Unrealistic Expectations

Within the context of relationships and marriage

I was having a conversation with a friend earlier today, and she said something that stayed with me long after we had stopped talking.

She said people are rarely honest about this part of love. That no matter how beautiful your marriage is, no matter how wonderful your spouse is, no matter how much dua you made before Allah blessed you with them… there will almost always be something you don’t have.

It reminded me of something I wrote in my last newsletter. If this dunya was capable of satisfying every longing in the human heart, then Jannah would not exist. We were never meant to find perfection here. We were created with an appetite for eternity because eternity is where perfection belongs.

One of Allah’s Names is Al-Hakeem, The Most Wise. The One whose wisdom encompasses what ours never could. The One who decreed your spouse with complete knowledge of who you are, who they are and what your journey together would require. They did not arrive in your life by accident. They were written for you by the One who knows you better than you know yourself.

And just as Allah ordained you for them, He ordained them for you. The difficult part is accepting that Allah did not create either of you to be everything. Comparison makes us forget this.

Social media doesn’t help either. Every day you’re exposed to tiny fragments of other people’s marriages. Someone’s husband surprises her with flowers every Friday. Someone else’s wife writes the most heartfelt love letters. Another couple is travelling the world together. Someone receives expensive gifts. Someone is always posting videos of laughter and affection. Someone seems deeply religious. Someone else appears incredibly emotionally intelligent.

Without even realising it, your heart begins collecting pieces from different marriages and stitching them together into one imaginary spouse.

You want his financial stability. His emotional intelligence. Her softness. Their romance. Their communication. Their adventures. Their patience. Their ambition. Their consistency. Their family. Their chemistry.

And before long, you’re comparing one real human being to a person who has never existed. A person made up of borrowed qualities from twenty different people. How could your spouse ever compete with someone who isn’t real?

The truth is every marriage is making a trade, even if nobody talks about it.

There are husbands who write poetry for their wives but struggle to provide financial security. There are wives who create the warmest homes imaginable but find vulnerability difficult. There are spouses who can give you the world materially, but because of work, they cannot give you as much of their time as you wish. There are people who spend every evening together yet constantly worry about paying the next bill.

Others have stability but very little emotional intimacy. Some are built on friendship. Others on passion. Others on shared worship. Others on sacrifice.

Some people seem to have a beautiful balance of all of these, but even then, there will always be something you cannot see. A test hidden behind closed doors. A grief that never made it onto Instagram. A conversation that happened after the camera stopped recording.

Every marriage has a cross to carry. Comparison simply hides the weight. The problem with comparison is not that it makes you admire what others have. Admiration can be healthy. The problem is that it slowly blinds you to what Allah has already placed in your own hands.

The husband who doesn’t write paragraphs may make dua for you every night before he sleeps. The wife who isn’t overly expressive may remember every little thing that eases your burdens. The spouse who isn’t wealthy may protect your dignity in ways money never could. The one who isn’t naturally romantic may be fiercely loyal. The one who struggles with words may spend their entire life showing love through actions instead. We often mourn the fruit on someone else’s tree while standing beneath one that is feeding us.

Comparison also creates impossible expectations because it convinces us that somewhere out there exists a marriage without compromise. It doesn’t. Even the happiest marriages involve choosing which imperfections you’re willing to live with.

Love is not finding someone without flaws. Love is finding someone whose flaws you can navigate, whose strengths cover your weaknesses and whose journey to Allah complements your own.

This isn’t an excuse to settle for harmful behaviour or remain in unhealthy relationships. Islam never asks us to tolerate oppression, abuse or neglect. We should ask Allah for the very best spouse. We should make sincere dua, have high expectations of Allah and strive to become the best spouses ourselves.

But there is a difference between pursuing excellence and demanding perfection.

Perhaps contentment begins the day we stop asking, “Why isn’t my marriage like theirs?” and start asking, “How can I better appreciate what Allah, Al-Hakeem, in His perfect wisdom, has chosen for me?”

Because if you continue consciously, or even unconsciously, measuring your relationship against everyone else’s, you will never arrive at contentment. Every flaw will become magnified because someone, somewhere, appears to possess the very thing your relationship lacks. It does not steal your spouse. It steals your ability to see them.

And perhaps that is one of the greatest mercies of Jannah.

Not simply that our spouses will be perfected, but that our hearts will be too. No envy. No disappointment. No unmet expectations. No wondering what life would have looked like with someone else. Every longing finally answered. Every deficiency finally removed. Because, again, Jannah exists precisely because this world never could.