The necessity of communicating your expectations
When my husband and I first married, we began our marriage like most, with certain expectations and thoughts on how our relationship would be. During our dating life we had many conversations about what we envisioned for our life together with little talk about our expectations. The few conversations we did have centered around larger expectations of our relationship such as faithfulness and children (I expected children whether biologically ours or adopted). We spent little time discussing the smaller, more day-to-day expectations for our relationship as if they were innate practices.
The first part of our marriage was easy with little conflict. We were newlyweds after all, and the excitement of married life carried us through. As with all new things, however, it didn't last. Slowly we began arguing over the same underlying issues simply masked as petty things. The practices that were present during our dating and early marriage life had become nearly obsolete and it was something I took quite personally. A frequent argument for us was over displaying affection. During the early days in our relationship my husband would leave me notes or make a gesture of affection daily but wasn't as consistent later on, leaving me feeling rejected or unwanted. I would get upset for several days, he would ask me what was wrong, and after a few days I’d say something like, “you used to hug me when you got home and now you don’t!”
If you've been in a long-term relationship, marriage statistics have probably made it across your lap. There are many reasons why a marriage may end two of which are unmet expectations and the inability to resolve conflict. Before addressing these, I want to mention one more thing that perhaps needs to be reframed in our minds: unrealistic expectations. It wasn’t until later in our marriage that I realized that I had fallen prey to the romanticized, Hollywood version of what a relationship should be and therefore had some unrealistic expectations. We’ve all seen the movies or television shows where the Gerry Kennedys or Jack Pearsons make daily grand gestures of their love or where the same intense passion is present even years after the couple is together. In this romanticized version there is no room for practical days of simply co-existing together or passion lessening which I knew; yet I undoubtedly felt unloved if my husband wasn’t making grand gestures to show me his love.
What was realistic however was wanting my husband to show more affection. I thought I was expressing what I wanted when I would tell him what he used to do and no longer did, but I was missing something in these arguments - I wasn’t clearly communicating what I wanted.
This goes back to that classic scenario where one partner leaves a basket of laundry on the kitchen table expecting their spouse to see it and put away the clothes, but the spouse doesn’t do it because they says they weren't asked. If I wanted my partner to show more affection I had to clearly state what I wanted. Rather than saying, you used to do this and now you don’t, I began to say, “I want you to kiss me when you come home from work” or “I need you to hug me right now”. This proved to be harder than it seemed because at some level it required vulnerability. I took the focus off what he was or wasn’t doing and placed it on myself and what I needed. It wasn’t romantic but sometimes maintaining a healthy relationship requires more practical things than romance.