A couple days ago, I was in the car with my dad as he drove me to the dentist. On our way there, he turned on the radio (Chinese channel) and we happened to come across an interesting topic.
The scenario was: A woman has been dating her boyfriend for around 10 years. However, she kept rejecting his proposal for marriage because she felt like the guy couldn’t support her. Her man decided that he was only going to ask once more. If she’s going to reject him again, then they will break up. However, the woman was furious because she has spent 10 years of her youth with this man. She thinks she’s doing nothing wrong because she wants to motivate him to earn more money. In her opinion, what’s the point of getting married if they cannot afford to start a family together? Therefore, she has called into the radio station to complain.
When I first heard this, I was amused and slightly shocked. The woman should have stated her expectations from the start. The man could have then chose to either stay with her and satisfy her, or break up with her so she could go find someone else.
But then I thought about it, is that even love? It seemed more like a contract to me. It’s like, “Oh, I’ll marry or be with you if you make X amount and you can give me X and do X and etc.”
It sounds like a conditional offer. -_-
On the other hand, there has to be some sort of expectations, no? If we have no expectations, then anyone can be our partner. We definitely have to narrow down our searches.
Shortly after, my friend Alex shared a video with me on facebook.
It was an interesting video and it made me question a few things. Is it reasonable for us to expect so much from our significant other?? We want someone who not only is our best friend, but also a lover; someone who will never lose their enthusiasm to raise children with us; someone who will not be attracted to anyone else; someone who will accept all our flaws and weaknesses…and so on.
It honestly doesn’t seem realistic.
In my opinion, having so many expectations will only lead to dissatisfaction. Instead of appreciating what your significant other is doing/has done for you, you will be expecting them to do it.
When you expect it, you will not appreciate it because “that’s how it’s supposed to be”.
I think couples who show their appreciation for each other are the ones that last a lifetime.
What are your thoughts?
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P.S. If you’re here for the translations, I am working on Chapter 16. It will be up tomorrow!
Grow with me 
you should think about a future vision. Now in the era in which we live it is not one where you can live like in the fairy tales.
we are in a capitalist era, without planning end up suffering
the truth I am not English speaker, and I find it hard to write, since I am self-taught but learned to read English, writing makes me look like an illiterate
about marriage, I think gather love with marriage is unreal, marriage, yes, it is a contract, you have to think define love of ideal love, because it is truly very difficult to define love, but now what this woman plan your future and that of their children is not love?
seeing it the rational side, the women and men must plan and not be impulsive, after all in capitalism everything is money, well sorry for my horrible English and I would like to be deeper but the language barrier and complex terms is a very wide.
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment, Gillmour. I understand what you mean. Money definitely plays a factor in today’s society. I agree, without planning, one will end up suffering. I guess ideally there would be a balance (you would fall in love with a person who is financially stable).
By the way, you should be proud of yourself for learning English on your own! That takes a lot of dedication and perseverance.
To be honest I don’t think the kind of person you mentioned above even exist. People change and they’re selfish, all have somethings they don’t want to lose but not forever, cuz what’s important to them now may not be so few years ahead of time.
And expectations leads to disappointment but not always, it could lead to a pleasant surprise too (among many other things that is…). In any case, my point being you can’t live without expectations, they’re what we look forward to and what pushes us forward. But I agree less expectations might lessen disappointments too, all in all it just makes our lives dull. I also agree with your last point, people should have expectations but they never should take anything for granted, gratitude plays a heavy part in relationships.
Expectations are to be for oneself don’t strech it to other around you, be it your lover or your friend. And love, …well I don’t know much about that but one thing I can say for sure, love rarely happens in real life, it maybe just an illusion which you’d come to regret couple of years later so don’t bother trying so hard to find it, if it happens it will happen oneday.
As for the women above on the radio conversation lived 10 years of her life with one person, so she’s definitely lying when she say she doesn’t want to marry him, she just need some reassurance from him to take the last step. She feels insecure but she seems too prideful of herself to mention it straight out to her bf, I think she should be straight forward in revealing her feelings to the one she actually love.
Wow! Thank you for taking the time to read and writing such a long and detailed comment! I know what you mean…expectations are necessary to some degree. You can’t just be like whatever to everything. Hmm I think the woman wants to marry the man too, but she wants to ensure that he will make more money first. I guess she wants a guarantee. It is selfish but like you said, it’s human nature.
I also agree that with time, things that once matter a lot may not matter as much anymore. Likewise, things that didn’t matter before may matter in the future. People change. Things change.
Actually when I think about it, the ideal love you mention does exist… in novels I mean.
There exist a perfect character, in which even their flaws and weaknesses seem much more acceptable… and cute sometimes (>ω<)
Maybe it's because of that we like to read them so much, the beautiful puppy love that lasts forever (which never actually happens in real life) but even so can't deny it being pretty, right? (^_-)
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and plus the translation!
Great post. I think the woman and the man should have had the conversation about their future before 10 years of dating. After year 1. There can be no mistake when both people are confirming what their expectations are. If money was her thing she should have said it up front and then moved on. Allowed him to be with someone else. That would have freed her to find someone who made more money than her boyfriend.
I totally agree with you!! If she had stated her expectations from the beginning, the guy could have chose to stay with her and try to satisfy her..or leave her so she could find someone else.
Yes.
I’ve read a lot of books on love because people tend to express opinions on love that are based on what they think love should be and not what love actually is. This was a great post, you hit it on the head, I agree with everything that you said in it:) nice post again:)
Thank you so much!! 🙂
:))