Some thoughts on what expectations are unrealistic and create dissatisfaction in marriage, by Janis Spring

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Unrealistic expectations

Unrealistic expectations, not your partner, may be responsible for your dissatisfaction, These expectations include:

“My partner and I should feel a deep, unspoken bond at all times”.

“My partner should be able to anticipate my needs.”

“I shouldn’t have to work for love”

“I shouldn’t have to work to be trusted.”

“I deserve to be loved.”

“Chemistry is either right or’wrong.”

“My partner should love me unconditionally?

“My partner should be emotionally available to me whenever I need him or her.”

“Love is a feeling that can’t be forced or manufactured. It either exists or it doesn’t”

“A good marriage is free of conflict.”

“If I’m not happy in my relationship, it’s my partner’s fault.”

“We shouldn’t have to work at feeling sexual desire for each other; it should come naturally or not at all.”

“When passion dies, so does the relationship.”

Think through these ideas about love, by yourself and  others, and ask yourself which  ones you believe in, and how realistic and useful they are for you. You may brush them off as the half-baked assumptions of people less sophisticated or perceptive than you, but don’t be fooled. Some of them are likely to lie behind your discontent.

It’s not easy to gauge exactly how much of your unhappiness is due- to unrealistic expectations (in which case you need to change), and how much to your partner’s inability to satisfy your basic needs (in which case your partner needs to change). This is a complex thing to work out.

From AFTER THE AFFAIR by  Janis Spring, 1997
Posted in General Psychology Tagged: beliefs, communication, couples, relationships