Expectations

This past Sunday, Parker really was my hero...once again. I was so incredibly exhausted after my long (but amazing) weekend at work. I can't imagine that he had any more energy than I did because he was one of the amazing small group leaders walking with our 2,200 students for the weekend. He had nine 7th grade boys BY HIMSELF for the entire weekend. The fact that he gave up his entire weekend to help speak truth into the life of his guys made me fall in love with him all over again. When we got home from church Sunday morning, I went straight back to bed. It was after 11 by the time we got home so I was starting to get hungry for lunch. However, being as dead tired as I was, I laid in bed, half asleep listening to the sound of my growling stomach, and tried to decide if sleep or food was more important to me. He said that he would run out and pick something up so I wouldn't have to cook and so that I could nap while he was out. We came back in about an hour, which was exactly enough time for me to rest and wake up feeling refreshed and starving. We ate lunch and then he proceeded to do laundry, compile a list of questions for my pediatrician interview this week AND cook dinner! What a superhero!!

At one point in the day, I sat outside for an hour or two reading a book called "Babyproofing Your Marriage." It was talking about pitfalls that couples get into once a baby arrives and how to avoid them. As I was reading through, it made me think about expectations. Most of the problems that seemed to arise with the couples they interviewed were from unfulfilled expectations that the husband and wife put on each other. Parker and I spent a lot of time discussing this very topic before we got married. Through pre-marital counseling and a strong Biblical foundation to our relationship, we were very blessed to recognize that most couples that struggle early on in their marriage do so because they go into the marriage with expectations of each other. The husband expects to come home to a clean house and dinner on the table, served by his hot wife dressed in some sort of sexy, lacey outfit. The wife expects him to show up right at 6pm on the dot, ready to help out with the household chores since she's been working a full day too. Of course, it doesn't always work out like that. I remember one time that Parker came home about an hour later than he said he would and by the time he arrived, dinner was as cold as his wife. I was pretty pissed but we talked it through and he's never been more than 15 or 20 min late and even then, he calls. I've heard about couples that had expectations going into their marriage about their spouse starting or quitting some habit as soon as they got married, only to realize that nothing really changed except a last name.

As I read my book, it became almost daunting to think about all the things that could potentially go wrong with a marriage because of a sweet little blessing from God coming in and stealing the show. We've all seen couples that put their child ahead of their marriage and end up signing papers and fighting over said child before preschool has even begun. I've always said that as great as pre-marital counseling is, I think pre-baby counseling is more necessary. Getting married is a change in lifestyle but you're still pretty much the same people. When a baby comes along, who you are fundamentally changes practically overnight. Its not like the transition from being someone's girlfriend/fiance to being their wife. Its a transition from being solely someone's wife to now you're someone's mother and there's a little life that depends on you 24/7 to fulfill all of his or her needs. Hubby gets pushed to the back-burner because he's a grown-up and can (or at least should be able to) take care of himself. The book seems to think that all women turn into obsessive compulsive control freaks who never shower, never sleep and certainly never ever have sex with their husbands again. I can see how that would put a strain on a marriage. The husbands feel pushed out of the equation, like they've been replaced or even worse, they were used as simply a sperm-donor to get what the wife really wanted. Now they are no longer needed and are completely useless as husbands and fathers. As I read all this, I thought back to expectations we put on our spouses that are often too lofty for anyone to actually attain. I talked to Parker about it to try to see if he had any expectations of me going into this whole parenthood thing. Just like when we got married, he said that he had no idea what to expect and was just planning on taking it one day at a time. I think that's a pretty good attitude. I tried to think realistically about expectations I have of him. Sure, I'd love for him to come home early every night, ready to take over baby duty so that I can rest, shower, etc. However, I know that when he gets home from work, he'll be just as tired as I am. He will probably also have gotten up a few times the night before to the cries of our little one, whether or not he was able to help with feeding and changing. Then, would have gotten up early and had to function as a human all day at work. Sure, I will be sleep-deprived and exhausted but so will he. I would also love to think that Saturdays, he will want to spend every minute enjoying his time at home with his wife and daughter after a long week of work. But realistically, I know some Saturdays he would prefer to spend half the day on the golf course or the lake. Neither of those will make him a bad father or husband. I think the majority of the expectations could very easily come from me, feeling like I am undervalued as a stay-at-home mom. However, at the end of the day, there are sacrifices we both make in order to have a child, just like there are sacrifices we both make to become one unit when we say "I do." By getting married, you sacrifice your option to make a decision without consulting someone else. You sacrifice time that would otherwise be spent doing something you love when your spouse doesn't share the same love for that activity. Parker sacrificed a yearly ski trip with the boys when he married me. I sacrificed living in the city to move up here to the country. But we would both say that those things are worth giving up for all that is gained in marriage. With a child, we sacrifice a lot of freedoms and alone time, along with sleep and sanity from what I understand. But again, those things are worth giving up for all that is gained through parenthood.

I believe that expectations can be the downfall to a happy marriage. But if you take each new challenge as just that, a challenge to be approached on a day-by-day basis, you can end up finding deeper fulfillment than you ever thought possible through the shared experience. You end up on the other side of it with shared war stories and inside jokes to go along with the bruises, bandages and gray hair. To me, that's what life is about. That's what we hope for in a marriage. A partner who has been there, done that right along side of you and loves you even more on the other side.