CHAPTER 9

WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?

Bill and Pam Farrel

WHETHER YOU REALIZED it or not, you’ve been building your expectations of marriage for a long time. The home you grew up in profoundly shaped how you think, what you like, and what you think is “normal” in relationships. Some of what you value is based on your reaction to your family.

You may have disagreed with some of the ways of interacting and making decisions that you observed in your family. You may have decided that you would “never be like that” or have deliberately replaced the way your family did things with new skills. These behaviors were likely developed with strong emotions, so they are very important to you. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you anticipate that your spouse will value your approach, and you expect your preferences to be integrated into your life together.

Then there are your dreams about being married. Some of you have spent significant time thinking about what your future family will be like. You may have fantasized about what your wedding will be like, down to the smallest details. You may have imagined how good it will be to wake up next to someone who loves and adores you. You may have dreamed about romantic escapades and sexual freedom. The point is, we all imagine what marriage will be like before we get married. Some of what you came up with is realistic, while some of it is just fantasy.

This is your marriage, and it’s intensely personal to you. It’s nearly impossible for you to be objective about your relationship with your future spouse. As a result, you have expectations because your dreams span every area of your life, including the following:

If you’re honest, in your mind you likely have a preconceived picture of the perfect husband or the perfect wife and the perfect marriage. When real life fails to match these portraits, negative emotions might be unveiled. You might have longed to marry Mr. Right or Miss Right; you just didn’t realize that his or her first name was Always!

Your expectations of marriage aren’t necessarily a bad thing, because they drew you into a relationship with your fiancé(e). They cultivate hope and build anticipation in your heart. One of the challenges of marriage, however, involves adapting our expectations to the day-to-day realities of a real relationship.

What Do You Expect?

Have you had the fun of taking the registry “gun” at the store and tagging all the wonderful items you hope to be given for your wedding? Did you sign up for a set of his-and-hers towels? Did you dream of cooking together as you picked out cookware? Did you envision romantic interludes as you chose the decor for your bedroom? The process of choosing gifts often reveals many of the expectations you carry in your heart about your future life together.

We all have expectations. Most of them are unwritten and unspoken, so we assume the one we love meets them . . . until he or she doesn’t! It’s like running headlong through a meadow toward each other, with romantic music playing and arms extended toward that loving embrace we long for. Then bam! We crash into an invisible wall —and it hurts!

Some of the early expectations that Bill and I (Pam) had of marriage were quite humorous:

Pam: I’m marrying an architect student who loves math (not like me!), so eventually we’ll be rich.

Bill: I’m marrying a woman who loves ministry (like me), so we might be poor.

Pam: His mom didn’t cook, so my husband will cook for me!

Bill: My mom didn’t cook, so my wife will cook for me!

Pam: He will adapt and stay up late with me (and give me massages).

Bill: She will adapt and get up early with me (and make me a hot breakfast).

Pam: If I say my view louder with more tears, I’ll get my way.

Bill: If I say it calmer, with stubborn silence, I’ll get my way.

Pam: Wonder Bread, spaghetti, ramen noodles, macaroni and cheese from a box, and soup from a can are kitchen staples.

Bill: Salad; grilled, lean meat; and fresh fruit are kitchen staples.

Pam: Green jello with pineapple and mini-marshmallows equals Christmas love.

Bill: Green jello with pineapple and mini-marshmallows equals Christmas torture.

We laugh about our different expectations now, but early on we experienced some significant emotional turmoil over them. To avoid banging your heads against these invisible walls of expectation, it’s helpful to identify common expectations the majority of us deal with. It’s also helpful to learn how to manage differences in expectations.

Following is a chart of potential expectations you may have for your relationship. For each, mark how strongly you expect it to happen in your marriage. There are a few blank lines at the bottom so you can add items that are personally important to you. Then compare both lists, putting special focus on the expectations you have that are significantly different. See if you can agree on what is “realistic” in these various areas.

His List of Potential Expectations

Description

Gotta Have It

Would Make My Day

Negotiable

Could Get Used to It

Can’t Live with It

You’ll never do things for yourself that you know will upset me.

We’ll always be on time.

You’ll want to make love whenever I am in the mood.

You’ll want to spend your free time the same way I like to spend mine.

We’ll agree on most of our decisions.

You’ll remember important dates like our anniversary, birthdays, etc.

You won’t gain weight.

You won’t lose weight.

You’ll make more money than I do.

You’ll spend money the way I like to spend it.

We’ll have a clean and neat house.

We’ll eat healthy food.

We’ll exercise regularly.

We’ll exercise together.

You’ll dress the way I like.

We’ll be affectionate.

You’ll clean up after yourself.

You won’t hug anyone else of the opposite sex.

You won’t be distracted by TV, video games, social media, or other entertainment when I’m home.

You’ll take care of me financially.

You’ll avoid alcohol.

You’ll avoid drug use.

You won’t socialize without me.

You’ll talk with me throughout the day.

You won’t be friends with people I don’t like.

You’ll never lie to me.

You’ll be as committed to Jesus as I am.

You’ll be happy when I’m happy.

You’ll be miserable when I’m miserable.

You’ll be my best friend.

You’ll miss me a lot when we’re apart.

We’ll spend holidays with my family.

Her List of Potential Expectations

Description

Gotta Have It

Would Make My Day

Negotiable

Could Get Used to It

Can’t Live with It

You’ll never do things for yourself that you know will upset me.

We’ll always be on time.

You’ll want to make love whenever I am in the mood.

You’ll want to spend your free time the same way I like to spend mine.

We’ll agree on most of our decisions.

You’ll remember important dates like our anniversary, birthdays, etc.

You won’t gain weight.

You won’t lose weight.

You’ll make more money than I do.

You’ll spend money the way I like to spend it.

We’ll have a clean and neat house.

We’ll eat healthy food.

We’ll exercise regularly.

We’ll exercise together.

You’ll dress the way I like.

We’ll be affectionate.

You’ll clean up after yourself.

You won’t hug anyone else of the opposite sex.

You won’t be distracted by TV, video games, social media, or other entertainment when I’m home.

You’ll take care of me financially.

You’ll avoid alcohol.

You’ll avoid drug use.

You won’t socialize without me.

You’ll talk with me throughout the day.

You won’t be friends with people I don’t like.

You’ll never lie to me.

You’ll be as committed to Jesus as I am.

You’ll be happy when I’m happy.

You’ll be miserable when I’m miserable.

You’ll be my best friend.

You’ll miss me a lot when we’re apart.

We’ll spend holidays with my family.

And the list goes on and on.

The goal of comparing your expectations is to grow into a “we” mind-set from a “me” mind-set. Before you get married, you only have to consult with yourself. You’re free to focus on your own needs and desires. When you say “I do,” you begin an entirely new journey.

When we were doing research for our book The 10 Best Decisions a Couple Can Make, we interviewed couples who had been married for more than twenty years to discover their secrets for lifelong love. One of the repeated comments included a commitment to an “us” approach to life. Their thoughts could be summed up as a math equation: We > Me. When “me” overrode “we,” turmoil and strife characterized their relationships. When “we” trumped the “me,” a buffer of unity was created that provided acceptance, cooperation, and romance.

One of the first automobiles Pam and I (Bill) owned desperately needed new shock absorbers. Every little bump was magnified as our heads hit the car ceiling above us. All it took was a new set of shocks to smooth out our ride. This is the way it is with our expectations in marriage. They work well in our single life, but they need to be changed when we switch to married life. Couples often get into a battle of wills to see whose expectations will win out. Marriage, however, isn’t a competition in which the goal is to win. Marriage is a partnership in which you focus on mutual goals.

Progress is much easier to attain if you choose a common set of values upon which to base your expectations. This is why a commitment to Jesus makes it easier to succeed as a couple. He can be the shock absorber that smoothes out the ride as you build expectations based on agreed-upon godly principles. With a set of God-principled values, your expectations will move from self-centered to God-centered, which will make you more other-centered in your marriage. Before you know it, “we” will become greater than “me.”

In describing a comprehensive relationship with God, Mark 12:30 reveals the four areas in which a love relationship operates: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” As you learn to adjust your expectations in these four critical areas to the way God created us, you’ll shift to a “we” over “me” mind-set and find marriage to be one of the greatest journeys on earth.

All Your Heart

Philippians 1:7 states, “It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart.” This passage reveals one of the most important principles of relationships: When you carry each other affectionately in your hearts, you give each other the benefit of the doubt and readily serve one another. When your hearts get disconnected, you tend to evaluate each other based on your behaviors, which results in disappointment, because no one can behave well enough for long enough to meet anyone else’s expectations.

This, of course, is easier to say than to do because the heart is sensitive, and we tend to protect our hearts from perceived pain. Although we all desire to be connected in a loving, committed relationship, we’re afraid to trust at a level that would make it possible. There is, however, a code that will open your hearts to each other and foster trust. Just as your computer comes prepackaged with codes that run the software, God inscribed a code on the heart that unlocks love between a man and a woman.

The code needs to be discovered, because God created men with a different core need than women. This is why husbands and wives are given different directives in Ephesians 5:33: “Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband” (NASB). There are, therefore, usernames and passwords that can give you access to the heart of the one you love.

Men, to gain access to your wife’s heart, enter the following:

Women, to gain access to your husband’s heart, enter the following:

Pam and I (Bill) have to admit that we were almost totally unaware of the marriage code[25] when we first got married. Pam was so easy to be around when we were dating that I thought she would be the easiest person to live with that I had ever met. She was full of energy, laughed every day, and had a simple dedication to helping others grow and learn more about Jesus. I would never have guessed that insecurity could totally interrupt her day and challenge my confidence in our relationship.

Bill was so calm and flexible with changes in life and so dedicated to Jesus that I (Pam) figured it would be simple to live with him. I honestly believed he would adjust to any emotional swings in my life, would roll with any challenges that presented themselves, and would remain steady during any stressors we faced. I never would have guessed that his need to succeed could make him stubborn and distant.

The Heart of a Woman

For the majority of women, security is their most vibrant and common need. I (Pam) agree! The need to feel secure is the need women feel most often, and it determines the quality of everything in our lives. Security is often difficult for men to understand because it’s all consuming in our lives, and it can change faces quickly. Our greatest desire as women is to connect with our husbands emotionally, socially, recreationally, spiritually, and financially. Security in a woman’s life includes the following:

Without a doubt, the last statement —enjoying the freedom to be who she is today —is at the heart of what it means to be secure. As women, our lives are constantly changing. Typically this begins with the “gift” of menstruation. This lovely part of our lives guarantees that our emotions, our bodies, and our outlook on life are in constant motion. Some days we feel great about ourselves and are ready to face any challenge. On other days we feel bloated and ugly and worthless. Still other days find us sad, anxious, and overreactive. And these days come and go every month! (Yes, we’re talking about PMS. You know you might have PMS if you throw chocolate chips into your omelet or you trade in Glamour magazine for Guns and Ammo!)

In our hearts, we women long to have our husbands accept and love us through good and bad days. The marriage code goes active when a man learns to enter security as the password for his wife. He does this when he makes it his ambition to meet his wife’s security need first in all things. Any time she gets the message from him, “You are safe with me, and it’s all right to be who you are right now,” her heart is drawn toward him, and she relaxes in the relationship.

I (Bill) became aware of this security need on our honeymoon, when we were introduced to the guilt-free thrills of physical intimacy between a husband and wife. We went to dinner and then enjoyed what we call “red-hot monogamy.” Pam was excited and “wound up” and wanted to talk. It was the last night of our honeymoon, so she wanted to make it last as long as possible. Into the wee hours of the night, I heard about every boyfriend she had ever had in her entire life! She told me she wanted to share every detail of her life. She wanted me to know everything. As a young, idealistic husband, I concurred and thought it would actually be possible to listen to Pam with the same level of attention with which she was sharing herself.

I held my own for the first hour, but exhaustion took over, and in the middle of a sentence, I started to doze off as my new wife was baring her soul. I awakened to a “heartquake” that registered 3.5 on our bed.

Pam was convulsively sobbing, murmuring, “I thought you loved me. How could you fall asleep on me? Am I really that boring?”

I sat up in bed, looked her in the eyes, and said, “I really do love you. I’m so sorry for falling asleep. Go ahead and finish.”

“Okay,” she said with a glint in her eye. “I want to tell you about the country-western songs I listened to growing up.” Then she started singing!

I’d been had. Here I was trying to address Pam’s stated concern, and I totally missed the real issue. The concern that was truly on her heart was this: “Bill, am I more important to you than your sleep? Are you willing to be tired to show me that I have first place in your heart?”

I’ve since learned that all interactions with Pam go better if I meet her need for security first.

The Heart of a Man

The belief that one can succeed is the need most men feel, and it determines the quality of everything in our lives. A man’s approach to success is about spending his time, money, and energy on the areas of life he knows he’s good at. Men are highly motivated to focus on these areas. At the same time, we are intensely disinterested in the areas of life we don’t think we’re good at. Success in a man’s life, therefore, includes the following:

The most comprehensive statement that describes a man’s need for success is that he will make a “fierce commitment to doing what he does well.”

The password that will give a wife access to her husband’s heart is success. She does this when she makes it her ambition to create an environment where her husband can succeed with her. Any time he gets the message from her, “I love the way you live, and I love the way you love me,” his heart is drawn toward her, and he gains confidence in the relationship. A man will conclude the relationship is working when he sees the following proof:

I (Pam) remember when I first became aware of what is often called the male ego. We were at a gathering of friends where we were dancing romantically. Bill dipped me in a final crescendo, except he dropped me on the ground and started backing away. I got up and asked him what happened.

He whispered, “I just ripped my pants.”

Well, I thought it was funny, so I turned him around and shouted out to everyone else in the room, “Look, Bill just ripped his pants!” I laughed. Everyone else in the room laughed. Bill, however, did something very different from laughing. He grew angry and silent.

I learned that night that it isn’t a very good idea to point out the flaws in my man. It’s much better to help him look and feel successful.

When our core needs are met as men and women, an almost magical dynamic occurs in our relationships. We give each other grace, forgive easily, trust each other’s perspective, and find value in our differences.

All Your Soul

The soul is a combination of factors that make you the unique individuals you are. It includes your physical, emotional, and motivational makeup. The starting point for loving with all your soul is your DNA, or the way God wired you as a male and a female. Estrogen and testosterone have a profound impact on how we process information and interact with the people we love. Gender goes back to the beginning of humanity: “In the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). It was in God’s plan to make us different from each other from the moment He imagined us. You can make these God-given differences work in your relationship if you build an appreciation for the uniqueness you bring to your love. Pam and I (Bill) like to describe the basic differences in the following way.[26]

Men Are like Waffles

Men process life in boxes. If you look at the top of a waffle, you see a collection of boxes separated by walls that make convenient holding places. That’s typically how a man processes life. His thinking is divided up into boxes that have room for one issue and one issue only. The first issue of life goes in the first box, the second goes in the second box, and so on. The typical man then spends time in one box at a time and one box only. When a man is at work, he is at work. When he is in the garage tinkering around, he is in the garage tinkering. When he is watching TV, he is simply watching TV. That’s why he looks like he’s in a trance and can ignore everything else going on around him. Social scientists call this compartmentalizing —that is, putting life and responsibilities into different compartments.

A man will strategically organize his life in boxes and then spend most of his time in the boxes he can succeed in. This is such a strong motivation that he will seek out the boxes that “work” and will ignore boxes that confuse him or make him feel like a failure. The bottom line is this: Men feel best about themselves when they are solving problems. They, therefore, spend most of their time doing what they’re best at, while they attempt to ignore the things they are deficient at.

Women Are like Spaghetti

In contrast to the waffle-like approach of men, women process life more like a plate of spaghetti. If you look at a plate of spaghetti, you notice that there are individual noodles that all touch one another. If you attempted to follow one noodle around the plate, you would intersect a lot of other noodles, and you might even switch to another noodle seamlessly. That’s how women face life. Every thought and issue is connected to every other thought and issue in some way. Life is much more of a process for women than it is for men.

This is why a woman is typically better at multitasking than a man. She can talk on the phone, prepare a meal, make a shopping list, work on planning for tomorrow’s business meeting, give instructions to her children as they’re going out to play, and close the door with her foot without skipping a beat. Since all her thoughts, emotions, and convictions are connected, she’s able to process more information and keep track of more activities.

As a result, most women are in pursuit of connecting life together. They solve problems but from a much different perspective than men. Women consistently sense the need to talk things through. In conversation, they can link together the logical, emotional, relational, and spiritual aspects of an issue. The links come to women naturally so that conversations are effortless for them.

A husband is better able to meet his wife’s need to make connections if he turns off that fix-it mechanism in his brain, packs up his bags, and learns to go on listening journeys with his wife. Since a woman builds trust by connecting her life to the lives of those she loves, a husband will find her easier to live with and easier to love if he listens to her with curiosity.

A wife is more likely to enhance her husband’s interest if she “CliffsNotes” conversations and stays in the one box he is hoping to problem-solve in. When men bring up a subject to talk about, women immediately recognize all the issues that relate to that subject. It’s as if a woman can see every box that is touching the box a man has opened. If she ventures into all those other boxes, he gets overwhelmed. When he has one box open, there is only one problem to solve. If he has two boxes open, there are two issues to solve. With three boxes open, there are three problems to solve, and so on. Every man has a limit to how many issues or boxes can be open at once. But if a wife will stay focused on one topic and resist the urge to open up all the surrounding boxes, she will buy her man the emotional time he needs to work his way down through the layers of the box, and eventually he will share his precious emotions with her.

All Your Mind

The way you and your fiancé(e) think about each other will affect the way you feel about each other. Think about the characteristics you love in the person you’re getting ready to marry. You may be fascinated with these traits and have come to rely on them to bring joy and stability. It may be hard to imagine that these traits could ever become a source of deep frustration, but this is exactly what happens to most married couples. The traits you love most about your spouse-to-be have a darker side to them that can irritate you. Since these are powerful traits, the irritation can be just as deep as the joy you’re experiencing now.

For example:

Whatever you appreciate most about your future spouse will likely be the point of highest irritation in your marriage unless you train your mind to stay focused on the positive.

I (Pam) was attracted to Bill because he’s a great listener, but this means he tunes in to people and never checks his watch. (This makes him run late; thus the irritation!) I (Bill) was attracted to Pam because she is spontaneous and up for an adventure. However, her “spontaneity” leaks into all areas of our life together, including the checkbook. (So her tendency to seize a great opportunity can become my irritation!)

It can be so easy to focus on the irritations and forget why we first fell in love! We have to choose to focus on the reason we fell in love with our partner. This is part of what the Bible means when it says that “we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). If you dwell on the irritations, your love for each other will erode, and your hearts will drift apart. If, however, you’re willing to zero in on the qualities you find attractive in your future spouse, you’ll build a love that will grow year after year.

Learning to dwell on the best in your future spouse begins with a simple three-step process:

  1. When I’m irritated, I will ask, “What is the opposite of this irritation? What did I fall in love with?”
  2. I will either tell myself, “You love that!” or I will choose to verbalize a compliment instead of expressing criticism.
  3. I will stay focused on the positive side, not the negative side, of that trait until I “feel” in love with my partner again.

All Your Strength

Another word for strength in the Bible is power. The power and strength of your love for each other will be drained if you aren’t aware of the differences in how men and women manage conflict.

Men tend to bury issues and escape to their favorite recharger boxes. Women tend to bring up issues and want to talk things out. Women can easily take a man’s silence or withdrawal as apathy or manipulation. In reality, he may be “emotionally flooded,” as if he is drowning in a sea of turbulent emotions. If you continue to verbalize issues and problems when you notice he has shut off, it can feel like nagging to the man who loves you. At the same time, men can easily interpret a woman’s attempts to bring up issues as controlling and manipulative behavior, against which he has no options. If this negative cycle continues, a couple will drift apart, like boxers sent to the corners of a fighter’s ring.

It doesn’t need to be this way. Conflict exists because of the powerful emotions in your relationship. For instance, studies show that when a marriage is in crisis, men actually feel it at a deeper emotional level than women, even though they may not verbalize it. At the same time, God gave women a deep-seated desire to make things better for the people they love. When God made the plants, trees, sun, moon, and so forth, the Bible says it was “good” (Genesis 1:21). After woman was created, God saw that it was “very good!” (verse 31, emphasis added). A woman’s tenacious desire to make things better may feel like nagging to a man, when in reality, it’s a powerful resource for improving a couple’s life and love.

The power of your emotional reactions can be directed by mutual decisions. As we mentioned earlier, we interviewed couples who had been married more than twenty years for our book The 10 Best Decisions a Couple Can Make. The purpose of our research was to discover the creative ways these couples handled opposing expectations and conflict in their marriages. Our favorite idea came from two firstborns (who naturally both thought they were right). Their home was decorated with numerous bowls of bite-size candy bars. We had to ask, “What’s up with the candy bars?”

It seems that as newlyweds, they tended to get worked up and argue when their expectations collided. Instead of continuing to say things they would later regret, they decided to stop and eat a candy bar. The time it took to eat one of their chocolate snacks was just the right amount of time to calm their emotions. Over the years, if they sensed emotions rising, either could ask, “Want a candy bar?”

Every decision you make about how you communicate, how you manage expectations, and how you approach conflict will increase the power of your love and draw you closer together as a couple.

BILL FARREL has been influencing lives for over twenty-five years as a senior pastor, youth pastor, radio talk show host, community leader, and sought-after conference speaker. He and his wife, PAM, have written more than thirty books, including Men Are like Waffles —Women Are like Spaghetti and Red-Hot Monogamy. Bill and Pam are cofounders and codirectors of Love-Wise, an organization to help people connect love and wisdom and bring practical insights to their personal relationships. Bill and Pam have been married more than thirty years and have raised three young men who love Jesus.

Ready to Talk

  1. What expectations about marriage might the following people have had from their growing-up years? Why?
    • Cain and Abel
    • Bart and Lisa from The Simpsons
    • The children of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
    • The children on Modern Family
    • The children of Billy and Ruth Graham
    • Your spouse-to-be
  2. If you haven’t already done it, complete the his-and-hers charts of “potential expectations” in this chapter and compare your results. Was it hard to be honest about your expectations of marriage? Did you tone them down to appear more realistic? Do you still harbor higher hopes in some areas? What might it take for you to feel safe enough to admit what you’re feeling and work together on a “we” mind-set?
  3. How have your expectations about marriage changed as a result of reading this chapter? Which of the following comes closest to your answer?

Ready to Try

Pack a lunch and take a hike together! If you live in an area without good walking trails, try driving to a local park. Over lunch, talk about your hopes, dreams, and expectations for a family. Do you both want children? If not, is that a deal breaker? If you both want children, when would you prefer to start a family? Right away? In a few years? Just for fun, do you have any favorite girl or boy names? Expectations about a future family are some of the most significant hopes and dreams a newly married couple has. Although we cannot predict the future, and things can change as marriage progresses, it’s good to be thinking through these things now.