My favorite bedtime stories when I was a child were Cinderella, Rapunzel and Snow White. And even before I got married, The Notebook, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days and Titanic were my films of choice. This created a monster in me.
I have some serious expectations for my husband... and they're not very fair.
1. Your husband will put your needs above his own or anyone else's (friends, family, etc).
2. Romantic gestures should be over the top and occur at least once a day.
3. He will always be the first to apologize and admit the conflict was his fault.
4. Your husband finds you drop dead gorgeous everyday, and is gaga over you... knowing that you are the best thing that has ever happened to him, no matter how much of a pain in the ass you might be.
5. As a matter of fact, he finds your annoying habits a bit quirky and endearing.
6. And he will change his annoying habits.
7. Sex will always be romantic- candles lit all over the room, rose petals on the bed, no need for more than one minute of foreplay and soft sensual music cued up in the background...and never an awkward moment.
8. He will be artistic/poetic/musical and you will be his muse.
9. Your husband will never say anything wrong.
10. No matter what, he will always be happy to see you after a long day at work.
Notice some problems here? Maybe my expectations are unrealistic...
I'm actually figuring that out pretty quick. I grew up in a dysfunctional household, and I guess that all these love stories were my idea of an escape from that family life. I thought my husband would be my hero, my knight in shining armor, who would come to my rescue on his big white horse and fix everything that my parents were doing wrong. We would never argue or fight, like I did with my family, because we were in love and that love is perfect and nothing would ever get in the way of our gratitude toward each other.
But somehow, after the euphoria of finding Mr Perfect wore off... I learned that he's an imperfect person too. And my dysfunctional lifestyle has crept into my married life as well.. and I need to change it. I resort back to old habits of yelling, screaming, crying and running away...all the reactions I had toward conflict as a little girl. My growth in handling conflict somehow was stunted and hopefully I can train myself enough in the fruit of the spirit to know how to handle myself better in these situations.
Having these crazy expectations of my husband to be the person who fulfills all of my desires is unhealthy and damaging to our marriage. The only one who I will find fulfillment in is Christ, because he's the only one who is perfect when I'm not. I feel so sorry to my husband for placing all this pressure on him to be something for me which he can't possibly be. I just pray that God helps me to love him for who he is now and that we're able to grow together, learning from each other how to be more Christ-like to one another and to the world.
