Expectant Fathers
Lesson 3: What Are the Facts Regarding Expectant Dad Behavior...Affairs?
The Curious Difference is More Than Birds and Bees
Unfortunately, boys get some of their most enduring beliefs and expectations about manhood from Hollywood films featuring characters not exactly representing the best role models. They typically star in action oriented movies based on the exploits of a ladies’ man (or womanizer), cut-throat business leader (unethical and fickle), war machine (counting kills as a trophy to his accomplishments), avengers (where team play doesn’t count), or social jerks (as in “men are idiots” films).
Much of the difference seen between boys and girls, and later men and women, is related to the development of gender related and personal expectations. Expectations are the standards by which we judge our behavior and that of others. They are based on experiences, both new and old, various events that take place in our life, and the voices of authority, such as our parents while growing up.
Remember back to when you were 8 years old. You had certain unique expectations for yourself, your parents, your friends, and other things that made up your world. You may have had expectations regarding Christmas and your Birthday, getting presents, seeing smiles, and having a traditional family dinner. These experiences became the basis for your expectations. They’re pleasant, consistent, filled with good feelings, and repeat themselves over the years.
At 8 years old, it is unlikely that you were thinking (forming expectations) about the ideal adult relationship or partner, that would come later. As you entered your teen years’ experiences with the opposite sex began to shape your standards for a boyfriend and later a husband. You imagined them looking and acting in a particular way, sharing the same beliefs as you, and you began to picture what becoming a couple would be like. Each boy you encountered was measured using the rigorous standards you had formed. Some passed the expectation screening while others failed. You used the same process in selecting friends. If the person didn’t meet your standards, your expectations, they were passed over and your search continued.
Although you’ve selected your partner for a lifetime of romance and companionship, the process of comparing people’s behavior to your expectations continues throughout life. Every individual you meet is “processed” to determine if they meet your minimum expectations, exceed them, or simply don’t comfortably fit your standards for companionship.
Boys and men develop expectations in a similar way as they search for their ideal life partner. Unfortunately, for many men movies, and television, and magazines often distort their standards making finding the perfect woman either impossible or terribly disappointing if they do find her. The reason they become disenchanted is that the women they choose don’t actually match their true expectations. They may try and make the person fit their picture, but eventually come to realize that Hollywood standards simply aren’t real and not theirs.
In the course of life you have experiences that are disappointing and others that are pleasant surprises. You adjust your expectations according to how emotionally charged these new experiences are. If something, or someone, feels good, you’ll come to expect the same pleasure with every encounter. If the experience is painful, you’ll learn to expect the same pain in the future and avoid any situation that might lead to it being repeated. When relationships don’t work out healthy adults reflect on what didn’t match their expectations, make adjustments in these standards, or resolve to accept the shortcomings of the other individual.
Expectations can be pictured like a bubble surrounded by a boundary (Diagram 1). The boundary of “what you expect” is continuously changing with new experiences and information. But it is also influenced by your needs at any particular moment. You’ll notice from the diagram that your needs oppose one another and therefore must be balanced according to your preexisting expectations and new experiences. Think of this boundary as a permeable filter, allowing certain events through that influence your expectations and keeping others out as either rejected or unnoticed. Your needs at a particular moment regulate the extent to which the permeable boundary allows outside experiences to influence you. In other words, your opposing sets of needs push and shape your expectation boundary. For example, you have a basic need for unique and stimulating experiences.
However, you also have a strong need for consistency in your life, to have things that you can count on. So these two needs, although opposite, are delicately balanced and will determine the shape of your expectations. The same can be said about your need for diversity. It is held in check by your need to conform and be part of a like-group. The third pair of needs shown in the diagram is risk taking and security. You feel a need to take some risks in life but simultaneously seek comfort and security. As these sets of needs apply to relationships, they contribute to the standards by which you judge another person as being satisfying and are driven motivated to be together. As a result of gender programmed expectations, many men don’t see nurturing as a masculine attribute and therefore don’t expect it from themselves. Instead, many men associate nurturing with femininity and motherhood. They see taking care of the children as a woman’s job and believe their primary job is to work and earn money. Though these men will help in the nurturing of a child, particularly when they are infants, they still feel that it is ultimately the woman’s responsibility. Interestingly, there are women who confirm these expectations by not seeing nurturing as a masculine attribute either.
An interesting study conducted by Philip and Carolyn Cowan found that when husbands were more involved in caring for the children, wives were more satisfied with the marriage. Men’s participation in household and childcare tasks may have different implications at different points in the process of becoming a family. They went on to note that at both the 6 and 18 month postpartum periods, satisfaction with the division of household and childcare tasks consistently matched levels of marital satisfaction for both men and women. “…even more important for the marriage than the fact of sharing tasks was each partner’s feelings about how the tasks were divided. Some spouses are reasonably content with what would be regarded as fairly traditional divisions of labor, whereas others are dissatisfied with divisions that approach the egalitarian (equal work) end of the continuum.” (Cowan & Cowan, 1988)
Ideally, men and women learn from each other's strengths through relationships. A woman can guide her partner toward accepting and expressing his feelings while a husband can help his wife see the benefits of taking quick action and “keeping the ball in play;” a characteristic which her upbringing may not have emphasized for her. Sometimes, however, the differences between men and women become a bane rather than a benefit in a relationship. When a woman looks for the same intimacy with her husband that she has experienced with female friends, she may be sorely disappointed. Likewise, a man who hopes to duplicate his “buddy” type relationships with his wife may feel overwhelmed by her need to talk about feelings or her desire for emotional intimacy. Finding she demands more intensity than he can comfortably offer, he may withdraw.
Pregnancy is a unique time when these expectations come into sharp focus. Therefore, happy expectant couples can usually sort out these differences. But in an unstable relationship where negativity has the upper hand, these two emotional styles can clash wildly.
There are many risk factors affecting relationships, most of which increase times ten during pregnancy. Some are individual risk factors and some are a product of the couple themselves.
- Individual risk factors include,
- Having a personality tendency to react strongly or defensively to problems and disappointments in life
- Having divorced parents
- Having witnessed or been the victim of domestic violence while growing up
- Having children from a previous marriage
- Marrying at a very young age; and, becoming pregnant at a young age, for example 17 to 20 years of age
- Knowing each other for only a short period of time before marriage or pregnancy
- Experiencing financial hardship
- Serious dislike for a partner’s family
In contrast to these “built-in” risk factors, there are others that relate more to how you treat one another, how you communicate, and how you approach your relationship. These include,
- Negative styles of talking with each other
- Frequent arguments with little or no resolution
- Trouble handling disagreements as a team
- Unrealistic beliefs about your relationship or pregnancy
- Unreasonable expectations about each other and the pregnancy
- Different attitudes about significant decisions that must be made in your life as a couple
- A low level of commitment to one another, reflected in such behavior as failing to protect your relationship from others you are attracted to or failing to view your marriage as a long-term investment
- Inability to see compromise on serious matters to which you disagree
Generally, higher levels of risk due to individual or couple factors are associated to greater challenges and difficulties in handling problems as a couple. For example, research indicates that people who have known each other briefly before marrying and becoming pregnant will not have enough knowledge about one another to form realistic or reasonable expectations in the relationship.
Because you can’t do much to change the individual risk factors, it is best to concentrate on the factors you can change – those as a couple. Later in the book, you’ll be given some exercises that are useful in reducing the relationship risk you may have as a couple. Your objective and my results from working with other couples is this: disillusionment, disappointment, and distance can be replaced by clarity, acceptance, fulfillment, and closeness if you make a commitment to enhance your relationship, communicate affectionately and frequently, and apply the lessons that result in a successful relationship and pregnancy.
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