Check Your Expectations at the Door -- An Excerpt from What Happened to Prince Charming?

My new book for Christian wives, What Happened to Prince Charming:  Understanding What To Do When You No Longer Know the Man You're Married To,  is now available in Kindle format on Amazon, so today I'd like to give you a preview.  Guys, you're welcome to read on, but keep in mind that this book was written with the ladies in mind.  Without further ado, here's a little excerpt from Chapter Four of the book.

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I don't think there's a woman alive who hasn't, at some point, wished that her husband were more like herself. On the one hand, we all know we have flaws—some of us more than others—and there are things about ourselves that we don't like and wouldn't want to have to put up with in our spouses.

On the other hand, there are areas of our lives that we feel we manage well and would like to see mirrored in our men.  For example, as women, we tend to be better at multitasking and understanding what needs to be done, how long each task will take, and what order would be the most efficient to get everything accomplished.  Most men seem to lack this particular skill and often fail to see beyond their own needs and obligations.  It's not because they're lazy or uncaring but rather it's because that's what they're used to.  In many ways, we have promoted that behavior.

We each have our own ways of doing things. Unfortunately, we tend to cling to those ways as the only right way when that is not, in fact, the case.  In order to live in harmony with our husbands, we need to first realize that they are not us.  They don't think like us.  They don't act like us.  They don't perform tasks in the same way that we do.  And neither should we expect them to. As we have already discussed, they have different personalities and ways of doing things.  That doesn't make them wrong, only different.

One thing I want to make very clear is no matter how much our husbands' behavior irritates us, it is not our place to try to change them.  We can talk to them and express our concerns about a particular behavior that we feel is impacting our relationships in a negative way. But we should never harp on them or degrade them in any way.  For one thing, it's not loving. For another, that kind of treatment will only make them balk like stubborn mules.  Rather than trying to change the way our men behave, how about trying to change our attitudes instead?

Ladies, our expectations will get us into trouble every time. Let's face it, we expect a lot out of life and those with whom we share it. We expect people to do things the way we think they should be done, and we expect things to turn out the way we want them to. Well, that's just not the way life works! The more we expect, the more we'll be disappointed. We would do well to tone down our expectations (even what we expect of ourselves), and approach life with more realistic hopes.

Proverbs 19:13 has some somber words about wives who complain when they're expectations aren't met. The contentions of a wife are a continual dropping. Contention. Strife. Anger. Complaints. It's like a continual dropping. This past year has been one of the wettest years I remember in my life, particularly this winter. It has rained and rained and rained. In fact, for nearly two straight weeks around Christmas, the sun never made an appearance. Despite the holiday spirit, the days were dark and dreary, and let me tell you, the constant downpour really began taking a toll on people's emotions. Endless rain will do that, and so will endless complaints. Be careful, ladies. I know we expect as much or more from ourselves as we do from our husbands, but often they are the ones who bear the brunt of our frustrations when those expectations aren't met.

In the words of Disney's Elsa, let it go!

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