Unrealistic expectation

“Unrealistic expectations always lead to disappointment” [Paul David Tripp, "What did you Expect?"].

The Christian singles should pray to God for their marriage.  They must pray in for their future spouse whom God has prepared.  And they should expect God to answer their prayers.  In such expectation, they must wait for the answer of God's prayer by faith and at the same time they should have an encounter with another opposite sex in the Lord with open heart.  Whether it's an encounter with a member of the church, with a co-worker in their work place, with a person whom their family members or friends introduced, or a meeting through the Internet, they need to pursue more aggressively in meeting the opposite sex for their marriage.  One important thing in this process is that Christian singles should prioritize the most important encounter with God.  And they must encounter themselves in their encounter with God.  Here, having an encounter with themselves means getting to know themselves by knowing God.  When the Christian singles get to know themselves by getting to know God, they will be able to see themselves in God’s perspective.  When they have such a right view of ego, they will not meet their future spouse with unrealistic expectations.

                So many Christian singles seem to be dreaming to marry their future spouse with unrealistic expectations when they meet with their future spouse whom God has sent.  Especially those couples who have never fought while they were dating seem to have more of these unrealistic expectations of marriage.  If they marry, they think they will never fight each other and always be happy with their future spouse whom the love so much.  What a pleasant fantasy this is.  But what about reality?  Think about it.  How can a sinner man marry a sinner woman in this sinful world, and not sin against God in their marital relationship?  How can two sinners gather together to form a family, and never quarrel and never hate each other even in their hearts?  Although one may not hate his spouse to the death, he will hate his spouse in his heart and commits sin against God when he gets marry.  Nonetheless, those immature Christian singles who do not fully realize this sinful reality are dreaming their marriage with too much of idealistic expectations.  They are not cold-hearted and objective but emotional and they are unable to face the reality.  Therefore, they may prepare their own wedding ceremony as best as they can, but they are not prepared for their marriage.  One of the things they are not prepared for is marital conflict.  They may not feel the need to learn about how to deal with future marital conflicts because they love each other so much and have no conflicts while they are dating.  Or even if there is conflict now, they tend to neglect in learning about how to deal with conflicts because they may think that they will be able to solve all their conflicts in love.  When Christian singles are dating and are in love, who will buy a book about marital conflicts and prepare for their future marriage?  That’s why I personally think that conflicts are needed when Christian couples are dating.  Not only when they are dating but also when they get married, they need conflicts.

Some of the couples who are afraid of being hurt by conflicts tend to keep distance from each other in order to avoid conflicts.  So they try to know each other to some extent but not in depth.  Maybe they do not have the courage to do that because they are afraid of getting hurt.  Maybe they want to keep a marital relationship that does not hurt each other.  But I think that even though they may not seem to be fighting each other on the surface and thus it seems like a good couple, their relationship cannot keep growing because their love is not really deep.  As the couple lives together, their relationship should be deepen and should make progress in their marriage.   But if they do not know how to deal with conflicts well then their relationship cannot be deepen and grow in the progress.  I think there is a danger here.  The danger is that the couple who keeps a distance from each other in order to maintain the status quo of marital relationship can have a different sex to come in between that space of the distance.  And the reason why the other sex is coming into the gap between the couple relationship is because the couple does not have close encounters and fellowship in the Lord and they are somewhat distant from each other.  If the couple has an intimate encounter and fellowship in the Lord, they will know each other more deeply even through conflicts and hurting each other in deeper love for each other.  And they would have made a commitment to make their marital conflicts and even hurts beneficial to their own marital relations.  Therefore, their marital conflicts are beneficial process for them to know and to love each other dearly and deeply.  However, the couples who are afraid to be hurt by their loved one due to conflict may not get hurt and thus escape from that moment, but their relationship cannot get deeper.  There are so many differences between a man and a woman such as, different personalities, different thoughts, different viewpoints, etc.  So how could there be no conflict between them?  How could they not hurt each other even thought I am sure they don’t want to hurt each other?  So if the couple have not committed themselves to overcome their differences even though conflicts and hurts, their relationships may look good outwardly to people around, but they are missing out the opportunity of marriage to know the depth of love the Lord has given.

The Christian couples must wake up from their fantasies with unrealistic expectations.  If they do not get out of their fantasies, then they will have a great disappointment with each other when they get married.  The Christian couples must have realistic expectations in order to avoid experiencing that big disappointment.  And in order to have realistic expectations, it is necessary for them to listen to the married couples.  Especially, they must listen well to the words of married couples who have been overcoming the real difficulties of marital relations by God's grace and wisdom.  It is much better to listen to them than to listen to the people who are so negative about marriage (though you do not want to listen to them anyway).  Also the Christian couples need to open their ears and listen to the good Christian counselors who wrote books about marital relationships.  Here, the well-written books by Christian counselors refer to the books written on the basis of biblical principles.  The reason I say this is because so many books about dating, marriage and family are based on a psychological theory based on people rather than on the biblical principles.  As the married couple who listen to the exemplary married couples’ words and listen to the Christian authors who have wrote the well-written Christian books about dating, marriage and family, the couple must listen to each other.  In other words, the Christian couples should share truthfully with one another in prayers, based on the words of the married couples and the words of the Christian counselors whom they have already heard.  As they have this kind of heart to heart conversation, they must get to each other more in depth.  As the Christian couples get to each other, they should not be contented to know each other’s similarities but they should devote themselves to get to know each other’s differences.  The Christian singles must face each other’s differences in their honest sharing.  When they do so, I think they can reduce some of their unrealistic expectations.  As a result, they will not be disappointed by unrealistic expectations, but rather they will be able to enjoy what they have received from the Lord that they have prayed and waited in expectation.