Mediate Michigan

What do you expect from a spouse? I don’t mean lofty things like “unconditional love” or “to honor me above all”, but rather, what concrete behaviors do you expect your spouse to perform on a daily basis? What do you think your spouse should do if you’re angry, and maybe most importantly, what do you expect him/her to do around the house?

A huge sore spot I’ve seen in couples, personally and professionally, is that these spousal expectations, which we all have mapped out in our heads, are never communicated to our spouses. We all have an idea of how we like to be treated that we would like others to adhere to, and somehow we’ve gotten in our heads that the perfect person for us will just know what this code of behavior is. This is both unfair and a setup for disaster- people always need to be given parameters of how to treat you, and they can decide for themselves if they’d like to participate.

via Emily V. Gordon: Communication, Expectations, and the Key to Avoiding Divorce.