Expectant Fathers
Lesson 4: Expectations While You're Both Expecting
Your Personal Expectations (3)
Determining Your Relationship Expectations During Pregnancy
How much do you know about your partner? When I’ve asked this question of expectant couples they immediately say “a lot” or “quite a bit.” But when we discuss details in private or they complete a questionnaire about their spouse, their “grade” drops precipitously. For many couples this is embarrassing. Some years ago there was a game show called the Newlywed Game. It had newly married couples answer questions asked of their spouse with the object being a correctly matched answer. New wives were expected to know the answers their husbands would give to various personal questions. The same embarrassment was offered to the new husbands. Of course the humor of the show was in the number of incorrect responses the couples gave. The viewing audience found it funny how little these newly married couples knew about each other. The underlying message of the show was simple: people planning to spend their lives together knew very little detail about the person they were committed to.
This may strike you as strange until you think about your own relationship. It happens often that just when you think you know your husband, boom, he surprises you by doing something completely different than you expected. This happens with all couples some of the time. Actually, it can be a stimulating pleasant surprises and discovery. But couples that spend little time together sharing chosen moments, feelings, and thoughts about themselves soon become distant in their relationship. Countless marriage experts and researchers have found that couples who know the most about each other’s world are better prepared to cope with the stressful events of life.
As previously shown in a study conducted last year in Ohio, relationship dissatisfaction and separation often accompanies the birth of the first baby. Seventy-two percent of couples in the study had a drop in their level of marital satisfaction during pregnancy and immediately after the birth. The remaining twenty-eight percent, however, didn’t experience this phenomenon. In fact, about half of them said that their relationship had improved.
What was different about these two groups? You’ve probably guessed it. The couples whose relationships blossomed during the pregnancy and after the birth knew quite a lot about each other. Intimate and personal information about one another protected their relationship even as they encountered a major upheaval in their lifestyle as generally happens with a first pregnancy. As partners they had developed a habit of keeping up to date and aware of what each other was feeling and thinking. They weren't thrown off course.
It isn’t a matter of how long you and your spouse have been together, it’s a matter of how open and honest you are with each other that determines long term success together. Couples sailing smoothly through pregnancy and life continuously endeavor to learn more about each other. It isn’t work: it’s a natural curiosity for one another. It’s a natural attraction between them that began years ago and continues to fuel their desire to know more about each other. These lifelong couples enjoy having new experiences and they encourage each other to share themselves in the relationship. These couples grow closer over the years by nurturing and fulfilling realistic expectations for each other.
When problems do arise and decisions need to be made, as they will during pregnancy, it's easy for a relationship to be derailed by conflict and disagreement. One of the important qualities of that truly knowing each other is that conflict helps improve your patience and respect toward each other. You can anticipate how your partner will feel about issues, how he makes decisions, how to constructively conduct a conversation with him, and how to respectfully express your personal feelings together. And you also know from having shared meaningful information about one another that your relationship can tolerate a great deal of friction without being destroyed.
One Couple: Dottie and Scott knew each other only a short time when they married and decided to have a family. But what their relationship lacked in longevity, they made up for in intimacy. They were in touch not just with the outlines of each other's lives-their favorite hobbies, sports, and so on-but with each other's deepest longings, beliefs, and fears. No matter how busy they were, they made each other their priority-always making sure they had time to catch up on each other's day. And at least once a week they'd go out for dinner and just talk-sometimes about politics, sometimes about the weather, sometimes about their own marriage.
When their daughter Alicia was born, Dottie decided to give up her job as a computer scientist to stay home with the baby. She herself was surprised by the decision since she had always been very driven in her career. But when she became a mother, her fundamental sense of meaning changed. She found she was willing to undergo great sacrifices for Alicia’s sake. Now she wanted the savings they had earmarked for a motorboat to go into a college fund. What happened to Dottie happens to many new mothers -the experience of parenthood is so profound that your whole notion of who you are and what you value gets reshuffled.
At first, Scott was confused by the changes in his wife. The woman he thought he knew was transforming before his eyes into a stranger. But because they were in the habit of staying deeply connected, Scott was able to keep up to date on what Dottie was thinking and feeling. Too often when a new baby arrives, husbands feel isolated, cut off from things, and left behind. They can’t keep up with their wives’ changes, which they may not understand or be happy about. Knowing Dottie had always been a priority to Scott, he didn’t do what too many new fathers do - he didn’t back away from this new charmed connection of mother and child. He made sure it was circle.
As a result they went through the transformation to parenthood together, without losing sight of each other’s needs or their marriage. Having a baby is just one life event that can cause couples to lose their way without comparing their expectations. Any major change from a job shift, to a move, to illness, or retirement can have the same effect. Just the passage of time can do it as well. The more you know and understand about each other, the easier it is to keep connected as life swirls around you.
By giving honest answers to the following questions adopted from a book by John Gottman and Nan Silver entitled The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, you’ll obtain a measure of the quality of your relationship while discovering lots of new things about each other. To get the most from this exercise, you and your spouse should complete the following. The next series of exercises will get you started on knowing more about each other’s feelings and expectations.
Read each statement and circle T for “true” or F for “false.”
- I can name my partner’s best friends.
T F
- My partner is familiar with my hopes and aspirations.
T F
- I know my spouse’s description of the ideal parent.
T F
- My partner knows my description of the ideal parent.
T F
- My partner knows my greatest concern regarding pregnancy.
T F
- I know my partner’s greatest concern regarding pregnancy.
T F
- I can name my partner’s favorite food.
T F
- My partner can name my favorite relative.
T F
- I can name my partner’s favorite relative. T F
- My partner can give the reason for my last doctor office visit.
T F
- I can describe two physical changes my partner is experiencing with pregnancy. T F
- My partner can describe two physical changes I am experiencing with pregnancy.
T F
- I can describe what my partner did yesterday morning by providing specific details. T F
- My partner can describe what I did yesterday morning by providing specific details. T F
- I can describe two expectations my partner had before pregnancy that have since changed. T F
- My partner can describe two expectations that I had before pregnancy that have since changed. T F
- I can tell you what stresses my partner is currently facing.
T F
- I know the names of some of the people who have been irritating my partner lately. T F
- I can tell you some of my partner’s life goals. T F
- I know my partner’s favorite music. T F
- I can list my partner’s three favorite movies. T F
- I know the three most special times in my partner’s life.
T F
- I can list my partner’s major aspirations and hopes in life.
T F
- My spouse knows who my friends are. T F
- I know what my partner would want to do if he or she suddenly won the lottery. T F
- I can tell you in detail my first impressions of my partner.
T F
- Periodically I ask my partner about his or her world right now.
T F
- I feel that my partner knows me pretty well.
T F
- My partner is familiar with my hopes and aspirations.
T F
- I can describe the characteristic that my partner sees most valuable about his or her self at this time.
T F
Scoring: Give yourself one point for each "true" answer. 15 or above: This is an area of strength for your marriage. You have a fairly detailed grasp of your partner’s everyday life, hopes, fears, and dreams. You know what motivates your partner and based on your score you’ll likely find the other exercises that follow easy and fulfilling. They will serve as a reminder of how well connected you and your partner are. But don’t take this for granted. You two do understand each other and have reason to feel secure as a couple. You’ve also learned that keeping in touch with one another can ensure you’ll be well equipped to handle any problems that develop in your relationship.
Below 15: Your relationship could stand a tune-up. If you haven’t had the time or the tools to really get to know each other, this is a good opportunity for you. It isn’t unusual for relationships to begin with a great understanding of each other and over time grow increasingly vague in this area. By taking the time now to learn more about your partner, you’ll find your relationship becomes stronger. One of the greatest gifts a couple can give each other is the joy that comes from feeling known and understood. Getting to know each other should be a pleasure rather than a chore.
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