Unrealistic Expectations

'(In romantic relationships) unrealistic expectations will always bring disappointment.'
—Paul David Tripp, What Did You Expect?

Christian singles should pray to God for marriage. As they pray, they should pray for the future spouse God has prepared for them. And they should expect God to answer those prayers. With such expectation, they should wait in faith for God’s answer while also meeting members of the opposite sex with an open heart in the Lord. Whether those encounters happen in church, through introductions by church members, at work, or through the internet, they need to pursue such meetings with a proactive attitude.

One essential point in this process is that Christian singles must prioritize the most important relationship—their relationship with God. And within that relationship, they must also come to truly know themselves. By knowing God, they learn who they are. Only when Christian singles understand themselves through God’s perspective can they avoid approaching the future spouse God sends with unrealistic expectations.

Once Christian singles meet the spouse God is sending them and begin dating, many start dreaming of marriage with unrealistic expectations. This seems especially true for couples who have never had a single argument while dating. They imagine that once they marry the person they love so dearly, they will never fight and will spend their whole lives together in perfect sweetness and harmony. What a pleasant fantasy. But is it realistic?

Think about it: in this sinful world, when a sinful man marries a sinful woman, how could they possibly avoid sinning against God in their marriage? How could two sinners build a home together without ever quarreling or feeling anger? Even if they may never come to hate each other “to death,” once married, a couple will inevitably feel anger at times and sin against God in their hearts.

Yet many immature Christian singles—who have not fully grasped this sinful reality—still cling to overly idealistic expectations as they dream of marriage. They are not calm or objective; instead, they are emotional and unable to face reality. So, although they may prepare the wedding ceremony with great effort, they are not truly preparing for marriage. One crucial area they neglect is marital conflict. Because they love each other so much during dating and seem to have no conflicts, they feel no need to learn about it. Or, if they do have conflicts, they assume their love will solve everything, and thus neglect preparing for conflict in marriage.

After all, who buys books on marital conflict and agonizes over them while dating someone they love?

This is why I personally believe Christian couples need conflict while dating. And not just while dating—couples need conflict after marriage as well.

Some couples fear the hurt that conflict brings and therefore keep emotional distance from each other. They interact only to a certain depth, unwilling to go deeper. Perhaps they lack the courage. Perhaps they want to maintain a relationship where no one ever gets hurt. But in my view, though such couples may appear to get along well on the surface, in reality their love lacks depth. They may maintain the appearance of marriage, but their relationship cannot grow. As time goes on, a couple’s relationship should deepen, strengthen, and mature; but a couple that does not know how to engage conflict cannot build a deep, strong, growing marriage.

I believe there is a serious danger here. When couples maintain distance to preserve the status quo, there is always room for someone else to enter that space. And the reason such a person can enter is that the couple is not maintaining intimate fellowship with one another in the Lord and are instead keeping emotional distance. If a couple is walking closely with each other in the Lord, they will be willing to know each other more deeply, to love each other more deeply, and even to be wounded by one another. They will be committed to using those wounds for the good of their marriage.

For such couples, marital conflict becomes a beneficial process—one that deepens their knowledge of each other and their love for each other.

But couples who fear hurting one another may avoid conflict and avoid immediate pain, yet their relationship cannot grow deeper. Men and women differ in countless ways—personality, thinking, perspective, and more. How could two such different people, brought together by God’s grace, possibly avoid clashing and being “shaped” by one another? Couples who avoid such discomfort may appear fine to others because they do not fight, but in reality, they are missing the opportunity to experience the deeper love the Lord gives.

Christian couples must wake up from the fantasy created by unrealistic expectations. If they do not escape it, they will eventually marry and taste deep disappointment. To prevent such disappointment, Christian couples must cultivate realistic expectations. And to do so, they need to listen to married couples—especially those who, by God’s grace and wisdom, have weathered the real challenges of marriage well. Listening to them is far better than listening to people who speak negatively about marriage (though one may not wish to hear them anyway).

Christian couples also need to listen to Christian counselors (pastors) who write well on marriage. These should be books grounded in biblical principles. I say this because many modern books about family life are based on human-centered psychological theories rather than Scripture.

As Christian couples listen to exemplary married couples and biblically grounded Christian counselors, the most important voices they must listen to are each other’s. Based on the wisdom they have heard, they must think carefully, pray earnestly, and then share honestly with one another what they have wrestled with. In such sincere, heart-to-heart conversations, Christian couples must learn more about each other. And they must not be satisfied merely with discovering their similarities—they must also commit to understanding their differences. Christian singles must honestly share their differences and face them together. By doing so, they will begin to reduce their unrealistic expectations. And as a result, rather than being disappointed, they will experience joy as they receive what they have prayed for and expected from God in patient waiting.