Unrealistic Expectations

 

Along with warnings about pornography there is need for warnings about romance novels and soap operas; pornography, romance novels, and soap operas have negative effects on both sexes, and romance novels and soap operas have the same effect on women that pornography has on men. Of course, these are not the only culprits in the media. The heart is influenced and molded by what is fed into the mind, and pornography, romance novels, soap operas, and numerous movies and TV shows fill minds and hearts with extremely unrealistic expectations.

Here are a few examples of unrealistic expectations promoted in entertainment media that ruin lives and destroy relationships:

·        Your spouse is supposed to be perfect.

·        You can change someone into your ideal. (Brace yourself for a rude awakening. You can only expect to change someone if he wears a diaper.)

·        Your spouse is responsible for your happiness.

·        Your spouse should always agree with you and like the same things. (This is not suggesting that you should enter a relationship in which you are unequally yoked. It is important to marry someone that shares the same religious and moral values. This is just a reminder that it is not possible to find someone that always agrees on every point or always likes the same things.)

·        Your spouse is supposed to perform sexually like a porn movie character, or is supposed to act and be like a character in a soap opera or a romance novel. (Comparing your spouse to people that ONLY exist in someone’s imagination and wishful thinking instead of seeking to please your spouse is a guaranteed recipe for discouragement and unhappiness.)

·        Good looks and good sex indicate or replace good character and good communication.

·        Premarital sex and illicit cohabitation are good preparation for marriage.

·        Imitating the sexual attitudes, behaviour, and aggressiveness of men empowers women. (This merely fulfills male fantasies, accommodates the baser instincts of men, and lowers the regard of men for women.)

·        Women should be masculine, and men should be either effeminate or adopt a macho facade. (Each extreme is contrary to God's design for the male as the Lord's representative and the female as an helpmeet.)

·        Egalitarian partnership and matriarchy are preferable to patriarchy. (In nature the only thing with two heads is a freak, and matriarchy and egalitarianism are destructive to marriage for the same reason that you should not put two roosters in the same pen. Equals do not complement, they compete. Yes, some women are wiser and more intelligent than their husbands, but the issue is not who qualifies, the issue is obedience to the Lord’s arrangement. God's design for communities, organizations, and the family is hierarchy with a balance between equality of being and functional subordination.)

·        A husband will or should do whatever his wife tells him to do.

·        The wife is supposed to be in charge, but the husband is responsible if her decisions turn out to be wrong or disastrous.

·        A husband is supposed to make as much money as his wife wants to spend.

·        Sex is the most important part of marriage. (While sex in marriage is important, sex is a small part of marriage, and it is the everyday getting along with each other that ultimately makes or breaks a marriage.)

·        Male and female think and feel the same about sex.

The list could continue but these should suffice to illustrate the point.

The silent killer of marriages is unrealistic expectations, not unmet expectations. Unrealistic expectations impede healthy communication and diminish the ability to enjoy reality, and when unrealistic expectations meet reality, this often results in abuse, infidelity, and a perpetual state of disappointment, along with other severe problems.

While it is important to be selective about choice of entertainment and amusements, it is even more important to fill your mind, and thus influence your heart, with the word of God. The exact program of Bible reading and study is not the issue, what matters is regularity, and whether you devote half an hour or several hours a day toward Bible study the Bible will have power in your life because of being in your mind regularly. Among other benefits, regular personal Bible study impacts what you are strongly attracted to and helps you look at things realistically. “Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding;

 If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;

 Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.

 For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.

 He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.

He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints.

Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.

 When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;

 Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:

 To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things;

 Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;

 Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;

 Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:

 To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words.” (Proverbs 2:3-16)