The Vision-Driven Marriage
Christians crave spiritual, physical, and emotional intimacy with their spouses—but truth be told, too few ever experience it. My husband Doug and I, the team behind The Vision-Driven Marriage, know this all too well. But God helped us overcome our circumstances, and He’s called us to help you overcome yours. We’ll help you beat the “whirlwind”—you know, that fear, uncertainty, and frustration you feel in your relationship.See, we believe God intended all marriages—yes, even yours—to thrive. We’ll help you become hopeful and confident as you develop a meaningful connection with your spouse.That’s our heart. That’s our calling, and that’s the reason we started The Vision-Driven Marriage Podcast.
The Vision-Driven Marriage
Exploring and Overcoming Unrealistic Expectations in Marriages
Ever imagined what unrealistic expectations can do to your marriage? Well, you're not alone! Let's embark on an enlightening journey, exploring the treacherous terrain of preconceived notions that often lead to unattainable expectations. These hidden menaces, stemming from past experiences, media, and even pornography, can subtly sabotage the trust and connection in your relationship. Listen up as we reveal how you can prevent your heart from becoming sick with disappointment.
In this episode, we unpack the need to identify emotions and question their roots to better manage unrealistic expectations. We briefly discuss how to examine our past and present influences that shape our expectations and align them with spiritual principles. More than just theory, you'll get practical advice and real-life examples that will help you navigate these tricky issues.
Wrapping up, we discuss strategies for overcoming unrealistic expectations. It's not a quick fix—it takes time, communication, and a willingness to adjust. Mistakes, instead of being viewed as failures, become learning opportunities. We share encouragement and hope from Scripture as we strive to strengthen our marriages. Join us on this journey, and let's navigate the ups and downs of marital life together.
Get the decision tree to help you decide if you are dealing with unrealistic expectations in your marriage. Click HERE
Scripture mentioned:
Proverbs 13:12
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INTRO/OUTRO MUSIC CREDITS
Theme music: Dead Winter
ASLC-1BEF9A9E-9E9D609662
Artists: White Bones
Composers: White Bones
Audio source: Epidemic Sound
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Welcome to the Vision Driven Marriage Podcast. If you're struggling in your marriage, or maybe you're wondering if it's even salvageable, before you give up or before you let things get too hard, let us come alongside you and help you solidify your marriage. We offer biblical encouragement and insight to help you strengthen your marriage.
Speaker 1:There's a few things we want to accomplish today, but I want you to understand the purpose of it all. When we have expectations that get met, our lives are truly better and we are very blessed. And that's scriptural. If you look at Proverbs 13, verse 12, god's word tells us that hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life, and so if we have an expectation that doesn't get met, it makes our heart sick and it can really cause problems. Meeting expectations that are realistic is a totally different thing. It's a tree of life in our relationship, in our lives.
Speaker 1:But today we're going to look at what happens when you have a preconceived idea that leads to an unrealistic expectation. There's three things we hope to accomplish today. Number one we want to make sure we have an understanding of what our preconceived unrealistic expectations are. Number two, we want to take a deeper dive into how they can affect your relationship. And then, finally, we want to offer opportunities for you to do things that will limit the number of unrealistic expectations that you have. So let's start with number one what are preconceived unrealistic expectations?
Speaker 2:Well, preconceived, unrealistic expectations are just what they just just what it sounds like. A preconceived idea is something that you have prior to something. Okay, so these are the preconceived ideas that you're bringing in to the marriage, that are already solidified in your brain before you even get married. And unrealistic means they're unrealistic. That means, by definition, they're not able to be accomplished.
Speaker 1:Right, and we want to make sure that we let our viewers know that we've addressed in the past that often we don't share what our expectations are. Those are unvoiced expectations, but those could be very doable. They could be very realistic. It's not what we're talking about. We're talking about things that are unrealistic, things that you have either had influences currently in your life, sharing something that doesn't feel realistic, or influences from your past that have made your preconceived ideas just not within the realm of do ability, and so one of the things that's really strange to me is how often we don't know that we have unrealistic expectations until they're unmet and then we're hurt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anna McLaughlin in our previous episode talked a lot about the unmet expectations that she brought into her marriage and it was that need for drama and that was love to her. So her unrealistic expectation was that if her husband didn't express some of this drama that she was looking for, then she wasn't loved, and so that's kind of what kicked off this episode, because those types of things happen all the time. We're always working on unmet, unrealistic or preconceived unrealistic ideas, expectations, and they really can harm your relationship because they can undermine the connection in your relationship and you don't even realize that they are at work underneath of the surface, undermining the connection, undermining the trust. Your spouse may break your trust and they don't even know what they've done. It's not anything based on what they've done. It's based on a preconceived, unrealistic expectation that you may have and they're completely unaware of the fact that they should be doing something different or that they're disappointing.
Speaker 1:And we want to give you a couple of examples. This isn't an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination, but just to give you some ideas. What are they talking about? I get the concept, but what do they mean? Well, in Anna McLaughlin's interview. If you haven't checked it out, I'd encourage you to go check that out.
Speaker 1:It was a great interview with a really wonderful young lady who shared her story. But she had said that she was equating intensity and passion with love, and so she had an expectation that her now husband would stand up and fight for her, and because he responded with calm, assurance and protection but not that zeal, not that passion, it took her back because her preconceived idea was that's what love looks like. Now, before we go through some of the other things that might be unrealistic expectations that have been influenced by your past, let me share a couple of places where some of these unrealistic expectations come from. A lot of times, it is the relationships that we've watched when we were children, and so, especially if you're coming out of a codependent or an unhealthy family situation where you've seen things that you have been interpreted to be what love looks like or what a spouse should do, it can set up an unrealistic expectation in your own marriage. But also we see a lot of things with romantic comedy movies, with things you know, all of those movies on the Hallmark Channel, all the books that are available for you to read, which basically you know, the ones I'm talking about, the books that are the verbal version of porn that are really, really, really attractive to a lot of people. Now men want to just call you out right now too. If you struggled in the past or are currently struggling with concepts of pornography, it'll give an unrealistic expectation as well, and so, but what are some of the unrealistic expectations? Sometimes they come from society.
Speaker 1:When I was a child, there was a movie that came out and I was little. But a movie came out with the famous quote love means never having to say I'm sorry or that you're sorry. It was love story with Ali McGraw. It's absolutely untrue. Of course you need to say you're sorry, but there's people that believe that you know, if I really am in love, I should just be forgiven. It means never having to say I'm sorry. Some of the other things that could be unrealistic expectations are what we have right now will never change, will always be just like we are right now, which will lead to a lot of heartbreak, because people change, times change, situations change, and so holding on to it will always be like it is right now will set you up for failure. Or my spouse should always apologize to me first. That's. That's unrealistic. You here's one of the big ones that we see a lot when, when you think about your spouse, you should already know what I'm thinking.
Speaker 2:I shouldn't have to tell you mind reading that, that expectation of they should be able to read my mind.
Speaker 1:If you knew me, you'd already already know right.
Speaker 2:One of the other ones is when we get married, we're never gonna fight right. Yeah, we're never gonna argue or we're never gonna disagree.
Speaker 1:That is completely unrealistic right and you know, I've even heard some people say that when it's true love it's not work. Marriage isn't working. The reality is we all know marriage is work. You're going to argue, things are going to change. You should say you're sorry. There's no way you can be a mind reader all the time. I mean it's great when you can finish each other's sentences. However, that doesn't mean that you know exactly what your spouse is thinking all the time, and it just sets you up for a lot of hurt and heartache.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot of places where those, those ideas can be implanted. You know A lot of the things like Doug was talking about in the childhood. If you've come out of a traumatic childhood background, you know that has set you up for a lot of places where unrealistic expectations can can be put in and and so that's just something to be aware of well, and one other recent influence.
Speaker 1:People are even proud enough to call themselves influencers. A lot of social media will try to give you the perfect view of things, you know, the perfect home, but they only show the rooms that they've cleaned. They ignore the ones they haven't.
Speaker 2:Or the perfect meal, andry right, they have laundry piled in their laundry room, just like everybody else.
Speaker 1:They have the same things going on that you do, but they give the the impression of perfection and, unfortunately, in relationships we're seeing some of that right now as well, where there's a really a Popular movement of trying to show just how wonderful the relationship is, ignoring the parts that aren't, which could give you an Unrealistic expectation that my real life should just have perfect moments, not moments that aren't when what we really need is a level of vulnerability and being able to say you know I'm struggling with this and you know this is the expectation that I have and it's not working.
Speaker 1:So let's find a solution and let's do it together right, because if you have an unrealistic expectation, recognizing it's going to be key. But until you do, if you just ignore it and just continue to feel the frustration that comes from having that unrealistic Expectation, if left unchecked it can lead to Irreconcilable issues. You know, I know, that there was a movie several years ago it irreconcilable differences as a reason for divorce, and we're in the state of Illinois right now. The state of Illinois calls it the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage and those are things nobody ever wants to talk about. But if you have an unrealistic expectation that you just Bury and continue to feel frustration about it, it can lead to real problems. Some of the ways that Unrealistic expectations affect your relationship might surprise you they can.
Speaker 2:You can develop feelings of shame and guilt and then, of course, that's Transposed onto your spouse, because it's your spouse that's disappointing you all the time. So when they, when they feel this disconnection, you know, they know that the connection in the relationship, they can feel it that it's being undermined and that can lead to, you know, feelings of depression, it can lead to feelings of giving up hopelessness, and all of those things create this disconnect that you, you know. If this goes on long enough, I can see why people would think that it's irreconcilable.
Speaker 1:And one of the other things that it will create, if you have an unrealistic expectation, is it's going to create confrontations. We you know how you deal with the confrontation whether you want to work on it right then or you need some time. We've addressed that as well. But it's going to lead to confrontations and it also has the ability for you to be incredibly disappointed, because when something that you expect doesn't happen, you are disappointed. When your disappointment is pointed towards your spouse, it leads to frustration. It leads to hurt. If you know that your spouse is feeling those things towards you, it leads to feelings of failure or that you have lost some of your value in the relationship, all because there was something unrealistic that was expected. But there's good news there's things we can do to fix it.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I did was develop a decision tree to help you move through the decision. Am I actually dealing with an unrealistic expectation? And I'm going to link that in our show notes to this episode. But what it does is it's a decision tree like. It asks you questions and it will step you through the decision of am I actually dealing with an unrealistic expectation and give you some ideas on how to move forward in dealing with that expectation. One of the first things that we talk about in dealing with unrealistic expectations is to communicate them. If you are feeling that disappointment, be able to communicate with your spouse of why that you're feeling that disappointment, what didn't transpire, that you expected to transpire, and then being able to listen to your spouse and come to an agreement if that expectation was unrealistic, because if it's unrealistic, they'll be able to say that's unrealistic and then what to do from there. But that communication is the first step and it is really key.
Speaker 1:Right, and not only so that you can listen to your spouse, but you can listen to yourself. Yeah, because sometimes, when we say something out loud, it's the first time that we realize what I'm expecting. Is it realistic? It's not doable, because one of the things that I want to encourage you as you're listening to this if you've dealt with unrealistic expectations, you're not alone. Most people do. It's incredibly rare not to, and often the unrealistic expectation catches us off guard. We don't even realize we expect it until we're hurt by the fact that it didn't happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So one of the things to do is really dig into that self exploration. And one of the questions that you could ask yourself is what would I tell my best friend if my best friend were in this situation? Because a lot of times we have really good advice for our best friend, but we're not usually one to put that into our own lives too. It's kind of the whole practice, what you preach, kind of thing. But if you can tell your best friend like hey, that expectation is unrealistic, like there's no way that that person's going to be able to meet that, and then be able to say, okay, I'm going to put that into my life, and that's a good flag, that's a good red flag for if you're dealing with an unrealistic expectation.
Speaker 1:Right. And so, once you've realized that you've had an unrealistic expectation, one of the best things that you can do for yourself and for your spouse is to acknowledge the mistake of expecting something that couldn't happen, so that you can then explore what's a realistic expectation. What could we do? That would actually be better, but you need to take responsibility and just be able to say I expected, and be very specific about what you expected, and then, as you share what you expected, just admit but that's not possible. And so you know again, love does mean needing to say you're sorry. Just tell them I'm sorry that I expect that, I'm sorry that it caused some problems in our relationship, but then figure out what you can expect Now.
Speaker 1:You might not even know why you feel, what you do or what you're feeling, and so another thing that I would encourage you to do to limit the number of unrealistic expectations when you start to feel a very strong emotion, try to recognize what the emotion is and then ask yourself why am I feeling this? You know, for example, I might be feeling incredible frustration because Leslie didn't do something I expected her to do, and I need to ask myself why am I feeling this frustration? Here's why I need to do that? Because if I'm frustrated because of something that we talked about that didn't happen, then that's absolutely doable. It's a totally different thing we talk about how can we support each other to be able to do this realistic thing better? But if I realize through why am I being frustrated, that I'm frustrated about something that isn't realistic, it's a completely different set of situations that I need to approach, starting with me admitting my mistake of expecting something unrealistic and then working together for a resolution.
Speaker 2:And it's kind of fun that working together for a resolution that creates intimacy, it creates communication, it creates being on the same page and it does the relationship so much good because you're actively working on a solution to this unmet, unrealistic expectation.
Speaker 2:And it gives you an opportunity to kind of drop the preconceived ideas that you've brought in from your childhood or from society, all of the places that we get our preconceived ideas from. It gives you an opportunity to drop them or to mold them to fit your current situation, because we don't all live in a Hallmark movie, you know. It just isn't that good.
Speaker 1:Thank you, god, yeah, yeah, I mean, I can only handle so much hot chocolate, it just yeah, at Christmas time, right Right at Christmas time.
Speaker 1:You know, those things can build those unrealistic expectations, though, and so one of the other things that you need to start to do when you have come to the realization that I have expected something that wasn't realistic is to start to the process of examining your current and your past influences. It may be that, currently, I am watching some of those movies that are giving me an unrealistic view of what. You know what solving a problem looks like. Oh, the TV show's over in 30 minutes, so they'll figure it out in 30 minutes. We should, too.
Speaker 1:You know there's things that you can find that are the root of the thing that gave you an unrealistic expectation, and then, by examining them, you're less likely to actually have the expectation, you can recognize it sooner, and when you don't have an unrealistic expectation, you're less likely to be heard, et cetera. But searching your past is going to be important as well, because the things when you were a child, the things when you were a teenager you know I hate to bring this up, this isn't something you need to talk about necessarily right now with your spouse, but you know the first person you dated, or the first long term dating relationship you had, or maybe you've been engaged before, maybe you've been married before. All of those things can also contribute to unrealistic expectations, and so you need to examine where are these expectations coming from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't have anything to add to that.
Speaker 1:So, as you do that, I would encourage you then to check how you're feeling about it, and there's three ways that I would encourage you to check the issue of expecting things that aren't realistic. Number one I would encourage you to check them spiritually is what I'm actually expecting, lining up with scripture, and then ask God to show you why there were things that you'd struggled with that weren't realistic? But number two give it the practicality test. When you have an expectation, sometimes all it takes is you having to ask yourself out loud is what I expect actually doable? Because if it's not doable, then I need to make sure that I don't truly expect it. That's something that would be nice, that would be great if that would happen, but it's not doable. It's not a fair expectation.
Speaker 2:Now, a caveat. There is that if you're expecting your spouse to do something that you can do but your spouse cannot do, there has to be some leeway there too, because we don't operate the same way, we're not made the same way. There are tons of things that Doug does because he's stronger than I am and I cannot physically do them. If he were to expect me to do some of these physical things, that would be an unrealistic expectation.
Speaker 1:Right. So that's when you check. If it's doable, let's just use physical strength for just one moment. If the expectation was that three items that weighed 100 pounds each need to be moved from the back porch to the garage, it would be unrealistic for me to expect her to do that without having something to lift them for her. It would not be unrealistic for me to expect myself to pick them up and carry them over there. So again, make sure that you're not.
Speaker 2:I could maybe do half Right.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. If we were able to split it up, she can do it, but just make sure that it's doable. So first of all, give it the spirituality test Does this line up with God's word? Secondly, give it the practicality test Is it really doable? But then also give it the social test. Is this, socially, something that is actually reasonable? Is this a reasonable expectation? We live in the Midwest small town. There are certain things you do, certain things you don't do. We're Christians. You may be, you may not be, but because we're Christians, we want to do things that will honor God. And so when we're talking about socially in my town, in my church environment, in my family of origin, are these things that will actually be healthy and good or not? Because sometimes we'll have an expectation that would actually cause us harm socially, or it's not doable practically, or it violates God's word spiritually.
Speaker 2:Also, I just have to put this plug in One of the most simple things that you can do is to appreciate what is good, oh yes, To be thankful for what's there and to focus on the things that are good in your relationship and so to not. Here's what that does. That takes away the mental credibility, the mental energy that an un than a preconceived, unrealistic expectation causes. You're not giving it any more power in your life emotionally than what it demands, because it is just. I mean, they're energy suckers.
Speaker 1:If you feed it, it grows.
Speaker 2:Yes, they're just energy, emotional energy suckers. And if you focus on appreciating, being thankful for the things that are good in that relationship, you know, in your marriage relationship.
Speaker 1:Because they're there.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, absolutely they're there, and that will take away some of the mental energy that you experience because of unrealistic expectations.
Speaker 1:And so, with those three basic categories of looking at spiritually, does this line up with with God's word? Practically, can we actually achieve this? And then, socially, is this something that in our family, in our church, in our community, in our network, is going to be healthy and good for us? It's a pretty good place to start to see is my expectation realistic or not, because it often doesn't even have to do with whether somebody else could do it. Is it realistic for you or not? Now, at that point, I want to encourage you strongly. Give it time. If you've been dealing with hurt comes from having unrealistic expectations. It's not something that will be flipped like a switch and no longer occur. Give it time, learn how to check it. Learn how to check it together. Learn how to see is this realistic, is this doable? Does it line up with God's word? Is this healthy and good for us? And then together, together, I would encourage you to actively adjust your expectations so that your expectations become realistic ones.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that is wise advice.
Speaker 1:And, of course, where we started is where we need to end. You need to talk about it Because, just like with many of the things that take place in a marriage, there may be some things that you can do better, but it doesn't mean you'll do them better immediately. It's going to be a continued process. You'll probably make some mistakes before you do it right. Don't let that feel like failure, because making a mistake on the way to doing it right isn't failure. It's just a step in the process. Don't ever forget that you didn't learn to walk by walking. You fell down first. You didn't learn to read by just reading. You stumbled for a while first. As adults, for some reason, we think that we can learn everything now, in the immediate, and the reality is that things that matter and are good, usually it takes some time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it takes some time. That's a good word. And remember that hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desired fulfilled is the tree of life.
Speaker 1:It's Proverbs 13-12. It's good advice from God's word and we want to encourage you as you look at overcoming preconceived, unrealistic expectations. Just know that we are lifting you up in prayer and we know that God will solidify your marriage as you turn down.