Dreams Will Change As Marriage Evolves

“I’ll never forget that call I got in the obstetrician’s office,” says Ivy, 29, who gave birth to her third child one week after moving from Philadelphia to California on barely two months notice.

“There I was, seven months pregnant, with a 3-year-old and a 14-month-old at home, and my husband was telling me - once again - that he was changing jobs. It was so typical of Tom never to think about me and what I might need or want,” she says.

Ivy certainly never thought her marriage would turn out like this. As a starry-eyed college student, she was swept off her feet by strong-willed, brilliant Tom, who seemed to know exactly what he wanted out of life.

Back then, she and Tom had the same dreams and goals, and they had great fun planning their lives.

They agreed that Ivy would defer her graduate studies in education and support the family by working as a computer programmer so Tom could pursue his doctorate in economics and eventually teach at the university level.

After Tom got his degree, they’d start a family. But somewhere along the way, their plans got derailed.

“First of all, the kids came along a lot sooner than we expected,” Ivy says.

“And second, though it’s been five years since Tom finished his course work, his thesis is nowhere near complete. I know he’s angry and frustrated because he has to squeeze in his thesis work while he holds down a demanding full-time job.

Needless to say, Tom’s anger spills over at home: “Just last week, he expected me to drop everything and type a new section of his paper because he had this great inspiration,” Ivy says.

“When I refused, he called me a stupid idiot…. I’m miserable, and I’m tired of stuffing my feelings inside and pushing my needs aside so Tom can be a star.”

Thirty-year-old Tom is sad and baffled.

“Our marriage was once the best anyone could ever ask for,” he says. “Now the whole thing seems to be cracking up - and I think it’s because Ivy herself is cracking up. Ivy used to be a calm, gentle person. Now she’s tense and nervous all the time.”

Tom knows that being married to an academic isn’t easy. “But none of this should come as a surprise to Ivy,” he insists. “We discussed in exhaustive detail what we wanted out of life, and we planned our lives accordingly - when we first married. We estimated that I might be 35 before I finally completed my thesis.”

Though Tom knows it’s wrong to yell at Ivy because he’s upset over a fight with a superior at work, “sometimes I just lose it,” he says. “If I’m pushing Ivy out the door, I don’t mean to…. The last thing I want is for her to go leave. But how can I stop her?”

Take off those rose-colored glasses

“While most of us learn to smile ruefully at the impossible pledges and avowals of courtship and adjust to reality, Ivy and Tom never have,” points out Marc Snowman, a marriage therapist in New York City.

Like many couples, Ivy and Tom have discovered that their everyday lives clash with many of their early expectations.

But courtship is often the time when we see only our similarities - and few of our differences.

Once married, the differences emerge, and they can become abrasive if you let them. Indeed, if couples take this as a sign that love has died, they misunderstand what marriage is all about.

Before you threaten to move out, consider the following advice.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water

Your negative view of your partner is probably just as flawed as your earlier idealized vision of him. The disappointment you feel, marital experts contend, is par for the course. We all come to marriage with a host of expectations, and when those are not met, we feel angry, hurt, resentful, bitter or worried.

Expect the unexpected

Life throws us all curve balls; as these two discovered, couples who can’t be flexible risk problems.

Unearth your hidden agendas

Make a date at least once a month to discuss what’s happening in your lives, what you’d like to see happen; an honest assessment of how you feel about the direction your lives together are taking.

Had Ivy and Tom done this all along, Ivy would not have felt she wasted all those years stifling her feelings.