When Desires Are Too Passionate and Hopes Too Optimistic in Marriage
It always makes for trouble in relationships when there is an expectation of perfection. Here is a clip from a sermon stating the details of how this happens and how to address it:
Half the miseries and disquietudes, half the interruptions of conjugal peace and domestic felicity, arise from desires too ardent, and hopes too sanguine; both parties, at their first entrance into the nuptial state, especially in youth, are apt to form to themselves ideas, very inadequate and disproportioned to the condition of human life; to entertain delusive notions of a romantic and visionary paradise, where the earth is cloathed with perpetual verdure, the flowers never fade, and the fruits are immortal; but when instead of this, they begin, perhaps in a short time, to feel the thorns springing up under their feet, when they perceive the fruits to wither, and the verdure to decay, they are filled with unreasonable wonder and astonishment; they had accustomed themselves to look for nothing less than uninterrupted health, constant success, invariable harmony and affection; they suffer, therefore, not so much from the evil which they have, as from the want of that which they have not. At the beginning of the voyage, the sky is generally clear, the waters calm and unruffled; but to conclude from thence that we are to fail through life without storm or tempest, is, to the last degree, absurd and unreasonable. It is the duty and the interest of both, therefore, and especially of him who sits at the helm, to prepare against the worst, to steer the vessel with all possible care and diligence, and conduct it safely into the harbor of peace and felicity. From, Sermons on the Relative duties, viz Introductory Sermon on Domestic Happiness, preached at Queen-Street Chapel, Rev Tho. Francklin, DD, Vicar of Ware in Hertfordshire and Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty. Printed for T. Davies, In Russel Street, 1770
