"My marriage hasn’t turned out like I expected…."

If you walk into the magazine section of Kroger, Publix, Albertson’s, Winn-Dixie, Barnes and Noble or Borders you’ll find a huge selection of bridal and wedding magazines. In one of the those zillion mags, women everywhere begin their quest for the perfect wedding. The perfect wedding consists of the perfect dress, the perfect venue, the perfect caterer, the perfect cake, the perfect photographer, the perfect tux, and the perfect bridesmaid dresses. Sorry, I forgot the perfect reception. In one of the zillion bridal magazines they find the perfect bridal show to attend so they can make sure their selections are…you guessed it…perfect.

That’s because the bride to be has found the perfect husband…

The groom to be, on the other hand, buys into the whole “perfect” thing because his perfect wedding (remember this is hypothetical) will end in a raucous round of perfect sex. He dreams of the perfect beach, or the perfect cabin, with the perfect adult beverages (non-alchoholic of course), and more perfect…….you fill in the blank for the guy.

That’s because the groom to be has found the perfect wife…

So we find the perfect couple after the honeymoon…a few weeks, months, years, or a couple of decades after the perfect honeymoon having an identical conversation with their friends (seperately, of course) that begin with the phrase, “My marriage hasn’t turned out like I expected….”

Small wonder, if you ask me. Our culture has created a fantasticly idealist perception of marriage…with the hope of the perfect wedding, the perfect spouse, and even the perfect family. No pressure there, right?

So married couples try to live up to that culture induced expectation and, at all cost, look marvelous on the outside, but live miserable lives trying to figure out why marriage hasn’t turned out the way they expected.

So they sit down with a counselor and they hear the phrases idealistic perception and unmet expectations and begin to see how they set themselves up for the perfect disaster.

More on that in the next post…