Expectations.

We all have them. Sometimes they are completely legitimate. Sometimes they are completely realistic. Unfortunately, there are a lot of times where they are completely unrealistic. And it's unrealistic expectations that, if not recognized, can cause a lot of problems.

I don't know as much about psychology as I would like to. But I do know that we all enter into situations and scenarios with certain expectations of how things should go, and how we should be treated.

A prime example that I can't help but use here is marriage. Two people enter into marriage with different expectations. And a lot of different variables go into creating those expectations. It may be the person's past/background. It may be the religious environment the person was raised in. But one huge factor that I think often goes unrecognized is the media and culture we live in.

Think about it. A lot (if not all) of the problems in a marriage come from unmet expectations. Some of which are not even fair expectations because they may actually be impossible to meet. Because they are unrealistic.

A really good example of this is the way that our culture and the media treats sex. Think about it. It's all over the place. Commercials, movies, television shows, billboards, food advertisements, drug and alcohol advertisements. Our media makes sexual references with nearly everything. And the false expectations our media creates about sex has the same effect that, I dare to say, pornography creates.

Consider a husband who is suffering with an addiction to pornography. He is feeding his mind with images that are not realistic. The average American woman weighs between 145 and 160, and wears a size 12. But you never see the "average" woman in media. You only see the small percentage of women who have the "perfect" body. And a lot of the time, these women's features are fake; they've been manipulated using computers and other technology. And so, the women these men are seeing are not even real. They are fake. And when the man is intimate with his wife, she will never meet his expectations. Because they are not realistic.

The media has a very similar effect to the one pornography has. Sex and sexuality is put on such a high pedestal in this society that young Christians who have remained pure enter into marriage expecting something completely unreal. And what happens? Someone in that marriage relationship is disappointed. And someone in that relationship is left wondering if something is missing here. And Satan has a breeding ground for temptation. He can try and deceive the couple of so many lies. He can try and get one partner to believe his/her expectations would be met with a different partner. He can lead the other partner to believe he/she is ugly or undesirable or does not have the ability to meet the partner's needs.

But nothing is missing. The expectations were never realistic in the first place. And this seems to be the root of a lot of problems. A husband expects his wife to cook all of the meals and do all of the dishes. She doesn't. Disappointment. And wife expects her husband to bring home flowers spontaneously. He doesn't. Disappointment. It goes on and on.

I think one way to improve this problem is for people to just recognize expectations for what they are. If a couple expects marriage to be a certain way and it's not, they need to evaluate their expectations. And decide why these were the expectations. And figure out if they were even fair and realistic or not. Once we can realize this, we can finally be on our we to resolving the whole problem and living the fulfilling life we hoped we would have.

So think about your life right now. What problems are you experiencing? Can you trace those problems back to unmet expectations? I hope that reading this will help you be on your way to resolving some of your problems.