The success or failure of a marriage, I’d suggest, does have a lot to do with expectations of the marriage. Many times expectations are unrealistic and romantic. They have a dewy eyed view of marriage. Then when reality hits, it is hard to cope with. The reality is marriage is not all happy times and romance. Sometimes it can be hard. Be prepared for that. Sometimes you may still feel lonely or misunderstood.
Don’t expect marriage to fulfill all your needs and expect that person to fulfill all your needs. This is an unrealistic expectation. No –one person can do that. Only God can do that. It’s not fair to put that expectation on another. No matter how much you love your spouse they are just a person the same as you are with human frailties and flaws. Sometimes either intentionally or more likely unintentionally they will hurt you. That’s when you need to be able to forgive. Forgiving also means forgetting, not dragging it up next time you have an argument.
Some expectations are focused on what you will get from a marriage. Things like security, love, companionship, status are all reasons why people get married. Marriage needs to be not as much about what you will get from a marriage as to as what you will bring to it, what you will give.
Not all expectations of marriage are unrealistic. An expectation of a loving, intimate relationship is a reasonable expectation in a marriage. However if the other person has problems in this area due to some devastating event in their past and normal sexual relationships do not follow as a matter of course, then obviously as one of our members detailed in the forums this is going to cause problems. This is probably something that is going to require counseling for both parties to be able to deal with to bring it to a satisfactory result.
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