Expectation Management for Women
Expectation management is healthy for women and widely discouraged in our mainstream culture, and it shouldn’t be.
The reality of marriage is that most people don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t know what I’m doing either, but I know expectation management is healthy for women and widely discouraged in our mainstream culture, and it shouldn’t be.
Women are notoriously more neurotic than men on average (a 20-point difference in a population of millions is actually a big difference). Women regularly perceive their marriages to be worse than they are because we trend toward neuroticism. We can’t help it. Some women are lower in neuroticism as a personality trait, which is lovely, and others aren’t. If your wife is in the 90th percentile of neuroticism or higher, she probably finds dissatisfaction in her life more than satisfaction, which is unfortunate–but that’s who she is. You can’t change that. She can work on it, and you can positively reward her when she sees exhibits more optimistic behavior, but a Mopey Molly is just that way: she mopes. I believe, given behaviors seen regularly by women on social media, women are having their neuroticism exacerbated by the programs. This impacts marital satisfaction, I am sure of it.
Completing a relationship checkup questionnaire is a great way to manage misperceptions or expectations. Are you and your husband as far apart as you perceive? Probably not. Any non-leftist relationship questionnaire will do. When you fill one out, you’ll quickly find, “Well, he’s not that bad.” Correct, he’s not. Your marriage doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s. Your husband doesn’t have to be like any other woman’s. He is YOUR husband, not any other woman’s husband. Your marriage is unique, and he is his own person.
If you compare your husband to other husbands, you will be disappointed in him. There’s no way around that. There will always be some other husband online—because the internet is such a vast place—who will perform some behavior or act you wish your husband would do for you. The internet is too large for this thought not to cross your mind while scrolling on occasion. (I’m talking to ladies who scroll and ask why your husband hasn’t taken you on a private jet. Girl—no. Please stop it.)
This is why women must be more disciplined with their screen time in relationships.
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