what do expect from marriage

[Avniel]

I am recently engaged my wedding is coming up and i expect several things

1. Love
2. Trust
3. Honesty
4. respect
5. kindness
6. Patients
7. Compassion
8. Passion
9. no violence
10. no name calling
11. no yelling
12. open communication
13. Compromise
14. Spiritual growth
15. great sex(not a virgin I'm not to worried about that I am worried that her being a virgin is going to be different, I never had sex with a virgin.)
16. Support
17. just being a great team


what do you expect in your future marriage or your marriage coming up?

 

[NiobiumTragedy]

How to tell someone doesn't know much about marriage?

1. That list.

I jest, I jest. Seriously, it's a nice thought to think that things will be all apples and oranges, flowers and daisies, sunny days and puffy clouds, but the reality is that it won't be. There will be days where you're mad at each other, there will be arguments, there will be things that you probably won't like now and again, there will even be days where you will both want to strangle each other, but what matters is how much you truly love the person you're with to work out differences when they occur.

 

[Aveil]

Yes we all know that their will times of anger and disappointment but the Bible says " be ye angry but sin not" there is away to be upset, there is a way to be frustrated and disappointed. Rainy days do come but how you handle them is what makes the marriage. I have seen people with the exact marriage I described.

 

[NiobiumTragedy]

You must live in some holy land with no problems then because I've not. Most likely the ones you are thinking of were new marriages or they are good at keeping things between them. It's easy to forget some of those things sometimes when anger peeks.

It's kind of amusing to me being that my marriage is one of very few I know of which has never had a full blown fight.

 

[Windmill]

I am recently engaged my wedding is coming up and i expect several things

1. Love
2. Trust
3. Honesty
4. respect
5. kindness
6. Patients
7. Compassion
8. Passion
9. no violence
10. no name calling
11. no yelling
12. open communication
13. Compromise
14. Spiritual growth
15. great sex(not a virgin I'm not to worried about that I am worried that her being a virgin is going to be different, I never had sex with a virgin.)
16. Support
17. just being a great team


what do you expect in your future marriage or your marriage coming up?

You mean you want all of these things. I would never expect to get them. You won't. You will get this sometimes. But plenty of times, you will not get compromise, you will not get support, you won't get kindness, you won't get passion or great sex. Because everyone has bad days, bad weeks, bad months, and struggles. Though in terms of violence... I DO expect that. There is no way that it can be tolerable to accept violence: it is too dangerous.

I would hope for such things, but I really just hope to have a fulfilling relationship with lots of love.

 

[Windmill]

Yes we all know that their will times of anger and disappointment but the Bible says " be ye angry but sin not" there is away to be upset, there is a way to be frustrated and disappointed. Rainy days do come but how you handle them is what makes the marriage. I have seen people with the exact marriage I described.

You see newlyweds with the marriages you described. AND, you see them in public, where they hide their problems.

Thats not to say that marriages suck: but it just comes with the territory. Any close human relationship results in fighting, and a fair amount of it too (well, in comparison with other people). But throughout the fighting you love the person. Thats what holds it all together, or, alternatively, commitment does, though I hope that I don't ever just stay with someone due to "commitment". Fighting/occassional inconsiderateness is one of the quessisential signs of a very close relationship. It means people are more relaxed with each other.

 

[gzt]

That had better be an aspirational list rather than what you think will happen... But, yes, some of them, especially 1-4, I think you can pretty well expect. Actually, I'll disagree with windmill, you should always expect kindness, compassion, and support.

As for #15, just don't expect things to be awesome on the first shot, and don't worry about it, you'll figure things out in a few months.

 

[Luther073082]

Just be sure to expect the bad as well as the good too.

When people talk about love being a choice, this is what they are talking about.

When things are going great, love is a feeling, its there and its natural and its great.

But you are marrying a sinner. Its in the moments that they dissappoint you or upset you the most that love really is a choice. In those moments you can do what your sinful self wants to do, strike back, cause more anger, create more seperation and distrust.

Or you could choose to love even in your anger and do the loving thing. Thats the moment where you really decide if you love this person or not. If you act in love, you may find you love them more afterwards. If you act in anger, you will find that you will resent them more afterwards.

 

[Windmill]

That had better be an aspirational list rather than what you think will happen... But, yes, some of them, especially 1-4, I think you can pretty well expect. Actually, I'll disagree with windmill, you should always expect kindness, compassion, and support.

As for #15, just don't expect things to be awesome on the first shot, and don't worry about it, you'll figure things out in a few months.

No way. You can demand/want all of this, but if you expect it, you're going to be bitterly disappointed, because you won't always get kindness/compassion/support. I would expect to get it the great majority of the time, but not ALL the time.

 

[moreruthlessjezebel]

I'm getting married within the next few months but my parents had a very far from perfect relationship, so my views on marriage are a bit weird. Thankfully, I did get to witness a wonderful, loving relationship that my grandparents shared, so I'm not totally jaded,

HOWEVER, here is my list of the things I expect and accept in marriage, in no particular order:
- Toenails -- when I was little, my sister and I had to share a bed... daggers in the middle of the night, stabbing my shins!
- Beard clippings around the sink -- haven't seen any yet when I go over but that doesn't mean they don't exist!
- Sacrifice -- and I don't mean just his. Just to continue on the silly trend, I'm giving up ice cream before bed. I'm lactose intolerant and it makes me super gassy. Oh the things we do for love...
- The toilet seat being down -- actually, he grew up with three females in the house so that came with the package.
- Everything to be left open and no toilet paper on the dispenser -- my mom in particular is really bad about this and it's one of my pet peeves. Haven't noticed him doing this though.

That all sounds silly and is mostly bathroom related, I know. But someday, one of us is going to eat something that really doesn't agree with the other and to suffer through -- that's LOVE right there.

When you marry someone, they become the family that you choose. There is no getting rid of family, and my family has had their fair share of struggles right from the start. I don't wish a fraction of that on my marriage, but I know we will have conflict from time to time and issues and problems.

I know the original poster has some rose colored glasses on but can't we strike for some middle ground that marriage isn't so terrible?

I expect a few other things:
- to go to church often - he's been called to the ministry, so it's a bit of a given..
- random road trips - we've both got wanderlust. Might not go out as often as we do now but 'enough'.
- To laugh at each other when we're old. I mean with each other. Right. With each other..

If you shouldn't expect kindness, compassion and support, should you expect harshness, cruelty and abandonment? If you can't expect your future spouse to act that way, should you really consider marrying them or dating them at all?

 

[mylife4his]

Haha Thats Love Alright!

 

[mylife4his]

Love is not a feeling, it means being committed. Feelings come with love, but Love is what 1COR. 13 talks about. Its the real deal.

 

[Steve Petersen]

With a list like that, it is no wonder Christian marriages founder more than the general publics.

Set the bar too high and you WILL be dissapointed. Then you will feel a need to explain why your marriage ISN'T ideal. The blame game starts: it's him, it's the Devil...

Somehow we manage to avoid any responsibility because, after all, we have these ideals. That means we are OK, right??

WRONG!

 

[shawn123]

First, or all make sure that both you and your fiance are born again. Probably the most difficult problem anyone can ever face in marriage is to be unequally yoked.

If every day you and your spouse remember the Gospel and base your marriage on what the Bible describes as a marriage and your roles as husband and wife you will do just fine. I have a wonderful marriage and it is because we look to the Bible alone for our "list". Society and it's poor understanding of what marriage is can not help. Scripture is sufficient for all things and will give you everything you need to know about marriage. Search the scriptures to be the best husband/wife you can be. If you have access to podcasts, I would highly recommend looking up Paul Washer, John MacArthur, or John Piper's sermons regarding marriage and family.

Remember, our marriage is a gift from God and it most importantly is about being a demonstration to the world of the gospel. The husband represnts Christ and the wife represents the Church. Our marriages are a testimony to the world for the hope that lies within us.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25-27)

 

[Mrs. Luther073082]

I will echo what everyone else has said that you need to expect that bad along with the good. If you expect perfection, you're setting yourself up for disaster. In premarital counseling, our pastor told us marriage would be "100x harder than the hardest thing you've ever done" and to remember that we're each marrying another "sinner". Any marriage is going to take work to survive. Expect that.

 

[Mrs. Luther073082]

First, or all make sure that both you and your fiance are born again. Probably the most difficult problem anyone can ever face in marriage is to be unequally yoked.

If every day you and your spouse remember the Gospel and base your marriage on what the Bible describes as a marriage and your roles as husband and wife you will do just fine. I have a wonderful marriage and it is because we look to the Bible alone for our "list". Society and it's poor understanding of what marriage is can not help. Scripture is sufficient for all things and will give you everything you need to know about marriage. Search the scriptures to be the best husband/wife you can be. If you have access to podcasts, I would highly recommend looking up Paul Washer, John MacArthur, or John Piper's sermons regarding marriage and family.

Remember, our marriage is a gift from God and it most importantly is about being a demonstration to the world of the gospel. The husband represnts Christ and the wife represents the Church. Our marriages are a testimony to the world for the hope that lies within us.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25-27)

I will echo this as well I'm not going to guarantee you'll be just fine, though, because it takes both people following what God wants for it to work, and you can only control your own actions. And nobody is perfect at following the word all of the time. If you browse through the marriage forums on CF, you'll see that problems are always caused by one or both spouses chronically not following scripture. I agree that if both people do follow scripture, it should work.

When people talk about love being a choice, this is what they are talking about.

When things are going great, love is a feeling, its there and its natural and its great.

But you are marrying a sinner. Its in the moments that they dissappoint you or upset you the most that love really is a choice. In those moments you can do what your sinful self wants to do, strike back, cause more anger, create more seperation and distrust.

Or you could choose to love even in your anger and do the loving thing. Thats the moment where you really decide if you love this person or not. If you act in love, you may find you love them more afterwards. If you act in anger, you will find that you will resent them more afterwards.

^This is exactly where scripture is really important.

 

[Windmill]

I think of it as kind of nice though. You're getting a real person

 

[ampbelle3130]

i'm getting married in one week.
what do i expect?

1) that the moment i expect anything, i need to prepare for the unexpected.
2) that no matter what as long as we focus on the LORD and His love for us, we'll make it through any situation: expected or otherwise.

: )

 

[ampbelle3130]

Love is not a feeling, it means being committed. Feelings come with love, but Love is what 1COR. 13 talks about. Its the real deal.

absolutely. if we base anything on feelings - that anything was just given the possibility of failure. feelings fade.
but if you wake up every morning and you make the decision (because it is in your power to do so...) to love the person you made a covenant with, you'll make it through one more day. do that every day and you'll make it through a lifetime.