A SURVEY OF HUSBAND'S POST-MARITAL EXPECTATIONS

ABSTRACT

This research was a survey of husbands' expectations in marriage. The purpose was to find out what husbands expect in a wife, the nature of the expectations, the level to which the expectations were met, the extent to which the expectation caused disagreements/misunderstandings and quarrels, and if the expectations were realistic or not according to their achievement level. ?This study was done by questionnaire. It was distributed and filled out online using Google Documents between the 6th - 9th of June 2023. The questionnaire was posted on Facebook, Whatsapp, and LinkedIn platforms. The research population was made up of 232 married men from ages 20 and above who filled out the questionnaires. All of these have been married for at least six months. Analysis revealed that the highest number of respondents were aged 40-44 (22.6%), 45-49 years (19.6%), and 50-54 years (17.9%). The highest number of respondents from the period of being married were 10-14 years (22.1%), 15-19 years (18.7% and 5-9 years (18.3%). The research found that most husbands (92.1%) have at least one expectation in their marriage. The expectations that ranked highest for husbands were for their wives to be spiritual (85%), supportive (81.8%), and smart (76.4%). However, only 12.5% of respondents noted their wives fulfilled all their expectations and the unfulfillment became a cause of marital disagreements, misunderstandings, and quarrels. It was also found that most of the husbands even when their wives didn't meet their expectations believed that the expectations were realistic (77.7%).

Introduction

Humans are prone to having expectations. It appears to be the way life is sustained and nurtured. From birth to adulthood, humans anticipate things that they either desire or things they deserve.

An expectation is a hope that is anchored on emotion or a belief of a desire being met in the future. It is a pattern of pseudo-reality that serves as an Eldorado. It is a future about things or people but a variable not within your control. In other words, an expectation is a mindset that something or someone will act in a certain way that I desire and deserve to have.

Expectations are driven by religious, cultural, social, psychological, and even geographical factors. All these helps create a mindset of something that is desired and deserved.

Every human being sees their hopes and or happiness as externally generated rather than internal. So, we anticipate something that will be in alignment with what we want so we can experience our projected reality in agreement with what we expect to happen. This happens especially in marriage.

Lavner, Karney, and Bradbury found in a study found that newlywed couples had the likelihood to always and consistently over-project a rise in their happiness levels by just being married to their soulmate. This overestimation is based on the assumed contributory happiness factor of their better half.

Therefore, expectations are assumptions about the future, and anticipations based on subjective and objective experiences. Marriage expectations are personal beliefs about the events that may occur to shape your happiness based on your belief in the person you have married (Sabatelli & Pearce, 1986).

Demographics

Finding & Discussion

92.1 % of respondents agreed they had at least one expectation about their wife going into marriage. Fallahchai, Fallahi, and Badiee, (2021) in their study "Intent, attitudes, expectations, and Purposes of Marriage in Iran: a mixed methods study" found that most people go into marriage with diverse expectations. These expectations cover religious, sexual, and social grounds.

Premarital and postmarital expectations tend to play a significant effect in the marriage life of a person. Once marriage expectations are met, it is recognized that the individual is more likely to enjoy more happiness and marital satisfaction. Particularly, expectations regarding the spouse are regarded as one of the strongest indicators of marital satisfaction (Fawad, Shahid, Shamim & Zubair, 2022).

Out of the 232 respondents in this study, here are the ten most basic things husbands expect from their wives in marriage: spiritual:

• one who loves God (198),
• supportive: covers up his areas of weaknesses (190),
• smart: able to take wise and intelligent decisions (178),
• solution-driven: able to think outside the box and solve problems (158),
• savvy: knowledgable and well-informed about things (148),
• sweet: pleasing disposition and cheerful (147)
• serene: not combative, not a troublemaker and quiet (147),
• sensitive: understanding and with the ability to defer to the husband (140),
• stable: in mind and in emotion; doesn't lose control (140) and
• systematized: organized, keeps a neat space by putting things where they belong (137).

Spirituality ranked as the highest expectation of husbands. The spiritual component of life is the core around which everything else revolves. It’s the key to healing, wholeness, and well-being in every area of the human experience. Since God created men and women in His own image (Genesis 1:27), it’s reasonable to conclude that they can never be complete apart from a relationship with Him. Most husbands also expect their wives to be supportive (190 respondents out of 232). This finding agrees with Ngazimbi, Daire, Carlson, and Munyon (2017). In their study "Analysis of Marital Expectations in African Immigrant and United States-Born Married Couples", they found that care and support along with shared values appeared to be important marital expectations for both groups. However, one finding of this study is that "cooking" does not rank high in the expectation of husbands (113 respondents). It is often said that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. So, is this a myth?

It was evident from this research that what husbands expect from or in their wives after marriage was not met. only 18 respondents (7.7 %) recorded a 90-100 percent level of fulfilling their expectations. Others scored between 80-89 % (30 respondents), 70-79 (46 respondents), 60-69 (49 respondents), and 50-59% (25 respondents).

There are only two possibilities in marital expectations, either we get what we want, or we don’t. Fawad, Shahid, Shamim, and Zubair (2022, June) perfectly captured it as a case of "What I wanted vs what I have". This happens because an expectation is a variable (something outside of one’s integral self), therefore the likelihood of a non-fulfillment outcome is a strong possibility. According to Arthur Schopenhauer "Thus also every keen pleasure is an error and an illusion, for no attained wish can give lasting satisfaction."

Similarly, Alan Watts said, "The more you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become, as pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place." This trend is called “The backward law” (aka. The Law of Reversed Effort). ?The law states that the more we chase after something, the more we achieve the opposite of what we desperately want and the more disappointed we feel (Manson, 2016; The Backwards Law - Why Happiness Is Ruining Your Life, 2020).

Once you have an expectation that lies outside of your intrinsic self, you have no control over it as it compromises your psyche or state of being. The expectation (variable) here in marriage eventually leads to cognitive dissonance as one cannot be consistent in his/her thoughts, beliefs, actions, feelings, and behaviours.

72.2 % of husbands in this study had misunderstandings, disagreements, and quarrels with their wives because of their expectations. This is because when we have expectations from others (people), "we distort their authentic self, and we don’t get to see the world around us for what-it-is or who-they-are, if not our expectations" (Balasubramanian, 2022).

McNulty (2016) in a study "Should Spouses Be Demanding Less from Marriage? A Contextual Perspective on the Implications of Interpersonal Standards" opined that modern-day couples load too many expectations onto the institution of marriage. It happens because of the belief that marriage will meet their needs for intimacy, autonomy, and friendship amongst many other expectations. When the contrary happens as this research has revealed, it has a negative effect on one’s psychological or mental health.

Expectations are what we think will happen, while reality is what transpires. While we hope these two will match up, they often don't. This disparity of expectations vs. reality can often lead to feelings of discontentment and unhappiness.

Scott (2022) further pointed out that the disagreements that happen in marriage over unmet expectations are because of the feeling of "being robbed". When expectations are not met, it can lead to feelings of disappointment, frustration, and even anger. Most marital expectations are derived from our outside interpretation of other people's experiences. We may argue that our expectations are personal, but they are truly formed by the close observation of our immediate environment and the significant others in it (Rios, 2010). The things we observe around us shape our expectations for married life, and what we want from our spouses.

The research revealed that husbands' expectations have contributed to misunderstandings, disagreements, and quarrels with their wives though to a moderate extent (25.9%). We can deduce therefore that your expectations can get the better of you when you expect more than what have in each situation. Expectations can create significant stress when they don't match up with reality.

Azam, McGarry, and Maqsood (2022) noted that spousal role expectations are generally responsible for conflicts. The wife's expectation is driven by the theme of "provider and protector", whereas for the husband it is one of "caretaker and household manager" for the wife (refer to pages 10 &11).

To a large extent, these expectations are shaped by cultural and societal interpretations and gender-specific attributions. Unmet expectations and deviation of behaviour from the expected standards may result in the development of the marital conflict. In anticipation of marriage, a person's focus is obsessed with the outcome of their expectation but not the journey. The moment your focus deviates from the journey (where the essence of your true self is and lies), there is every possibility of not evidencing the outcome that was expected.

Johnson (2015) in a study of "Marital Expectation Fulfillment and its Relationship to Height of Marital Expectations, Optimism, and Relationship Self-Efficacy Among Married Individuals" (2015) found that there is a strong correlation between expectation and marital satisfaction. Unfulfilled expectations correlate with high marital dissatisfaction. Furthermore, Ehnis (1986) in "A Study of the Relationship between Marital Expectations and Satisfaction for First Married and Remarried Couples on Factors Extracted from Two Marital Adjustment Scales" stressed that expectations act as bobby traps in the journey of marriage.

An expectation is a belief that is future-centric. It can be realistic or unrealistic. Thus, 77.7% of the respondents agreed that their expectations were not realistic but 12.3% maintained that theirs were unrealistic, and 10.0% of the respondents were unsure.

Earlier in this study we stated that only 18 respondents (7.7 %) recorded a 90-100 percent level of fulfilling their expectations. Others scored between 80-89 % (30 respondents), 70-79 (46 respondents), 60-69 (49 respondents), and 50-59% (25 respondents). This result contradicts the fact that the husband's expectations were not realistic.

Colombo, Fernández-álvarez, Suso-Ribera, Cipresso, García-Palacios, Riva, and Botella(2020) observed that the result of only 18 respondents recording total fulfillment and 77.7% of them maintaining their expectations were realistic may be an issue of "Biased affective forecasting".

When something is realistically realistic the chances of achieving it are considerably high. Unrealistic expectations on the other hand may most of the time not come out fruitful. Realistic expectations are far more practical in nature, like supporting her to acquire a qualification or pursuing a career. Unrealistic expectations are superficial projected qualities that may or may not many times be achievable, like being smart, sexy, etc.

Unrealistic expectations stem from distorted beliefs about the relationship itself. For example, if a husband believes that once he gets married, he won't feel lonely or unfulfilled, argue, or quarrel, he sets himself up for disappointment. These unrealistic beliefs can lead to disappointment and frustration when reality doesn't match our expectations.

Take a close look at your marital expectations again as a husband, how realistic are they? Below are some questions to evaluate your expectations:

• Does the expectation tap into her strength, or it magnifies her weaknesses?
• Does the expectation give her greater opportunities to be who she wants to be or threaten her real authentic self?
• Does she have a strategy prepared to help her achieve your expectations?
• Does the expectation take her potential into consideration?
• Did you communicate your expectation to her in clear terms?
• Did you hand her feedback about your expectation in non-combative ways?
• Did you make your expectations flexible for her adjustments?
• Have you taken time to reflect on why you have those expectations?

Conclusion

Premarital and marital expectations are real but not realistic. This research has found that the expectations husbands have for a wife are for a spiritual, supportive, smart, solution-driven, savvy, sensitive, serene, simple, stable, and systematised wife.

However, these expectations from the study were mostly unmet as only 18 respondents (7.7%) achieved the highest score. It is therefore not surprising that 72.2% of the respondents had disagreements with their wives due to unfulfilled expectations.

According to Kehinde Olomojobi (KWO), one question that should guide our marital expectation is this, "Am I able to also be what I am or was expecting the other person to be like?"

The antidote to our expectations is to cultivate gratitude. Gratitude trumps negative energies. If you expect everyone to be what you expect them to be, then you will go around frustrated because your expectations may just be conceptual but not realistic.

But if you go through marriage believing that your expectation is not as important as the person, she is human, finite, limited, and a work in progress, then you might be amazed at how positive your relationship will turn out to be. Learning to accept what is rather than what should be is powerful.

Therefore, manage your expectations. Always remember that certain things like marital expectations are outside your control. Learn how to stay aware of all the expectations you create, while also understanding the logic behind having them.

“My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportions to my expectations.” – Anonymous

References

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