Expectations in Marriage VS. Role in Marriage

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Did you have expectation in marriage before the ceremony took place? Did you and your future spouse talk about those expectations? Now, if you have been married for a bit are those expectation actually the role you play in your marriage?

Some people enter into marriage with unrealistic expectations that can later cause frustrations. This is why it is important for you and your significant other to talk about expectations before marriage. You can discuss each of your expectations and make sure they are realistic.

Before getting married Ryan and I attended the Forever. For Real.workshop which talked about this topic in detail. We had not really talked in detail about what each other thoughts were on expectations and roles in marriage. One evening while we were cooking dinner I brought it up. We decided basically that since we are both working and both training with no kids right now that our responsibilities would be pretty much split. Whatever needs to be done and who has time to do it will do it. For us this was a simple agreement that we knew could work for us.

While we were dating we had already been using this same kind of agreement it was just unspoken. Ryan would come over after work and we would go out to the River Trail to get out workout in. Whoever was done first would start dinner. Also, if we needed to pick up something to make for dinner Ryan would stop to pick it up because it was on his way. This just worked for us.

We decided until our schedule changed or we had kiddos we would keep things the same. It has worked well so far for us. What made me think to write this post was a situation the other day. Our tub train had begun to get clogged. We took a few showers like that and said we needed to fix it every time. Ryan was working out when I thought, “Oh, he is going to need to shower when he gets home and me later tonight. I should probably go take care of the drain.” The fact that my stepdad was a plumber and that we had a tool that I knew how to use does help the fact I was able to do this. Got it fixed. Check- off the to do list!

Later once Ryan got home he started a load of laundry which is all of our workout cloths. Since he works out twice as much as I do in a week he has to do laundry weekly. Which makes cleaning the workout cloths a must do on his list where I could wait another week. Yet, he throws mine in there too.

This situation led me to some thinking. Here I am doing “home repairs” and Ryan is doing laundry. One that is not the typical roles men and women play in the relationship. But two that isn’t necessarily how I saw things when I thought about what each of us would do. I have no problem doing stuff around the house as far as improvements because I did that a lot growing up, but I didn’t necessarily see Ryan doing laundry every week.

I say all that to say this: We work together as a team to help meet the needs of each other and our home. Because we talked about our expectation we have a system that works well for us and keeps our household running smoothly. My question is have you and your spouse talked about expectation and roles in marriage? Newlyweds or not if there are issues with roles and responsibilities it needs to be discussed so frustrations, anger and dissatisfaction does not creep up in your relationship! Use this worksheet (page 8 ) as a guide to start the conversation about expectations in your marriage and to help find a system that works for you!