Expectant Fathers

Lesson 4: Expectations While You're Both Expecting

Your Personal Expectations (2)

When Tim met Mandy he was literally stopped in his tracks. She became everything he thought about, dreamed about, and wished for in his life. Mandy was his magnetic compass for joy and excitement. Work could always wait as his courtship took on a drive and passion he’d not previously known. Mandy became the perfect friend and lover. Often they would stay up all night talking about their plans, ideas, and experiences. Neither of them ever had a doubt that marriage was in their future.

After two years of marriage, they each had developed their own fast paced careers. This is when Mandy became pregnant. She had seen her Gynecologist several months before and he had recommended that she stop taking birth control pills. Tim felt fine with the decision and also believed this would be a good time to begin their family. So when they received the news, they celebrated together and shared their awe about starting a family. Tim felt great and Mandy was on top of the world. Although not as close as when they were dating, they felt an unshakable trust and commitment for one another.

However, as they had both been working longer hours since the start of their marriage there was less available time together. Conversations between them consisted of a brief report on the work day and hurried comparisons of one another’s calendars. Somehow, the long discussions about their feelings toward each other and their future dreams had slowly begun to melt away.

At the time Mandy announced her pregnancy to Tim, he was working an average of 65 hours per week. With the pregnancy moving through the first trimester, Tim began increasing the number of hours he was putting in at the office to 80 hours. It was always a last minute deal he had to arrange or a two day trip at some business’ headquarters out of State. Increasingly, Mandy would get calls from Tim letting her know he wouldn’t be home dinner because he had to work late again. “After all,” he’d say “We have a baby on the way and I want to do everything possible to make us financially secure.” Mandy had already begun to reduce her hours at work but planned to return after taking six months off for the baby.

As he frantically dashed about in his job accepting every assignment that came his way, it was becoming clear to his staff and friends that Tim was becoming a workaholic. With so little time to spend at home, he was quietly shutting his wife out of his life. He was assuming a lifestyle away from home that gave him less and less time with Mandy.

By the middle of the second trimester, Mandy was getting visibly upset with the situation and concerned by how emotionally unconnected Tim seemed to be. She frequently tried to make small gestures to show him that she cared, but her attempts were met with his annoyance. Mandy became increasingly convinced herself that he simply didn’t value her, their marriage, or their future family. In her view, Tim had simply unplugged from the pregnancy and was disinterested in what she was going through. As she reflected on their life together, she recalled how close they once were and how work slowly had begun taking over their lives. And when she became pregnant, there seemed to be even less time and more distance between them.

I’m struck by this couple each time I think of them. Here was an intelligent, gifted man who seemed determined to leave his former hopes and dreams behind. The most surprising change was that Tim had always considered Mandy as his most trusted friend as well as his wife. Now he spent so few hours at home with her that he couldn’t describe how she spent her days, with whom who she spent time, or how the pregnancy was going for her. Tim had become so absorbed in his work that he couldn’t see the distance developing in his relationship at home. In his mind, he was investing in their future by working longer hours. But he couldn’t see the damage that was being done by not taking the necessary time with Mandy listening to her needs and sharing his own as he had before.

Fortunately, Mandy was attuned to the disastrous course they were on and confronted Tim about the problem in their relationship. Tim agreed with her and also agreed to spend time renewing their relationship. When the three of us met, it was clear that Tim still felt justified in his work schedule by seeing it as an investment in their future. Mandy questioned if they would have a future; she didn’t feel they knew each other nearly as well as when they first married. Time was the culprit. With two careers and a baby on the way, each felt an obligation to contribute as they believed the other expected.

For Tim, this meant working harder, pushing his career, and accumulating plenty of savings. For Mandy, it meant meeting Tim’s expectations by staying out of his way so he could “do his thing” and be happy. But the result was a couple that had begun to resemble two strangers selfishly caught up in fulfilling their own expectations of themselves and assuming they knew the expectations of the other person. Tim and Mandy had simply not talked in any meaningful way in a long time. In other words, they had ceased knowing or learning much about each other.

As strange as Tim’s ignorance of his wife’s feelings and his choices may sound, particularly during pregnancy, or Mandy’s reluctance to make her feelings known, many couples fall victim to the “I thought I knew you” trap. It begins with the assumption that you already know what to expect from the other person even though it’s been days, weeks, or months since you had a meaningful conversation with him. Soon the situation escalates to “I don’t understand why he doesn’t see what’s wrong here,” and “She seems happy to simply go her own way.” As couples replace knowing each other with assumptions about each other, they start living with a picture of their spouse based on the past. It’s like looking at a photo of your husband at the age of six years old and saying that it is him. In fact, it was him but he’s changed over time.

As with Tim and Mandy, this “not really knowing each other” problem begins before pregnancy. But pregnancy exacerbates the situation. With pregnancy, one of life’s most significant events, the partners may have only the sketchiest sense of the other's joys, likes, dislikes, fears, and stresses. The husband loves his wife and the fact that she’s pregnant, but couldn’t name her doctor, any of her new friends, or describe her greatest fears about the future.

In contrast, emotionally intelligent couples are intimately familiar with each other’s daily world which makes them loving and ready for pregnancy. Another way of saying this is that the successful couples have made plenty of cognitive room for their relationship to grow. They remember the major events in each other’s history, and they keep updating this information with new facts and feelings as their partner’s world changes.

You recognize these couples because when the wife orders his coffee at a restaurant, she knows to ask for cream and sugar. If she works late, he’ll tape her favorite TV show because he knows which one it is and when it’s on. He could tell you how she’s feeling about her boss, and exactly how to get to her office from the elevator. He knows the extent to which she’s involved with various family members and who she is most annoyed with. She knows that he fears being too much like his father and considers himself more of a “free spirit.” They know each other’s goals in life, each other’s worries, and each other’s hopes. They are ready to meet any challenge together; they are ready to have and raise a child, whatever stress and worry pregnancy may bring. In fact, they know each others’ stresses and concerns, support each other through difficult times and temperaments, they play together as they had in the past, and they know what to realistically expect from each other while they’re expecting.

Without such knowledge and interest in the relationship, you can't really say you know your partner. And if you really don't know someone, how can you truly love them? It’s amazing how many couples struggle in their relationship because they simply have fallen away from knowing each other!

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