by AngelaCharles

Created on: July 26, 2009   Last Updated: July 27, 2009

What to Expect from Marriage

Marriage expectations, like everything in life, change with time. This isn't a bad thing. I have been married for 18 years, and in those 18 years, my expectations in my marriage have changed drastically. When I was first married, I was young and naive, and like most new brides thought that life would simply be one big fairy tale. I married a man that I idolized and adored, and he me. He was with no doubt my knight in shining armor.

The Utopian Stage

This was our utopian stage. The utopian stage is the period in your marriage where everything is fresh and new. We can all remember the butterflies in our stomach, the shivers when you brush against one another or that magical feeling when you kiss. Unfortunately, this feeling often fades in time. We lose the excitement of discovering one another. It is actually in the utopian stage that we develop our expectations of our spouse. Of course we entered the marriage with expectations, but the current routines we are developing become the standard expectations of our marriage. Those long loving kisses good night, greeting each other at the door with a smile, date night, all of these things, when offered regularly in the utopian stage, become our expectations. Unfortunately with time, these habits become cumbersome and often fall by the wayside. This is where the settling stage begins.

The Settling Stage

The settling stage is when we become frustrated because the utopian stage is over. It is when we realize that we have lost those little butterflies that use to drive us wild, and those long romantic kisses good night have been replaced by grunts and the occasional peck on the cheek. This creates a feeling that we have settled into our lives and wish we had held out for something more. Your expectations in your marriage are no longer being met. Many husbands begin feeling unwanted and unneeded, causing them to become even more despondent. With time, tensions mount and arguments become more frequent because you are not getting what you expected out of marriage. You expected to be happy. This feeling of having settled leads to a period of searching.

The Searching Stage

The searching stage is the stage where many marriages fail. They fail either because one person rediscovers that utopian feeling with someone else, or because one of them is tired of feeling as if they settled and begin searching for something more.

This search can lead them to find many different things. They can discover

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