YOUR EXPECTATIONS IN MARRIAGE

 Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.

- JANE AUSTEN, Pride and Prejudice

There are no longer any hard-and fast rules about what a marriage should be, about the roles that each partner will play, or even about the primacy of the relationship. The expectations that one brings to the marital relationship play an important role in the success or failure of relationship. To a large degree, we are disappointed or satisfied with life, depending on how well what is happening matches what we expect - what we think should happen. Expectations play a crucial role in determining our level of satisfaction in an intimate relationship such as marriage. Thus, an examination of the role that personal expectation play in marital success is perhaps more important than an examination of long list of factors that may or may not affect a particular couple's marital success.

In a very real sense, human beings create their own world, The wonderful complexity of the human brain allows us to plan, organise, and concern ourselves not only with what is but also with what we think should be. We predict our future and have expectations about ourselves our world, our marriages, our spouses, and our children. In a way, expectations are also our hopes about the future, and hope is an important element to our well-being. We often hear about the person who has given up hope, and we know that this can be dangerous to both physical and psychological well-being. The average person certainly enters marriage (at least the first marriage) full of high hopes for success and happiness. Who can be more hopeful than the couple in love, newly married and off on their honeymoon?

Love as we all can attest to often acts like the proverbial rose-coloured glasses, in that we don't see the people we love as they really are but as we wish or expect them to b. A spouse's failure to meet these expectations can lead to disappointment in marriage.

In essence, the world is as we perceived it. Our perceptions are based, in part, on the input of our senses and, in the part, on how we personally accept, reject, interpret, change, or colour that input. It is important to realise that most people react to their perceptions of the world rather than to what the world really is. A simple example may clarify this point. If we insert a straight, metal rod halfway into a pool of water, the rod appears bent or broken because of the refraction of the light waves by the water. How would we react if we knew nothing about light refraction and had never seen a partially submerged object before? We would see the rod as bent and would react on that perception. But, we who have measured and examined the rod know that it is straight. Moreover, most of us have learned that light waves will be refracted by the water and appear bent, so we assume that the rod is straight, even though our eyes tell us it is bent. In other words, we know that our perception do not always reflect the objective world. We learned that appearances can be deceptive.

How does this relate to marriage? In our interactions with other people, we often forget that our perceptions may not reflect reality or that our spouse may have different perception. Mr. A perception is that he has greatly reduced the time he spends with his friends and that he spends much more time with Ms. B. on the other hand Ms. B feels that Mr. A spends too much time with his friends and too little time with her. Who is right? Certainly their perception of the situation differs, but is one right and the other wrong? This is probably one of the situations in which both partners are right, at least in their own minds.

In conclusion, it is expected that you should never put your expectations so high in marriage that it could lead to a broken marriage. Share your views, thoughts and feelings with your spouse before marriage and continue with that after you are married.