The vows have been said, the cake cut, the rose petals thrown. Soon enough, just as the saying goes, the honeymoon is over. Then comes marriage, and an awareness of things about our partners and ourselves the experts say can t be predicted, but which must be worked through if the couple is to thrive.
Most people begin to put their partner under a more high-powered microscope.
Dealing with underlying expectations Some disappointment is inevitable, the experts say, because new couples often idealize each other in ways no one could live up to. Moreover, what one partner wishes in the other may even be contradictory, says Pauker, who is in private practice in New York City and is an assistant clinical professor at Cornell University Medical College. For example, a woman who thinks she wants a man who will take care of her but then feels controlled, or a man who wants a woman who will let him be in charge and then finds he resents her for being too passive. The possibilities are endless, but in the end the partners have to come to terms with who they are, not what they wish each other to be. Hopefully, they ll reach some new level of reconciliation in the course of which they have grown personally and the couple has grown, Pauker says.