When Expectations Blind Us: Marrying the Real Person

“I can tell you this unequivocally. If I had known everything I know today about Shmulik, I would not have married him. It simply would not have happened,” Ruti said firmly.

“Didn’t you see any of this before you married him?” I asked.

“Apparently not. That’s what happens when you’re in love. You become blind,” she replied. “Even my mother and my friends weren’t enthusiastic when I told them we were getting married. They raised their eyebrows, but I didn’t care. They were always critical of me and my choices, and I, in contrast, saw only the good in him. His golden heart. To me, he was perfect.”

When Expectations Create Blindness

“Ruti,” I said gently, “when you were looking for a partner, you came with expectations. Those expectations are what blinded you.”

“This blindness didn’t stop after the wedding,” I continued. “It carried into the marriage itself. You’ve been married for almost two decades, and during all those years, you never truly saw the man you married. As we’ve discussed in previous sessions, when everything was placed on the table, the reality was always there.”

“I don’t understand how this could happen,” she said painfully. “Do you think I’m blind? Do I look stupid? He’s a complete fraud.”

“What I’m saying doesn’t remove even one percent of responsibility from him,” I replied. “The issue of expectations has nothing to do with who he is. It has to do with what you carried inside you. You had a clear image of what a relationship should look like. That image was very deep. It was how you needed the relationship to be.”

Choosing Not to See

“Because you approached the relationship with that expectation,” I explained, “you were unable to tolerate being shattered. You feared the moment when reality would crash into you and you would realize that the relationship was nothing like what you imagined. That realization feels like failure, and failure is very hard to contain.”

“So your soul unconsciously chose blindness,” I said. “It erased reality and replaced it with fantasies about Shmulik. But reality never disappeared.”

“It’s a shame I woke up from the illusion,” Ruti said quietly. “Maybe it would have been better if I had stayed in the fantasy. At least I would have been happy.”

“That’s a serious mistake,” I replied. “There’s no way that could have worked.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“First of all, because illusions eventually explode. There’s no such thing as living indefinitely without a reckoning,” I said. “And secondly, because there was no relationship there at all.”

The Cost of Living With an Imaginary Partner

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why wasn’t there a relationship?”

“Because for all those years,” I answered, “you were in a relationship with an imaginary Shmulik, not with a real husband. Deep inside, you felt a lack that could never be filled.”

“And how is that lack supposed to be filled?” she asked.

“Imagination can’t fill a lack. Only a real person can,” I said. “You didn’t even realize how frustrated you were, because the frustration lived on a subconscious level.”

“So I shouldn’t have come with expectations at all?” she asked.

“That’s impossible,” I replied. “Everyone enters a relationship with expectations. That’s part of human connection. The problem is not having expectations. The problem is when expectations blind us and cause imagination to cover reality. Then frustration grows, and we don’t even know where it comes from.”

“The frustration comes from one place,” I continued. “The imaginary husband doesn’t align with the real one, and the heart remains empty.”

From Fear to Real Choice

“The correction,” I said, “is to choose to marry the real Shmulik, not the imaginary one. You must be willing to look at reality directly, see who he truly is, and then make a real choice.”

“There’s something else that’s equally important,” I added. “You need to recognize that there was a part of you that knew all along. You had an internal dilemma. To see and confront, or to ignore and preserve the relationship.”

“You weren’t willing to blow everything up,” I said gently. “Your soul didn’t feel it had the strength to contain the truth, so it buried it. But buried truths don’t disappear. They eventually erupt.”

“Try to identify this pattern in other areas of your life as well,” I continued. “The tendency to suppress problems, to paint reality in flowers and butterflies, to convince yourself that everything is fine.”

“This understanding is painful,” I said, “but it can free you. You didn’t see because you chose not to see. That choice was unconscious, but now it’s important to ask why.”

“I was afraid to break up the family,” she admitted.

“And deeper than that,” I said, “you were afraid of him. You felt he had power over you. That he was above you.”

“It’s not true that you knew nothing,” I continued. “You knew. But something in the relationship demanded silence. You told yourself there was nothing to be done. Today, your mistrust expresses itself differently. Now you’re saying, ‘I’m not afraid anymore.’ But even this stage isn’t the end.”

“It’s part of the process,” I reassured her. “A journey toward real choice. I’m here with you until you reach a place where you choose a relationship aligned with your values.”

“You don’t stay in a relationship out of fear,” I concluded. “You stay only out of true choice.”

This column was inspired by the course of Rabbi Eliyahu Levy, Root Treatment in Relationships.