Principe # 5

Realistic concept of love and healthy expectations of marriage

We all come into marriage with great expectations or with little or no expectations depending where one is coming from. For example if you have grown up seeing men cheating on their wives and probably your own Father used to cheat on your Mother, there is a tendency that you will enter marriage with little or no expectations that your husband will remain faithful to you. So you are always suspicious of him and are always waiting for that to happen. This is obviously an unhealthy expectation of marriage.

On the other hand many of us come into marriage with this great expectations of a happily ever after like we see in movies or read on those fairy tales. But what we don’t realize is that yes, those are just that fairy tales. In real life real things happen. We disagree, we go broke, the good feelings come and go not to mention our differences, from different backgrounds, and we have different personalities and communication styles. 

What Grace and I try to help couples realize during our premarital coaching program is to be realistic in their expectations. We help them enter marriage with a balanced view of marriage and a realistic concept of love. A realistic concept of love realizes that love is more than feelings; it’s a commitment, a decision to love. So when the good feelings go, relax, don’t panic, just remember that you made a commitment to each other and once you decide to love them then you fall in love with them once again.