Men and Women: Vol. II (On Expectations)

This note piggy-backs on the previous one, entitled “Men and Women: Vol. I (On Marriage)”. If you haven’t read that one, I would advise doing so before continuing.

According to a recent study, the divorce rate among those within the church is higher (about 60% of those who get married) than that of those outside the church (about 50%). When I learned this, I was appalled, but not exactly surprised. Here’s why.

It is very easy, especially in a high-caliber, spiritually-charged atmosphere such as the one found at Liberty University, to form expectations so high that they become unreachable. In that kind of environment, ideals are easy to form. Here, I speak more to the ladies than I do to the men. Men, I believe, usually have a much more realistic picture of what marriage will be like, and more realistic expectations of their women. I personally know a few young women who think that they will end up with the next best thing since Jesus himself. It is easy to get caught up in the high, and many people end up chasing around a carbon-copy of Christ, and when they find out he’s not what they expected him to be, they are crestfallen. Somewhere along the way, they have forgotten that they are dealing with people. Imperfect, fallible, fallen people.

To clarify, there is nothing wrong with expecting a godly man. You should. Likewise, men, you should pursue godly women. The problem comes when our expectations outweigh reality, and we miss out on someone who is a blessing from God.

Now, I am giving you all fair warning: In the next paragraph, I am going to get up on my soapbox. If you don’t particularly care for soapboxes, or you find yourself at odds with opinionated people, then I suggest you gloss over what I’m about to say. Better yet, stop reading this altogether. You don’t belong here. There. You have been warned.

LADIES. STOP expecting your boyfriends/fiancés/new husbands to be your fathers. They are not. They never will be. And guess what? They were never meant to be. There is nothing wrong with wanting a man who is like your father. What I’m saying is STOP EXPECTING YOUR MAN TO BE ABLE TO GIVE YOU EVERYTHING THAT YOUR DADDY HAS GIVEN YOU. Yes, you have lived in a nice home all your life, your father has been able to give you all sorts of nice and expensive things, he gives you lots of spending money and buys you a brand new car. Do you know why he was able to do these things? Because you were born into an already established family environment, one where, more than likely, your father and your mother have already formed a financial basis before they had you. Your father worked his entire life to be able to give you what you have. You weren’t around to see Mom and Dad living in a crappy apartment, scraping by on next to nothing before they were able to provide a better home for you. My Dad worked in a gas station for several years before he was able to find the job he wanted and the job that would provide for his wife and his family, one that is STILL providing for us this very day. Guess what? Your husband is going to have to work for awhile before he’s able to give you everything you want, and you just might have to make some sacrifices along the way. Your husband/significant other is NOT some sugar-daddy who will float you cash and expect you to sleep with him once in awhile, some emotional robot who you don’t have to support and indulges your materialism (but let’s be honest, that’s exactly what some ladies WANT, isn’t it?). STOP BEING BRATS, and be a good girlfriend/fiancé/wife.

*He quietly and calmly steps down off his soapbox and clears his throat.

Ahem.

It is unfair and unreasonable to expect a college student or an early to mid twenty-something man to have the wisdom, experience, bearing and maturity of a forty or fifty year-old man. Of course we are not all that an older man is. We are still becoming the men we should be and want to be. Are you, ladies, all that you should be? Are you already the complete picture of what you want to be and should be as a godly, mature woman? I would wager that you are not. The only difference is, we don’t expect you to be.

It is equally as unfair for you to expect us to be.

Further, since when is it a prerequisite to marriage for you to be everything you should be as a person? Since when do you have to be the perfect example of a fully-developed godly man in order to get married, or be in a relationship? Isn’t that part of the beauty of falling in love? The mutual respect, the common understanding that you BOTH are still growing, still filling the roles of what you want to be and should be, and pursuing that? Together? The whole point of a man and a woman coming together is so that they can fill in each others’ weaknesses and benefit from each others’ strengths.

Now, I DO believe that there is a certain level, as far as provision and maturity is concerned, that a man should reach before getting married. I’m not making excuses. But realize that your man is still striving to be that man you want him to be. Men – you SHOULD provide for your wife, love her as Christ loves the church – that’s our job, to protect our women – to fight every day to make the world a better place, to use our strength to change things so that they can live in a better world. But women, realize that, at the end of the day, when we drag ourselves home, tired and beaten down from trying to provide a better life for you, that’s when your job kicks in.

I recently had a conversation with an older man, one that I respect very much, and someone who has been married for over twenty years, and who has a solid marriage and a great family. This is not a sissy, overly-sensitive, overly-emotional man. This is a hard man, a man who has worked all his life. I will use his words here.

“Men are emotionally fragile creatures. There is a degree of instability to us that can only be corrected by the presence of a woman. God knows where I would be without my wife.”

Ladies, we need the kind of comfort that only you can give, that feminine touch (I’m not referring to physical intimacy here) that only you can provide. God created you to help us, so that we wouldn’t have to be alone. Because we aren’t meant to be alone. Every man’s soul longs for the lady with which he can have that sense of comfort, that feeling of home. You are the salve to the wounds we endure while fighting to be a good man. You assuage the tension, pain, and emotional injuries we sustain.

As much as we don’t want to admit it, ladies, we need you.

Why do you think so many guys have big trucks, so many silly gadgets? It’s because up until now, our lives have been empty, and we’re trying to pretend that we’re okay without you. We’re trying to act like we don’t need you. But we do.

Unfortunately, if that “emotional instability” falls into the hands of the wrong woman – an ungodly woman, the woman who doesn’t know what to do with it, or doesn’t want to know – then it only aggravates the situation, and the results could be destructive. If a woman derides her man for his struggles instead of encouraging him and comforting him, it only makes things worse, and knocks the man’s feet out from underneath him, and his incentive to strive to be better is gone. This is not to say that a man shouldn’t be emotionally strong. He should. But understand that we ARE human.

Should people within the church get divorced? I think the question should be, should these couples ever have gotten married in the first place?

Unfortunately, that question comes too late for many people.

What’s the point? Men, be strong for your women, but realize that she may need some practice at the whole feminine comfort thing. Ladies, work with your man, not against him. Realize that he is fighting to be the kind of man you want him to be, God wants him to be, and he knows he should be.

Stop expecting.

Start being.

-a.