Expectation

I saw a friend post something on her facebook wall about cooking at home, saying that her husband did not complain about her cooking. She was recently married, and I couldn't help but make a funny comment on her post. But then upon further reflection, I thought that's a good excuse for me to write about my own experience on the subject. Hence this post.

You see, many years ago, I married the girl of my dream. I met her for the first time about 3 years before that, and even then I knew she was the one for me; I knew that it was just a matter of time before I would propose to her. Like all newly-weds, I felt like I was the luckiest man alive. She wasn't perfect, of course—after all, nobody is—but she was perfect to me as my wife.

I suspect most people, when they get married, would try very hard to be "perfect" for their spouses. That may be a good thing; and that may also be a bad thing, depending on how one looks at it. One of the things that I was surprised to discover about my wife when I first married her, was that she did not know how to cook. I don't even mean not knowing how to cook as in not knowing how to cook well. I really mean that she did not know how to cook, period! Throughout the 3 years or so that I've known her before that, I never did see her cook. But cooking was not important to me anyway. I was surprised, yes, but it was not a big deal to me.

She was brave enough to give it a try though. And after turning the kitchen into something akin to a war zone, I was rather surprised and amused to see what looked like vegetables served on the dining table. Oh it was such awful cooking. 

Now if there's anything that's extremely important to me in a husband-wife relationship, above everything else, it must be total honesty. And that is something very difficult to find in almost all women! Women in general can't escape from the crime of lying; it is in their DNA. Some of them on petty issues. For example, I know a woman who bought an expensive handbag, and when questioned by her husband, she said that that handbag was a present from her sister. I suppose she lied in order to avoid arguments? Petty kind of lies, sometimes seem harmless, but I just can't stand women lying to me, however harmless or insignificant—ever!

So anyway, in all honesty, I said to my wife that I appreciated her attempt at cooking, but her cooking was just awful. I said that half jokingly. And then to my horror, she was totally devastated. She cried for hours and hours and locked herself up in the bedroom. I think it had nothing to do with feeling ashamed for not knowing how to cook as a woman. Rather, she thought that as my wife, I'd expected her to be good at cooking. Truth be told, when I married her, I was never under any disillusion—I accepted her as an imperfect person. Sometimes in life, it's all those little imperfections that are the essence of true perfection!

When she'd calmed down, I explained to her that her cooking did not change the way I felt for her one bit; she was still the perfect one for me. That when I married her, I had accepted her with all her flaws; just as she had accepted me with all my flaws too. There was no expectation to live up to; we were what we were, and we accepted each other as we were. 

That brought back the smile to her face, and in the following weeks after that incident, I had an enjoyable time teaching her how to cook on a daily basis. She eventually became quite good at it too, but that's probably because she had a good teacher?

I'm not saying that there are no expectations in my marriage. Of course there are at least some. I'd expect, for example, my wife to be unconditionally loyal to me. God help me, I can't imagine what will happen to me if she ends up running away with another man. I'd like to think that my expectations from my marriage are "reasonable" ones, if there's such a thing. But for the most part, I just want her to be herself, because after all, that's the person I married all those years ago.