the great recipient of things that he's really passionate about. And so letting go of some of the expectations, even though they were based on past history, was important. Shifting my thoughts, coming up with what will win for both of us. Because ultimately, what we really both want is, is to show each other our love for each other. And we just have different ways of doing it.[00:13:02 - 00:13:05]
We have different values. Yeah. And we're going to jump into all that.[00:13:05 - 00:13:32]
Yeah. So we call that the parable of the leaf blower. And hopefully, when you hear the parable of the leaf blower. Any other time, you'll remember that we learned of continually discussing what our expectations are, not just once and then letting it ride for several years. So we did find some really great research on expectations in marriage, because we love research. We do love research on our marriage IQ.[00:13:32 - 00:13:34]
I think research is really, really good.[00:13:35 - 00:14:31]
Dr. Diane grand in Psychology Today highlighted several studies on expectations in marriage. The first one was by Eli Finkel. Dr. Eli Finkel is one of my favorite researchers. He's out of Northwestern University. And his research, a study from 2017, showed that expectations within marriage have greatly increased worldwide, but especially in the US over the last few decades. And yet, on the other hand, the time invested in the marriage has greatly decreased because more households have both spouses working, because more attention is focused on children, because we have bigger houses that require a lot more household chores. But regardless, we're not putting the time into our marriage, which is the most important thing. And yet our expectations keep getting higher.[00:14:31 - 00:14:38]
So let me see if I got this right. People want more and more and more out of their spouse.[00:14:38 - 00:14:38]
Yes.[00:14:38 - 00:14:40]
But they want to put in less.[00:14:40 - 00:14:44]
And less time or even focus.[00:14:45 - 00:14:49]
Yeah, like that. No wonder why it's not working.[00:14:49 - 00:14:50]
Right?[00:14:50 - 00:14:50]
Like.[00:14:51 - 00:15:05]
And these changes have also at the same time correlated with dissatisfaction in marriage. So when there are high expectations, low investment, it also correlates with high dissatisfaction.[00:15:06 - 00:15:09]
No wonder why so many marriages are dissatisfied.[00:15:09 - 00:15:24]
Yeah. Esther Perel is a famous marriage therapist. Many of you are probably familiar with her work. She agrees with Eli Finkel. She says that this is really a problematic trend. And especially in the United States, we're.[00:15:24 - 00:15:29]
Especially needy or wanty without thinking about investing.[00:15:30 - 00:15:41]
And, you know, fascinating, maybe that goes with just having more and more and more. We're economically in a very different sense situation than our parents have been or other generations.[00:15:42 - 00:15:57]
So the University of North Carolina, there's a couple's lab there, Dr. Donald Balcombe. He warns us not to expect too little of marriage. We talked about too much expectation. Now we're talking about too little.[00:15:57 - 00:15:57]
Okay?[00:15:58 - 00:16:15]
When expectations are too low, it often leads to poor outcomes, including abuse. Those who tolerate verbal, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse probably tend to gravitate toward people who treat them like crap.[00:16:16 - 00:16:23]
Okay? So we know we shouldn't have our expectations too high. We shouldn't have our expectations too low.[00:16:24 - 00:16:26]
The Goldilocks zone.[00:16:26 - 00:17:04]
But if we have pretty realistic expectations, there's still something else that can really make those problematic. Dr. Jim McNulty from Florida State University, in a study from 2016, found that high expectations don't work well if you have too much stress, too little time, or poor communication skills. So regardless of if you both are on the same page about some of the expectations, if you can't invest socially with communication skills or your time or because you're too stressed, it's going to end poorly.[00:17:04 - 00:17:12]
So we need to be checking ourselves, is my expectation too high? Is it too low? Asking ourselves.[00:17:12 - 00:17:22]
And when we're looking for realistic expectations, we need to look at our stress. We need to look at, are we talking about this and am I invested in my relationship?[00:17:23 - 00:17:39]
So, John Gottman, who's another really popular marriage researcher, our expectations are not always going to align despite excellent communication skills. So isn't that weird? We're never going to be on the same page even if we have a.[00:17:39 - 00:17:42]
Scintillating marriage, because we're two different people.[00:17:42 - 00:17:44]
Two different people. And that's okay.[00:17:44 - 00:17:44]
Yeah.[00:17:44 - 00:17:51]
Our expectations are not always going to align. But you know what helps make up for it?[00:17:51 - 00:17:52]
What's that?[00:17:53 - 00:17:55]
A really good sex life.[00:17:55 - 00:17:56]
Oh, of course.[00:17:57 - 00:18:22]
Friendship and learning how to communicate conflict in a constructive manner. Emotional intelligence. We talked in a prior podcast about. Gottman says about 69% of these conflicts are not really solvable. And that's, that's true that just because you have conflict doesn't mean you don't have a fantastic scintillating marriage.[00:18:22 - 00:18:38]
Well, and while he says they're not solvable, I think they can be understood. If we understand what each other's expectations are, at least we know what we're dealing with and there's less distress, less dissatisfaction.[00:18:38 - 00:18:47]
Well, maybe we can even put in there without some compromise that those 69% might be solved with some compromise.[00:18:47 - 00:18:48]
Okay, that's great.[00:18:49 - 00:19:17]
So let's talk about what is realistic, what is unrealistic. We're going to talk a little bit about that. That the National Survey on Marriage in America. They, they interviewed divorced people. 45% of the divorce respondents said the divorce was at least in part because of unrealistic expectations. Now, we didn't get whether they thought they were unrealistic or they thought their partner was unrealistic.[00:19:17 - 00:19:40]
Well, and really the important part of this finding is this makes it a very vital topic to talk about. What we're talking about today is so important that in almost half of divorces, it weighed in. So if you haven't talked about expectations, now is a great reminder to do that.[00:19:41 - 00:19:49]
I want to give you a little example from the medical field. I'm a medical physician about unrealistic expectations.[00:19:50 - 00:19:50]
Okay.[00:19:50 - 00:20:21]
It is not Realistic for me to expect a 72 year old male, 320 pounds, diabetic, high blood pressure, heart disease and a penchant for deep fried Twinkies and sitting in his La z boy for 10 hours a day to actually start exercising and eating vegetables and changing the way he looks at food and drink.[00:20:21 - 00:20:22]
Okay.[00:20:22 - 00:20:35]
And getting out there and exercising like Rocky Balboa, like it's just not realistic. It's not me as his physician to, to do that. It's, it's possible.[00:20:35 - 00:20:43]
But to make drastic changes, to expect our partner to make drastic changes is probably not realistic.[00:20:44 - 00:20:48]
Yeah. Like it's definitely possible, but it's really not probable.[00:20:48 - 00:20:49]
Okay.[00:20:49 - 00:20:53]
And so that is an unrealistic expectation.[00:20:53 - 00:20:54]
Okay.[00:20:54 - 00:21:05]
So other examples of unrealistic expectations. This comes from. It's called First Things First, a non profit organization, provides resources for couples and parents.[00:21:05 - 00:21:10]
First things first.org Lots of great resources for parenting and marriage in there.[00:21:11 - 00:21:16]
They say, you know, my spouse should be able to read my mind, that we should be able to spend all of our time together.[00:21:17 - 00:21:19]
So you're saying those are unrealistic expectations.[00:21:19 - 00:21:20]
Yes.[00:21:20 - 00:21:21]
Okay.[00:21:21 - 00:21:24]
That my spouse is responsible for my happiness.[00:21:24 - 00:21:27]
Yeah. I can't expect you to make me happy.[00:21:28 - 00:21:47]
Yeah. Well, one of the reasons why is these are all nebulous ideas like how on earth, if you're responsible for my happiness, what do I even know that happiness is Right. So unrealistic expectations are often never talked about with each other, but almost always assumed.[00:21:47 - 00:22:00]
Yeah. Some other possible unmet expectations that a spouse might have is that you're going to complete me or that you're never going to change. You're going to be the same person I married forever.[00:22:00 - 00:22:01]
Yeah.[00:22:01 - 00:22:13]
Or that your life should revolve around me. Or maybe even that my way is right and your way is wrong sometimes in your off hours, maybe.[00:22:14 - 00:22:17]
So talk about realistic expectations, Heidi.[00:22:17 - 00:22:51]
Well, some of the realistic expectations, if we communicate about them, are perhaps how we could share household duties, that we will have joint decision making power in, in our finances, that will always put each other first. In our marriage, that's really big. We believe, and we talk about a lot, that our relationship with each other comes even before our, our children. That doesn't mean our children aren't a priority sometimes, but ultimately we put each other first.[00:22:52 - 00:22:52]
Indeed.[00:22:53 - 00:22:58]
Can you think of any realistic expectations that you could add to that we.[00:22:58 - 00:23:06]
Are sexually tied to only each other. That's pretty realistic. Right. We want to fulfill and to be fulfilled in each other.[00:23:07 - 00:23:22]
I think that's realistic to a point. But Again, we're individuals, and to expect our partner to completely fulfill us isn't realistic. Because, in large part, I also need to find things that fulfill myself.[00:23:23 - 00:23:27]
We want to grow older together, despite radical changes that may occur.[00:23:27 - 00:23:27]
Okay.[00:23:27 - 00:23:28]
In our lives.[00:23:28 - 00:23:29]
Okay.[00:23:29 - 00:23:38]
Like, you know, you might break your neck and be in a wheelchair. You know, things like that we want to explore with each other and on each other.[00:23:39 - 00:23:39]
Okay.[00:23:39 - 00:23:40]
I think that's pretty realistic.[00:23:40 - 00:23:55]
I think that all of those expectations are really good things to think about. And for every couple, they're going to have different expectations. These that we just mentioned are ones that we think are realistic. But talk with your partner. You may have some different ones.[00:23:55 - 00:23:58]
Yeah. Pick what's unrealistic in your partnership.[00:23:58 - 00:24:05]
But ultimately, if you want to improve your marriage, think about changing some of your own expectations.[00:24:05 - 00:24:10]
Wait, wait. What? Why can't I get what I want?[00:24:10 - 00:24:14]
Sometimes all we can change is not the other person, but our expectation about them.[00:24:14 - 00:24:19]
Think of it like my favorite philosopher, Muhammad Ali.[00:24:19 - 00:24:19]
Okay.[00:24:19 - 00:24:42]
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Right. We float. We. We stay aware. We stay aware of our partner's desires and expectations and of our own without shooting right away. And when that moment comes, boom, we know exactly how to do it. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.[00:24:42 - 00:24:43]
One of your favorite quotes.[00:24:43 - 00:24:44]
Yes. I love it.[00:24:45 - 00:25:03]
Well, I think as we've talked about this, we. One thing that we've realized is that our expectations of our spouse are deeply rooted in our core values. What we place as most important in our life is where we have the expectations that we're probably least likely to alter.[00:25:03 - 00:25:04]
That makes sense.[00:25:05 - 00:25:24]
It does require, though, that we find out about ourselves that we understand our identity, we understand what's important to us. We understand our values, even if we don't consciously know about them at the time. And we've had a lot of experiences in the last week or so talking about some of those things that we didn't even realize were important to us.[00:25:24 - 00:25:33]
Yeah, I think. I think for you, I think it came out, trust is really big. Yeah, it's a core value. So you expect trust in me.[00:25:33 - 00:25:34]
Right.[00:25:34 - 00:25:44]
One of my core values is to be adventurous, and so I expect adventure out of you.[00:25:44 - 00:27:38]
And so all of that bleeds into these different areas that we have expectations. Dr. Douglas Brinley has identified several roles where we have expectations, often surrounding those. You might want to jot some of these down and then later discuss them with your spouse or even look at your own beliefs on what some of your expectations are in these areas. But the first One is expectations as a spouse. What does being a good spouse look like to you? So I answer that for myself and then I ask my partner the same thing. And that allows us to better understand each other's expectations around that. The second one is sex. What does a meaningful sexual experience look like to you? The third one in law relationships. What are our expectations surrounding the amount of time that we should spend with our in laws? What kind of influence we allow them to have when they say that we need to go places? Do we both agree that we do what they ask us to do or do we have some boundaries around that? Parenting. Parenting is a really big one and a really hard one. But if we know each other's expectations of what does it look like to be a really good parent? And we're going to have very different ideas about that. One of us may say to be really loving, to be there to support our kids. The other may say to give them hard things to go through so they grow. But just understanding those expectations of each other even if we can't come to a resolved joint expectation. That's okay. It's important to keep talking about those. Our opinions on parenting keep changing. So we need to talk about this often. Like we talked about a moment ago, the division of household labor.[00:27:38 - 00:27:39]
Yep.[00:27:39 - 00:27:55]
This may change over life depending on if one's working. If both are working, how do we divide those up? So just constantly having that discussion on what each of us see as an ideal expected division of labor.[00:27:55 - 00:27:56]
Yeah.[00:27:57 - 00:28:21]
Another role that you hold. We take the role of a therapist for each other. And so there are some expectations on how we support each other during stressful times. What do you see as the best way that I could support you during stress or during really hard times? Do you like to be touched? Is that good for you? Is that not.[00:28:21 - 00:28:22]
And short answer?[00:28:22 - 00:29:30]
Just asking some of those questions about what are your expectations for when you're really stressed. How can I best support you in that? Another role? Who's the provider in the family? Are we joint providers? Is one of us the provider? That's going to be different for every couple. But that also influences how will money be managed. Can this change? Can we think one way earlier in our marriage and change to a different way later in marriage? It's really important to not just let that slide by the amount of money that we're spending. Just continually having that discussion and realizing it's going to change. Recreation. How do we spend our free time in a way that allows us to connect with each other? What is your Expectation for that? What is my expectation? Can we find some common ground? And then lastly, what are our moral values, our religious values or spiritual values? However it is in your marriage, what are our expectations in those? And understanding those from each other's viewpoint is really important.[00:29:30 - 00:29:35]
Yeah, I think that's excellent. Really good. Some things to talk about when you get together.[00:29:35 - 00:29:44]
Because remember, some of the research that we looked at said that if we can't communicate about our expectations, it's going to end really poorly.[00:29:45 - 00:30:07]
So let's talk about the things we can do this week. Things I can do this week as an individual. Just spending some time with myself, thinking about what are my. My expectations? And then get together with your spouse. What are, what are the expectations that we have of each other? Just lay them out and talk about them.[00:30:07 - 00:30:33]
That just reminds me we might add another category to the ones that we just listed a moment ago and that would be what are our expectations for holidays and special events like Christmas, an anniversary, Christmas on whatever. Let's talk about those things and see what our expectations are and then make some compromises if you can, or at least be understanding of each other's expectations.[00:30:34 - 00:31:00]
So lastly, let's relate this back to our four cornerstones. Identity. I need to know who I am. My background, a foundation for my expectations. Who am I anyway? Intentionality. This is big. Finding time with myself to sit down and have a conversation with myself and with my spouse. Yeah, if it's a big one, schedule it. Sometimes it can be done kind of in the moment. But be careful.[00:31:02 - 00:31:30]
When you said be careful, that is really important. I think to. To bring up expectations at a time when you're in some conflict might not be the right moment. It might be important to say, I would like to talk about some of our expectations. Can we plan a time where we're both in a non elevated emotional state when we've maybe just eaten dinner or something?[00:31:31 - 00:31:50]
So with insight, now that I know what my expectations are of myself, my spouse, in this marriage. Are my expectations realistic or not? If not, how can I change them to become more realistic while feeling like I'm not compromising my own values?[00:31:50 - 00:31:52]
That's really good.[00:31:52 - 00:31:59]
And then intimacy. Sharing your newfound discoveries with your spouse in a quiet intimate moment together, talking.[00:31:59 - 00:32:34]
About what's going on in our own heads, which is where we keep most of our expectations, creates emotional intimacy when we verbalize them to each other. That is something we don't talk to a lot of people about. And it does help us be connected more vulnerably with each other. We really hope that the things that we've shared with you about expectations will open up some new possibilities for you to think about and discuss with your spouse this week. And until next week, we love you. Have a great week.[00:32:35 - 00:32:43]
And remember, the intelligent spouse knows that to change from a stinky to a scintillating marriage first requires a change in themselves.[00:32:44 - 00:33:09]
Thank you all for tuning in to Marriage IQ. We hope today's episode has sparked some valuable insights. Remember, the conversation doesn't end here. If you get the chance, we'd love to have you leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Thanks again for listening. Keep exploring and we'll catch you next time on another exciting episode of Marriage IQ.
