Married With Benefits by FamilyLife

Brian Goins: We’re trying to find out the secret of happy couples, highly happy couples. What actually causes unhappiness? There are all these usual suspects. If you speak at enough marriage conferences, you hear from people, and people tend to think the usual suspects are money, conflict, different parenting philosophies, and in-laws. Since I’ve got the expert on happiness right here in front of me, what is the leading cause of unhappiness in marriage?

Shaunti Feldhahn: None of the above. It’s what causes those problems, which is unmet expectations. This is a very common neuroscience principle and a common psychological principle where you have a certain expectation about your spouse, about whatever it is. You just think that this is the way it should be, and when that is not being met, it equals unhappiness if we’re not careful. That’s what happens.

Brian Goins: Have you ever found yourself disappointed with your spouse because they’re just not living up to your expectations? You might think if they loved me, they would actually want to keep the house the way that I want to keep the house. They would want to go out more. They would want to do what I want to do. Today, we’re going to find out why highly happy couples put their expectations under the microscope a lot more than their spouse.

We’re on this season four where we’re talking about these secrets from highly happy couples. It has been fun. A lot of these are just simple mindset shifts, or they are just simple, little practical things to do. I’ve been happy myself about how I can apply these immediately.

Shaunti Feldhahn: They are so practical and so simple. Thank you so much for all the research that you’ve been doing on this and making it super accessible for us. If you haven't gotten the book, it’s a short book, *The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages*. Pick it up anywhere that you get books.

It begs the question: we’re trying to find out the secret of highly happy couples. What actually causes unhappiness? You hear from people and people tend to think the usual suspects are money, conflict, parenting philosophies, and in-laws. Since I’ve got the expert on happiness right here in front of me, what is the leading cause of unhappiness in marriage?

Shaunti Feldhahn: None of them. It’s what causes those problems, which is unmet expectations. You have a certain expectation about your spouse, about whatever it is, and you just think that this is the way it should be. When that’s not being met, it equals unhappiness if we’re not careful.

Brian Goins: It’s so true. We talk about it in the Weekend to Remember often with couples. I like to give this illustration with arms. The bottom arm represents reality. The top arm represents expectations. What happens in marriage and in life is the farther those expectations get from reality, what’s in between that gap is disappointment.

The goal of any pursuit in life, whether it’s work or relationships, is how do I get expectations to match reality? That’s really what the secret is all about, isn't it?

Shaunti Feldhahn: It really is. The key here, and this is the most important thing, we called this chapter something that people are like, "Come again?" The title of the chapter is "Highly Happy Couples Have Factual Fantasies."

I know our producer Bruce was like, "Those two things don't work together." Here’s really the way that this works. The key is that all of us have the tendency to have certain expectations of our spouse that they are just not wired to meet. Expecting that is going to cause us pain.

Let me give you an example of this. This is a very common thing among women. For example, any woman who has ever watched a romance movie, a rom-com, any woman who has ever read a novel that has any kind of romance element, or listened to songs, it is very easy in our minds to subconsciously expect that when we have been having a really bad argument with our spouse and we pull away and we’re crying, there is something in us that expects and wants our spouse to come after us.

That’s the plot of the romance novels. We don't realize that’s the plot of every romance novel that’s ever been written. She goes weeping away, and he goes, "I am not going to let you get away. I’m going after you. I’m not leaving this room until we settle this." Every woman listening to this when you said that went, "Oh," because it says, "I love you. I care about you." Those are those things that make you feel that way.

Brian Goins: That’s a character in a novel. That’s usually fiction.

Shaunti Feldhahn: And probably written by a woman. The actual real guys out there, the neuroscience of the male brain is such that in most cases, when you pull away in the middle of an argument and you’re secretly hoping he’s going to come after you, he’s going, "Oh, thank goodness, because I just need to get alone and think."

He thinks, "I need to figure out what I’m thinking. This will be good. We’ll go to our separate corners, we’ll think about it, and we’ll come back together again." Or if you’re like me, it’ll just blow over. You’re over there as the wife going, "Why isn't he coming after me? Why isn't he pursuing me?" If that is your expectation and he goes, "Oh, thank goodness," and he’s going to his corner to process instead, it is highly likely that you may be unhappy.

Instead of going, here’s the key, it’s got to come full circle. It’s not just sort of going, "Okay, maybe that expectation is something that he’s just not wired to do or she’s just not wired to do." You also then have to go, but what are they good at? What can they do that I can celebrate? That’s the fantasy that I can expect and actually something they will delight in meeting.

Brian Goins: And that becomes a factual fantasy. When we get married, I’m finding that for me, it seems like all marriage, especially the first couple years, is just unpacking these fantasies that you never really knew you had. You don't end up questioning the fantasy; you question your spouse.

I know for Jen, she grew up with her dad as a general contractor. Every home she lived in, she lived in 27 homes as she was growing up in one zip code. All were built by hand by her dad, who could do all of it if he wanted to. He had subcontractors, but he knew how it all got done, and it was all done perfectly. "Mr. Straight" lives up to his name. It is Straight Construction. It is done a certain way, the straight way.

Naturally, when we get married and we walk into our first house, which was just this beater of a house—it literally had a tree growing through the back part of the house, it was a roach motel in Dallas, Texas—we walk in and Jen had never seen the house. I remember something happened. She’s like, "Brian, the door's broken. It's not lining up right." I thought, "That’s interesting."

She’s going, "Aren't you going to fix it?" I had no idea how to fix that. Something would break down and there was a sadness that started coming in where she started to realize she didn't know that was a fantasy. It’s a fantasy because her husband can't do that. If it can't be fixed with a screwdriver or a hammer, I’m pretty much out of luck. I grew up with a dad that when something broke in the house, he called somebody who would fix it. Those two things came together and that was a struggle. Fortunately, I’ve grown a little bit, but I’m never going to be her dad. That just wasn't my background.

Shaunti Feldhahn: Sometimes the factual fantasies can work in the reverse order. Sometimes it’s you being kind to yourself and saying, "It’s okay that I’m never going to be her dad." My fantasy might have been that I was the perfect handyman, and that’s just not me. I can work, I can plan, I can learn, I can grow, but there are just things that we are just not ever really going to feel come natural.

Brian Goins: We were talking to Bruce, our podcast producer, about this. He realized real quick one of his fantasies or thoughts wasn't going to come true. You realized early on, "Oh wow, my wife isn't exactly how I thought it was going to be."

Bruce: We weren't even married yet. I was proposing to her. Beautiful landscape, movies are shot here. It’s Norman Ridge in Vermontville. I’m down on one knee, I’ve got her favorite flowers. It’s a beautiful day out. I ask her to marry me. "I’ll give you my life. Will you give me yours?" She says yes. She’s excited, but she didn't cry or anything. She’s an emotional person, but she didn't cry.

Fast forward a couple months, she has a particular expensive blender that she’s dreamed of on the registry. I get a phone call and she’s tearing up. She says, "You won't believe it, but someone got the blender off our registry." That made her cry, but me asking her to become my wife? She was happy, but not happy enough to cry.

Brian Goins: Not wired enough to cry at a proposal, but you get a great brand-new Vitamix? It’s time to get out the Kleenex.

Bruce: I didn't expect that.

That’s an expectation: "I should always be able to make my wife so happy that she will show that emotion. That’s going to be my thing." It doesn't always work that way.

Brian Goins: Bruce, why didn't you bring a blender to your proposal? That’s what you should have done. Forget the flowers; bring the blender next time when you do the vow renewal. Shaunti, has there been expectations that you've had?

Shaunti Feldhahn: One of the big ones is actually something that I think a lot of couples wrestle with to some degree or another. Jeff is an attorney, and there was this subconscious expectation that we would never really wrestle with money.

I was working on Wall Street, Jeff was working at a big New York law firm, we were all making a gazillion dollars for a period of time. Then God calls us into this family ministry. Suddenly, things can be hard. During the pandemic, all of our events went away. I didn't see that coming. Our income dropped 86% in one year.

That’s an example of when money times would get tight. I realized one of the reasons that I’m wrestling, I’m unhappy, is that there was something in me that had been thinking, "Well, Jeff will just take care of that. We won't ever have that problem because he’ll have this big-time lawyer job." That just wasn't what God called us to. That was something I had to wrestle with.

I think a lot of us look at our spouse in such a way that they’ll be in a certain tax bracket or they’ll have a certain standard of living that they grew up with. When they got married, they didn't realize being a missionary may not have that same experience. We may not get the new car every two years that some people grew up with.

Shaunti Feldhahn: For example, my daughter graduated from Georgia Tech; she’s an engineer. She worked her tail off, and guess what? She’s probably going to be making a pretty good salary. The young man that she’s been dating for three years wants to be a history teacher to middle schoolers. She will probably always make more money than he does. Her expectation of, "Oh, I’d love to be a stay-at-home mom," well, maybe, but it may not look like what you think.

Bruce: A year and a half after the proposal, we’re on our way to our one-year anniversary. I had booked a cruise. We’re driving there, and somehow it came up and it was discovered that she has a card for me, but I don't have a card for her. A fight ensued because in my mind I was like, "The cruise is your card. The cruise is a card." But she wanted a card as well. She got a nice note written on the little memo pad from our room. It was much more authentic.

I texted her to make sure it was okay to share that story. I told her we want to use it as an example of unmet expectations. She replied with "Very standard and reasonable expectations."

Brian Goins: Jen would be here right now snapping her fingers going, "Absolutely right." Because the same thing, when we go on the Love Like You Mean It cruise here with FamilyLife, it always goes over Valentine’s Day. I always ask the guys, "How many of you came on this thinking this was your Valentine’s Day gift and you were done? You didn't have to rush to Walgreens and get the card at the last hour and get some candy." They are all like, "Yeah, that seems right." The cruise is the card. Then you find out no, it’s not the card. There needs to be a card.

No one said that when we got married. I honestly thought the sex shop was going to be open 24/7. That was an expectation. No one told me differently, no one explained to me that sometimes it wasn't open 24/7. It’s more like a bank, like an old-time bank, brick and mortar, where the shop closes down a lot sooner than you think. There are unexpected holidays. Sometimes the bank teller has a headache, all that kind of stuff.

We tend to, as we’ve talked about with this one, is that we’ve got to move into that factual fantasy. It’s not that these expectations aren't maybe even realistic; they just aren't according to the wiring of your specific spouse. What we end up doing is that we don't question if the expectation is right or realistic or according to their wiring; we question our spouse. "Why don't they do this if they love me? They would buy the card if they loved me."

Shaunti Feldhahn: As opposed to, okay, there are things we can learn. By the way, can we just say out loud, it’s important to say there are things that we can learn. We can develop. A lot of these secrets that we’ve been talking about in this season are things that are habits that need to be built. They may not always come naturally, but we can build them.

Don't hear us saying as you’re listening to this that, "Oh, well, just because it’s not their natural wiring to buy you a card, that you shouldn't hope that at some point you make it clear that that means something to you and he’ll kind of get that over time." It may or may not, but it’s okay to sort of say, "This is something that would matter to me." That is totally fine.

The key is: don't make it an expectation that then when it is not met, you’re going to be just so distressed and so sad and unhappy about something when you could be focusing on something that they can do. How awesome was it that Bruce booked a cruise for the first anniversary? He was thinking about it, and I’m quite sure that his wife looked at that and went, "Oh my gosh, this is incredible," and she did have that sense of gratitude. But that’s the kind of thing that we often just don't do unless we purposely go, "Alright, what is it here that my spouse is wired for that I can be excited about?"

Brian Goins: Where do a lot of these expectations come from anyway? We don't question the expectation; we question our spouse.

Shaunti Feldhahn: Where the stuff comes from, like I mentioned, the media. That’s one example. We don't even realize how much of that may come from the media. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if I can just be really honest to any men listening out there who are thinking the sex shop is going to be open 24/7, I hate to say this out loud, but a lot of those expectations come from pornography and come from locker room conversations at the age of 15 when there’s literally no relevance to anything about normal human women.

Brian Goins: I would say, too, both sides, whether you’re men or women, have "sex-pectations," we call them sex-pectations. We haven't learned how to have conversations about sex. We just fill up all these unmet, unspoken expectations. For some women that are listening, they are going, "I wish my husband thought that the sex shop was open 24/7." We know that it happens on both sides. But we’ve got to stop and go, "Okay, where am I getting that expectation? Is it right? Is it realistic? Is it according to my spouse?"

Shaunti Feldhahn: And can we talk about it? That’s the reason we did the whole season on secrets of sex and marriage last season. I would totally encourage anyone who has these sex-pectations and is like, "What does this look like?" go listen to that season because it goes into all of these areas that we can actually learn how we are wired and how our spouse is wired if we will just communicate.

Another thing I think we need to acknowledge about where the expectations come from is not just media, obviously. We grew up with a certain family, a certain pattern that we saw, a certain lifestyle or culture. All of those things baked their way into our minds and our hearts, and we don't even realize. Like Jen growing up with a dad who was a fantastic general contractor and could fix anything. She didn't even know that was baked in. It wasn't like it was a wrong expectation; it just didn't fit her husband.

Brian Goins: One of the things that I hope happens with Married With Benefits is that you guys end up engaging in great conversations. That’s one of the reasons why I love Weekend to Remember with FamilyLife. It’s a three-day experience where couples come together and have the conversations they most need to have but probably aren't having for whatever reason. We got a letter from a lady that went to the Weekend to Remember in Destin, Florida.

She said, "It created the pause and became the catalyst for us to have the conversations we have swept under the rug because we have been too busy or didn't want to rock the boat. Ten years later, the rug is full, and we keep tripping over it. I’m thankful for this time and look forward to revisiting and working through our marriage goals from home together." That’s what we’re all about here at FamilyLife: helping you have the conversations that matter most. You can find a great spot to go to at any one of our 80 locations if you look up weekendtoremember.com.

We’re unwrapping that gift that God has given us, and there are some things that we didn't expect that would come, and there’s things that we hoped that would be in that gift that weren't there. We just don't often realize that, and there’s a variety of things that happen in a married life that end up changing those expectations. We discover our spouse’s strengths and weaknesses. Maybe there’s some age or health issues. Kids come into play, and that totally changes what expectations you’re going to have for your spouse.

There comes a point in time where it’s almost like you’ve got to grow up a little bit in your marriage and the way that you love your spouse.

Shaunti Feldhahn: I don't want to give the wrong impression, but it is about living in reality. There is a need to look at your spouse with clear eyes and say, "You know what?" For example, I can't tell you the number of men privately who have told me, "You know, I always thought that my wife would just be this amazing cook and that she would just love being in the kitchen. My main problem would be not gaining weight because she would always want to have people over to my house because she’d be this incredible hostess."

Okay, but you now have been married for a year or two, and it’s very clear that you guys trade off cooking, and neither of you is ever going to be a culinary arts pro unless one of you goes to a chef’s school. Chef Boyardee is your chef right now.

Brian Goins: That is so sad right now. I would be unhappy if Chef Boyardee was what we came home to.

Shaunti Feldhahn: But see, that’s an example. I can't tell you the number of women I’ve talked to who are in this: "I can learn, but it’s not my greatest joy. So how would you feel about a HelloFresh subscription?" "Well, we shouldn't have to." Well, who are you married to? And it’s just again, what’s the reality? How do I know if I’m not pursuing factual fantasies? "My spouse should..." If we’re using the word "should" in our own narrative in our head, then chances are you’re going to be unhappy.

Brian Goins: That’s the signal.

Shaunti Feldhahn: And then the shift is not just, "Okay, live in reality." The shift is, "Okay, what am I celebrating in that reality? What am I looking for? What am I getting excited about?" Because we don't want to get the impression that this is, "Oh, are you telling me to lower my expectation?" No, this is not about lowering. This is about actually looking at who your spouse is and being excited about that.

One of the examples, going back to that story of the money and me and Jeff. Here we are dealing with all these money issues. At the time when that first started, we had young kids and there was all this stuff going on. Jeff decided that he should probably go back to the law firm because it was hard. I’m like, "No!" I was so upset that he would think about going back to a law firm. Why? Because I had started to see that he is such an amazing dad. What a huge blessing that our kids have, that they have both of us.

He can actually get them from school a lot of times. If I’m out speaking at a women’s event, he’s the one who is picking them up from school. How many kids would love to have that time with their dad? So I started being so excited about that. When he said, "I need to go back to the law firm," I’m like, "No," because the kids would then never see him. He’d be working 60-hour weeks. That’s an example of it has to come full circle. It’s not just recognizing the reality; it’s celebrating it.

Brian Goins: That’s really, really good. Giving up your expectations and your rights usually results in getting back the love you wanted all along. Very true. I had mentioned in an earlier episode about the 30-day kindness challenge where everybody is doing something every day for 30 days and that 66% of people said at the end of it, they felt more loved and appreciated even though they were the ones doing all the work. That 66 is not 100%, but it is very common. Just the way God works.

It is about accepting the reality you’re in and the spouse that you have. Let’s be clear, that’s going to change as the years go on. Or it could change when you’re least expecting it and you have to adjust your expectations and adjust the reality you’re in or you’ll be perpetually disappointed.

I think about my buddy Greg. He’s a mentor of mine. We tell his story in the New Art of Marriage session one. It’s a six-session video series. Everybody needs to go through it with a small group. This story, I love it because it tells the story of what does faithfulness really look like? Five years into Greg’s marriage, she had grown up doing gymnastics, he was passionate about being a pastor back in his own small farming community. They had this dream, this vision, expectation—right, good, and Godly—that they would go back to their hometown. He would minister to farmers, she would teach gymnastics.

But they went to the doctor because she was having trouble with her eyesight, seeing double vision, and she was struggling a little bit with some of her joints and found out she has MS. Five years into their marriage. Not 25, 30, 40 years; five years. They end up having four kids. They had two at the time and then they had two more. When you’re pregnant, some of those MS symptoms dissipate, so they thought she was healed. It came back in full force and she became bedridden for 20 years of their married life.

Yet Greg at my office—I remember I worked with him for a year and a half—we’d all go out to lunch and I’d go, "Greg, you want to come with us?" "I get to go have lunch with my wife." He was smiling. Greg always got to go home and have lunch. He had adjusted his reality, and their marriage is an example to me of how do you adjust your perspective so that you can learn to go, "I’m going to be happy with the factual fantasy that God has given me right now."

That wasn't easy. He’s a sinful guy just like the rest of us. He had expectations. He would have loved to have gone on walks at night with his wife. Instead, they would sit in the bedroom and talk about what she had listened to on the radio that day and how she had prayed for people that had come over to the house. They found different ways to celebrate the reality they were in. Celebrate the spouse that you have.

How do I move from those unmet expectations, which causes so much unhappiness, whether it’s about money or conflict or what I wish my spouse would do for me, to how do we make those little steps to create the factual fantasies?

Shaunti Feldhahn: I love that we’ve identified a couple of factors. The first thing that you have to do is to eliminate this concept of "If my spouse loved me, they would" blank, and you fill in the blank with something they’re not wired for. "If my spouse loved me, they would be making a ton of money. If my spouse loved me, they would always pursue me when I’m upset, instead of going to their corner to process. If my spouse loved me, they would go to the gym every day because they know that’s important to me."

Those things—there’s nothing wrong with having some hopes and dreams and visions, and certainly there are things that it’s fine to expect. It’s fine to expect that your spouse contributes financially. To be healthy. It’s fine to expect that your husband is going to say "I love you" to you. Those are fine. But so often we’re filling in that blank with stuff that’s way beyond that they’re just not wired for. "If my spouse loved me, they would have sex every day."

Identify sort of the two factors that I think can get us beyond this. The first is to sort of say, "Is there anything about my spouse that I am expecting that is just not realistic to expect over time?" I would suggest that somebody write down maybe three, four, five: what are those things? Again, Jen didn't even know she had the expectation about the handyman. If you’ve been married for a length of time, you may have some ideas by now. What are those things?

Brian Goins: I know one I would write down right now. I would write down that I would expect my wife to be a mind reader. It’s amazing how many times I’m sitting in bed, and it’s funny, it tends to be about sex. It’s really not always about sex. But it is funny how many times that I think, "If Jen loved me right now, she would know that I’m probably wanting it," or "If she loved me, why can't she see any of these signals that I’m dropping, even as obscure as they might be?" I expect her to be a mind reader, or that she would have noticed that I did something around the house and I expect her so often just to read what I’m thinking.

Shaunti Feldhahn: Then what you have to do, the second sort of way of handling that, is you have to then go full circle and you have to then say, "Okay, wait, not just here’s the things I’m expecting that may not be what they’re wired for, but then also what are they wired for? What are some of the things that they are able to and do do for you that you can go, 'Oh my gosh, that’s awesome, I can totally expect that' and then celebrate it?" Because now that is meeting an expectation I just kind of took for granted before. I think that’s a good start for changing your mind.

Brian Goins: That’s really, really good. To build a factual fantasy, I’m eliminating that idea of "If my spouse loved me, they would do X." Fill in that blank that we know they’re not wired for. We’ve lived with them long enough, you know what they’re wired for and what they’re not wired for. Then chart an inventory, take some time, really write down: what is it that I often expect out of my spouse that’s just not realistic, it’s not right? Then what are the things they can do, celebrate those things, and maybe even mention those in a cool, creative way.

I think this is a really good one, this last part. These expectations, often the reason why we’re unhappy is that we’re not really speaking them. They just go unspoken. They’re unmet because they’re unspoken. They’re down deep somewhere inside and we haven't actually made it clear because, again, if they loved me, they should just know. One of the ways that I really learned this lesson early on with Jen is that we would always have conflict on Saturdays.

We would have conflict because I would wake up and I would start doing what I wanted to do. I’d go work in the yard, I’d take care of the garage, I had a list of things, and then I would watch college football and preferably with a sandwich and a bag of chips. I noticed that, and then take a nap. If things are great, I take a nap. I noticed that Jen would get frustrated and she would often be vacuuming right around me while I’m watching football and stomping around a little bit. I’m like, "What is the deal?"

She’s like, "Well, you just went off and started doing stuff. You didn't even talk to me." I’m like, "What do you mean? It’s Saturday." That’s because I had brought into this like, "This is what I did on Saturdays. That’s how I lived my single life and I was perfectly happy." We just did Saturdays differently. She was expecting that her husband would be present, would be asking about her week, and cleaning and helping her. Naps aren't for Saturday; they’re for Sunday.

All this stuff, and for us, one of the best things that we learned to do is on a Friday night or Saturday morning, we started asking each other the question, "So what would make it a win for you today?" It’s such a great question. We’re just getting out the expectations. Same thing could happen with vacations. There’s a lot of people that have conflict over vacations. Is a vacation to relax where you don't do anything or is a vacation one that you come back from so busy that you kind of need a vacation from your vacation?

I think it’s best just to get that out in the open. We’ve had a lot more fun now going because it gives us a chance to go, "Okay, I want to meet that need." And for her to go, "I want to meet that need for you, or I want to fill that expectation." I think one of the best examples of that, and I’ll close with this, is this story that’s in your book. I think it’s one of my favorite ones.

This very practical wife, she put it this way: "Why should I be upset when I didn't get what I wanted for my birthday when I didn't tell him?" It’s kind of going back to that Valentine’s Day card. He would always get me cards and roses; he thought I liked that. So finally, I told him, "I don't like cards. I don't like roses. But I do like plants. I can plant in my garden that I can look back and think he got me that this year or that year." So every year he gets me a plant and I have a whole garden full of memories.

I just love that line. It’s funny how we can go months, years being so frustrated at our spouse. But really, just look in the mirror and go, "Have you ever spoken about that? Have you said you have that desire, you have that need?" God put us together so that we wouldn't be lonely, and I find that we’re so often so lonely because we just aren't willing to speak up and be okay with revising your expectation.

Shaunti Feldhahn: That secret’s a great one, having developing—it sounds crazy—factual fantasies. When we start doing that together, what you’ll expect to find is that you’ll actually enjoy your marriage a lot more.

Brian Goins: Thanks for joining us for this episode. If you enjoy this podcast, please hit like or subscribe. And please leave a review or a comment. It just helps get the word out to more couples so that they can find hope for their own marriage. And listen, if you haven't picked up Shaunti’s book that we’re talking about all this season long, *The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages*, you’re going to want to get that and maybe grab one to give away.

That’s really what we’re about here at FamilyLife. We want to help you experience oneness so that you can impact your corner of the world. And listen, we’ve got a lot more help and hope for your marriage and family at familylife.com. You can find other articles, you can find podcasts, you can find shows, small group resources. You’ll want to check that out at familylife.com.