Expecting and Expectations: Are You and Your Spouse on the Same Page?
By Joanne Baum
www.respectfulparenting.com
When you’re pregnant you soon become full of expectations. You dream
about what your baby will be like, you dream about how you and hour
husband will parent. You dream about how you will handle any problems
that come up. You dream about being a family and how family life will
be. You dream about how you’ll juggle real life and motherhood and
fatherhood. You know what you want, you know how you’ll handle it, you
know what “it’ll” be like. You’re getting ready based on your dreams and
fantasies. But is your husband on the same page or are you assuming he
is?
Ten Steps to Help Expectations Come True:
1. Talk with your spouse and ask him if he’d be willing to share his
specific dreams and expectations with you and if he’d be willing to
listen to yours.
2. Ask your husband to tell you his dreams before you tell him all of
yours so he’s not trying to please you and he feels free to offer his
dreams and expectations.
3. Don’t be upset if he doesn’t have as many as yours.
4. Share your dreams with the idea that you both want to see where your
dreams and expectations overlap and where you have a mismatch. Talk to
each other about your fears and concerns – share them without feeling
like the other person is supposed to fix them. See if you two can “team”
together and come up with creative strategies to meet both your needs.
5. Where there are differences, work through them. Don’t assume they’ll
go away on their own. Differences usually get bigger with sleep
deprivation and reality.
6. To work through them talk about each of your wants and needs. See if
you can strategize together how to get needs met, but make sure they are
truly needs and not intense wants.
7. Call upon a parenting coach or therapist to help you two resolve your
differences if you can’t do that together. If you can do this before
your baby arrives you’ll have less stress in those beginning wonderful,
exciting, sleep deprived and confusing weeks. If your baby is here and
you’re having difficulties that are upsetting you, try getting some help
before they build over time.
8. Respect each other’s ways of doing things – there is more than one
way to be a healthy and happy family.
9. Continue to make couple time even if it’s for fifteen minutes a day
where you get to be adults together.
10.Leave room for flexibility, creativity, and spontaneity. Dreams and
expectations are based in your head; they’re your fantasies. When your
baby arrives, you’ll need to get to know your baby. You’ll want to see
what your unique baby brings to your dreams. Follow your baby’s lead and
allow your dreams and expectations to be fantasy and not a reality you
impose on your baby. Enjoy who your baby is and realize you figured out
the best you could before you were handed the gift of reality. Now it’s
time to re-figure and live with your baby rather than your dreams and
expectations. Those were a springboard to prepare you for becoming a
parent and not a recipe for family life.
About The Author
Joanne Baum, PhD., LCSW, has been a therapist, parenting coach,
educator, and writer for over thirty years. Her latest book, Got the
Baby Where’s the Manual?!? won the 2007 IPPY Gold Medal in Parenting.
You can find more information and order her book on her website
www.respectfulparenting.com.
Used With Permission
