Woman's secret to a happy 33 year marriage: 'Don't have expectations'
What is the secret to a happy and healthy long marriage?
It's a question which has been asked over and over again, no one quite knowing what advice to give as everyone is different.
But one woman who has been married for 33 years, a friend of writer Laura Mazza, has given her best advice for a happy marriage, and it will certainly make you think.
Laura shares their encounter: "Yesterday I spoke to a friend of mine who is quite spiritual and can usually pick up on my mood. She is older and wiser and someone I admire. She asked me if I was going okay and if my marriage was okay."
"I was taken aback and said 'of course'. I told her sure, just like any other couple we fight."
Nonetheless, her friend began to speak about marriage and how it is very hard work (tell us something we don't know, eh?), but she had some important advice she wanted to share with Laura that she too had picked up along the way.
"She said, 'don't have expectations', I kinda rolled my eyes and thought yeah I know. She playfully smacked me and said 'no really. Having any expectations in life will ruin everything. Friendships end, relationship ends, happiness ends, when expectations cannot be met'."
Giving several examples of how expectations can leave you upset or in bad form, her friend plainly explained that if you expect your partner to come home everyday after work to help you with kids etc, and they don't, you are automatically in bad form.
Likewise, if your partner comes home from a hard day at work expecting to relax and they are asked to do a million things, they are then frustrated because their evening is turned upside down.
It is the same for friendships and keeping in touch, you may think your friend understands you're busy; they might expect that you wouldn't forget them, everything is muddled.
"It's expectations that cannot be fulfilled. We enter relationships expecting our loved ones to understand us, to know what we need. I find myself often thinking, and sometimes saying, well if you truly loved me, you'd know what I want."
"Kinda absurd when you think about it. Your partner can't read your mind."
If we voice our needs and concerns, we are most likely to receive what we actually want or need, be it a reassuring ear, or a helping hand.
"We have amazing plans of life, of relationships, of friendships – big and grand plans, and when we don't meet them, when people don't meet them, we think they've failed so we give up."
"We are too focused on the plan so if it isn't met, we think it's failed, they've failed or we have failed."
"When we lower our expectations of those who we love in our lives, who are doing all that they can and eliminate our expectations, we allow ourselves to be surprised and appreciative at the actions others take because we don't expect it, we take it as it comes."
Laura's friend believes we need to learn to expect less out of others: "Even if you wish your husband could just read your mind and act notebookish, he can't."
"But when you show him you appreciate him for all he does now, just like you want him to appreciate all the things you do as you are, you will be rewarded ten fold."
Living by these means is how the couple have remained happily married for 33 years, and to be honest, while it does make sense, we're wondering if it's realistic?
What do you think – could you live without any expectations from your partner? Could this work for you?