Marriage Matters: Intentionally Growing Intimacy

Several years ago, Lora and I wrote a book called The 50 Fridays Marriage Challenge. Our dream for the book was pretty simple: what if couples intentionally invested in growing intimacy in their marriage by having one weekly conversation for a year? It’s so easy to get busy with work, kids, hobbies, extended family and other good things, that we can fail to intentionally invest in each other. So we created our book that is filled with over 50 questions that range from intense and serious topics to fun and dreaming topics. The format is straight-forward: each week you will come together and read a question, a verse of Scripture and a few words from us about the topic. Then, turn toward each other and talk, dream and engage.

Here’s a sample for you to practice with sometime this weekend:

Question: What different expectations create challenges in your marriage?

Scripture: Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. – Proverbs 13:12

In our early years of marriages, we were very unaware of the impact of expectations on our marriage. And yet, expectations exist everywhere. We had expectations about everything: spending and saving money, leisure time, friendships, vacations, sex, conversations, buying cars—you name it, and expectations were in play.

When two people come together in marriage, they bring a world of different experiences. Our expectations come from the families we were raised in, the churches we’ve attended, the impact of media, our unique cultures, and so much more. Those expectations aren’t right or wrong, but they must be spoken and understood. If not, we end up with unmet expectations and then disappointment sets in. When this gap gets created, we must work hard to prevent discouragement, resentment, or bitterness from growing.

Often expectations fall into one of the following categories: unknown, unspoken, or unrealistic. An unknown expectation is something we are unaware that we carry with us, and it’s “hard-wired” inside. These often develop from how we saw our parents interact, and we’ve “inherited” them. We learn styles of relating from what our parents did or didn’t do, and we don’t realize the impact of these unmet expectations until something feels different in our marriage. Marital roles (housekeeping, pay bills, etc.) often fall into this category.

Sometimes we are aware of our expectations, but we choose not to speak of them. Unspoken expectations can also create difficulty in our marriages. We may think our spouse should know what we want or what we’re thinking, even though we know full well that we can’t read each other’s minds. In those times, we may get angry with our spouses for not knowing what we need—even though we know we’re not being sensible.

Finally, there are unrealistic expectations. These can be the most tricky to see. When we begin to compare our marriages to others, it’s easy to develop unrealistic expectations by thinking our marriage should look like a friend’s or we should be able to do the same things they do. Also, unrealistic expectations are often couched with global terms, such as “always” and “never” (“we should never fight,” or “you’re always late”). Ultimately, unrealistic expectations happen when we are looking for our spouse or our marriage to fill something that our spouse or marriage is not capable of filling.

Remember, expectations aren’t a problem in our marriages. They’re actually the playground where hope, desire and dreams can grow. They only become problems when they are unknown to us, they’re unspoken or they’re unrealistic—and that leads to unmet expectations. As we become aware of our expectations and discuss them with each other, we can narrow the gap that unmet expectations can create and in doing so, we increase our connection, satisfaction, and intimacy. Here’s a practical step for today’s question: spend some time considering where expectations have created some challenges in your marriage. It may be helpful to use the three categories of unknown, unspoken, or unrealistic. Block out some time this week and identify these expectations so they don’t continue to trip you up in your journey toward intimacy.

The wider the gap between what we expect and the reality of what we experience,
the greater the potential for discouragement and fatigue.
– Gary Smalley, Making Love Last Forever