We all enter our marriages with hopes and dreams for the future and fixed ideas of what we are going to get from the marriage. These ideas are based on:

• The good things we saw in our parent’s marriage
• The bad things we saw in our parent’s marriage
• Reality television shows
• What we read in magazines and hear on the radio

Things quickly go wrong in a marriage when we don’t discuss with our partners what we think we will get from the marriage as our partner does not know what they are supposed to be doing or what their role is. For example:

• a woman might enter the marriage with a very firm need for financial security but her partner doesn’t know this and continues to make his own financial decisions and spend money without consulting her.
• A man might enter a marriage with a strong need not to be controlled as he has been controlled throughout his life by his mother and he hated the life his father led. His wife does not know this, however and causes great resentment when she wants to know her husband’s schedule, right down to the second.

Also we may have unrealistic expectations of our marriages and how we will feel in them. Often we believe that it is our partner’s job to make us happy and that he or she must make our welfare their prime concern, even at the expense of their own happiness.

Take A Reality Check

For a marriage to succeed we need to understand that we are responsible for our own happiness. No-one else has this job. It is up to us to fill our days with meaningful tasks and meaningful relationships so that we feel valuable and complete. If we are not happy within ourselves no-one can make us happy.

For a marriage to thrive we must aim to constantly give, with no expectation of receiving. We must have the best interests of our partner in our heart and make all of our decisions with this end in sight. When our partner feels such love and respect he will want to reciprocate and we will have a marriage where love flows freely and grows.

We must remember that no-one person can fulfil all our needs and that to be whole we need the strengths and gifts unique to a range of individuals. All the people in our lives have a different role to play and make us whole.

It is essential that any marriage is wide and welcoming so that other human beings feel invited to be a part of our lives. We can never have enough people who care about us in our lives.