Some things to keep in mind about expectations when your spouse has decided to leave...
1. One good turn does NOT guarantee another.
Something that led to a great experience before, may lead to a horrible experience the next time. What they say yes to now, they may say no to later. There are no guarantees. By the same token, what they absolutely refused to even consider one day may well be something they will jump at later.
MORAL: You cannot base expectations on what worked or didn't work before.
2. Your goals are different right now.
If your spouse left, he/she is focused on creating their new life and deciding just how it's going to work. If children are involved and they are still somewhat responsible, they are trying to figure out how to minimize impact on the kids. Meanwhile we, as left behind spouses, are typcially focused on one thing - saving the marriage.
Expecting that your spouse shares your urgency when it comes to the marital relationship is a sure fire way to live in total frustration. And if things have been hostile or uncomfortable in some way, if they're truly thinking of ending the marriage, you have very little shot of seeing them want to do/say anything that you would consider helpful to repairing the damage.
MORAL: You cannot expect someone to want to work on something they've already decided cannot be fixed.
3. Chances are your spouse has done some changing.
If your spouse is anything like my ex was, he/she has possibly become a person that you hardly recognize sometimes. Mine went from being a loving mother and a woman with strong Christian morals, to engaging in illicit affairs and clubbing with single friends.
When you try to reason with this new person in the manner that was always reasonable for the two of you in the past, you are stunned to find out that they could care less about the really strong observation/point you just made.
MORAL: Expecting someone to react as they would have historically doesn't work so well when they've changed.
Most of the cycling that we as left behind spouses go through comes about because we do not recieve the response we expected from our spouse, OR because they don't seem to share our obsession with fixing the marriage.
If there were a magic pill for eliminating expectations in dealing with our wayward spouses, we'd all be so much better off.
In many ways we have to begin interacting with these spouses much as we did when we were first getting to know them.
Back in the dating days, if our spouse had turned down a night out, we might have been sad, but we would NOT have brooded about it, and you can be sure that we would have been right back up on that horse pretty quickly. We KNEW then that we were going to win their heart. We KNEW then that we were meant to be together, and that WE were the best spouse for each other.
Our confidence takes a big hit when this stuff happens. But we do ourselves a disservice if we don't take steps to renew our positive outlook, make some good changes, and renew our efforts to SHOW our spouse the person they once fell in love with.
Just as we treated them as loved friends when first getting to know them, we need that same approach again.
Blessings,
Bill
"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
