Expectations within a marriage can be tricky, particularly as life's busyness encroaches on the time set aside for sharing and reflection. Unacknowledged expectations solidify into rigid identities and beliefs. Stopping to consider the expectations that have developed in a marriage related to roles, tasks and needs helps keep the connection honest and emotionally fertile, as well as inviting each person out of their comfort zones and into their own personal growth work.

Examining the unspoken expectations and unacknowledged needs in your partnership is worth the investment of time and other resources. You can start by letting your partner know you want to strengthen your alliance.
For this conversation to evolve productively, it helps to focus on what’s worked, what no longer works, and on what could work even better. Using reflective listening techniques or following the Imago Dialogue protocol, choose an area where you both have implicit expectations and take turns speaking about what you may have taken for granted about your partners' contributions. Areas to explore could include household tasks, emotional intimacy, finances, professional concerns, parenting, care-taking of parents or in-laws, social life, and sexual longings. You may want to choose one specific night a week and limit your talks to one topic each week as you deepen your understanding of what you'd like to adjust or re-calibrate.

By taking responsibility for your own expectations in multiple areas of your partnership, you can nurture a sense of interdependence while creating the emotional climate where changes can occur with greater fluidity and ease. Examining expectations together empowers you both to give more authentically and freely and to risk communicating vulnerably about your current desires.