Expectations Concerning Roles and Responsibilities Another source of tension between a couple has to do with expectations concerning roles and responsibilities. The peril of not clarifying roles and responsibilities in a marriage can certainly lead you to feel that you are stuck in a role you would rather change.As a married couple you are partners in time. Your roles and responsibilities will shift and change as you go through transitions together. When there is tension over who does what, when, and the amount of time spent together, you might say to your spouse, “I thought we had a deal about household chores, but now I’m finding that I’m doing most of what you agreed to do and I’m feeling taken advantage of.” Perhaps the general agreement you had in your early marriage has begun to break down as your children have come along. It’s best to remember that every major transition will require some checking in with each other and renegotiating of the issues involved. You may still arrive at the same conclusions but now they are the result of checking in with each other and clarifying your positions. Otherwise, resentment can begin to build.
Expectations About Parenting Parenting can bring out both the best and the worst in us. When we parent well, we get in touch with the loving nurturing side of ourselves. But we sometimes encounter habits and tendencies about ourselves that we didn’t know were present. For instance, as your children grow older, you might find yourself being short and impatient, something you never expected. Then there is the issue of how to share parenting tasks, who does what for the children: gives them their baths, feeds them, shops for them, spends time with them.Resentment can arise if one of you feels that the parenting load is unequally shared or if there are disagreements in how to communicate with and discipline children. Another typical pattern that causes tension has one parent—usually the husband—playing the role of the playful funny clown with the children while the other spouse is the disciplinarian and rule enforcer.
Happiness Expectations Happiness expectations build on relationship and role expectations. Certainly if there are unresolved tensions in these two areas, your happiness will be lessened. But this area also has to do with your own specific happiness. Do you enjoy what you are doing, whether you are working outside the home or inside? What gives you satisfaction? What are your expectations concerning careers? Included in this set of expectations are both of your expectations about how to make decisions concerning a career path. This can be quite tricky, especially if there are hidden or unvoiced expectations about who will sacrifice for the other.
We all have a lot to be concerned about and sometimes we look to our spouse to take away our worries. Job change, loss, major illness, death of a family member, or a move to another geographical area are just a few examples of the stressful things that can happen to us. Even the birth of children, while a happy event, can create tough times for a couple and result in a change in sleep patterns, schedules, and the like.
When our expectations about how the other should be there for us aren’t met we may say something like this: You said you would hang in there with me but I feel alone and abandoned. You said you would help out, but I’m carrying all the load. We want our spouses generally to “be there for us” and get hurt when this doesn’t happen. Sometimes, however, we fail to adequately check out these expectations with our spouse. Remember, in times of high stress and pain it’s instinctive to retreat into ourselves, to develop unrealistic expectations about how the other can care for us.
Most important, however, is the belief about happiness. Many married people believe that it is their job to make the other person happy. If you have this belief it will eventually cause you grief and bewilderment, because you cannot make your spouse happy unless he or she makes a choice to move into a higher state of satisfaction or happiness. Your job in your marriage is to listen to what makes your spouse happy and then decide if you can help him or her attain happiness. Changing your belief about happiness allows you to place the responsibility for stating what makes you happy on your shoulders as opposed to your spouse’s. This means, among other things, that you will need to tell your spouse how you feel, what really interests you. It also means that you will need to really listen to what your spouse tells you about his or her happiness.
