What I Want in a Husband, Part 2
Recently, I was thinking about my expectations for marriage. I remembered that a couple of years ago, I made a list of qualities and characteristics I wanted my husband to have. Until tonight, I hadn't looked at that list since writing it. Well, I discovered something interesting. I discovered that it's a pretty darn good list.
As a single person, I hear a lot about making lists. Some people tell me I shouldn't make a list or that it shouldn't be long, and some people say everyone should keep a list in mind. I subscribe to the latter idea. I think that not only is it good to develop a good marriage "resume," it's good to have a list of expectations for your future spouse. In order to make the list, it's essential to be honest and to know yourself well enough to know what you need and want.
As I said before, I think I came up with a pretty darn good list.* It's long, but why shouldn't I have a long list of expectations? Marriage is work; love is work. If I'm going to love someone forever, I want to make sure that I want to . . . well, love him forever. I draw the line at list items such as "Has blonde hair and brown eyes," or "Is an English lit. professor from England." But maybe that's really important to someone. Maybe it should be more important to me. I don't know.
What I do know is that lists are good. Occasionally, I will try to lower my expectations or throw the list out altogether. That never does me any good, and in fact, I can honestly say that I wasted about a year of my life trying to make a relationship work with someone who didn't stack up to my list.
People make lists all the time. We make them for grocery shopping, for to-dos, for career goals, for life goals. Why shouldn't we make them for our future spouses? And if my own expectations of how I ought to be are the same as what I expect from my husband, how is that bad? I don't think it is at all. (And look, I found someone on the Internets who agrees with me: Expectations Before Marriage Affect Marriage.)
At any rate, I just wanted to check in with my blog about how my expectations have changed over the past couple of years. I'm happy to say they're pretty much the same. Do you want to know what they were? See What I Want In a Husband.
*Reading it, you may think I'm describing myself (with the exception of no. 10). And why shouldn't I? I believe that commonalities are the best indicators of a successful marriage.
Thing I'm thankful for: The Laughing Cow spreadable cheese wedges
posted by Sara @ 12:41 AM
1 Comments:
I created a list earlier this year. Part of my motivation was to enlarge my remembrance of what I had learned I like and don't like from the various dates I've gone on over the years and so I can picture all at once what it is I am wanting so I could evaluate it. The approach I took was a limited set of hard-and-fast rules followed by a long list of suggestions to allow for flexibility.
I've not had my list for all that much time to evaluate how much expectations have changed but I do have it setup to be a living document as I continue to learn about myself. So far the only changes I make are (1) refining specific ideas of what I want down to the general principles of what I am really after and (2) remembering more things to add.
I thought your footnote was interesting seeing as in my notes section I noted that my guidelines described a better me and I ask how acceptable that is.
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