Adjusting Your Marriage Expectations with Special Needs Parenting

Todd and Kristin Faith Evans

During our wedding ceremony in the site of God and over two-hundred witnesses, we committed to staying together through anything. No matter what. We even wrote and recited our own original promises to one another. But we never could have imagined what “for better or for worse” and “in sickness and in health” could look like. Over a decade into our marriage and after five years of fighting for our children’s health and development, we were still stumbling around in disappointment and frustration.

Our marriage hadn’t turned out the way we had envisioned. Our disappointment had paralyzed our relationship. It wasn’t until we acknowledged our loss of a typical marriage and family life, grieved together, and then embraced whatever God had for us that we were able to begin to move forward together. We renewed our wedding vows to one another knowing the reality of “for worse” and “in sickness.” Then, we were able to reevaluate our expectations for our life together. We formed new hopes and envisioned a joyful future together. We explain these four steps for how to reorient your own marriage expectations and begin to thrive as a couple.

Unfulfilled Expectations

Most couples tie the knot with dreamy visions of a wonderful future together. We don’t envision experiencing great loss, trauma, illness, and extreme strain on our marriages. Even couples that don’t face extraordinary challenges may quickly realize that they may need to readjust their expectations. But when couples have a child with special needs, disabilities, medical complications, or mental health disorders, all of the sudden those wedding vow statements take on a whole new meaning. These promises are tested.

Our lost hopes cry out to be mourned.

Life may not be what you had dreamed about together. The additional care needs, challenging behaviors, financial burdens, hospitalizations, and appointments equal less time and energy for one another. When our expectations don’t become reality frustration, disappointment, and conflict may build. When this happens, it’s necessary to reorient our marriage expectations to our new circumstances.

4 Steps to Reorienting Your Marriage Expectations

1. Validate Your Loss

Before we were able to strengthen our relationship and begin to enjoy life together, we first had to recognize our difficult circumstances. Here’s a few of our hopes that haven’t been realized that we’ve acknowledged together:

• Serving in fulltime ministry together
• Raising a large family
• Enjoying financial security
• Having freedom to regularly go out on dates and travel together
• Being able to hang out with other couples and friends

The best way to reflect on your relationship is by stealing some time away together (ideally out of the house) to just sit and list off all the ways your marriage life doesn’t resemble what you imagined on your wedding day. Creating this list can be difficult for couples and often takes several times together. Comforting and listening to one another can be the key to unlocking deeper intimacy.

Get our printable to hang on your fridge and Read more about how to validate one another.

2. Grieve Together

Avoiding grieving together nearly destroyed our marriage. Loss can either draw couples closer or tear their relationship apart. When couples open up to one another, they not only allow themselves to process their painful emotions, but they also share a special intimacy that’s not possible any other way.

You may have already been able to grieve together. You might have been grieving on your own. Or both of you may not have begun the process yet. These unrealized expectations that you listed are losses that you share. No one else can understand the way you’re experiencing this pain. It’s okay to grieve. Experiencing your emotions is healthy. So give yourselves the freedom to feel those strong emotions. Mourning is necessary. Express your feelings to one another and to God. Have a box of tissues handy and don’t resist needing them.

Go deeper into how you can grieve in healthy ways.

3. Embrace Your Current Life

We denied our reality and circumstances for years. And we were miserable. Moving through the process of grieving as a couple freed us to see the wonderful possibilities for our life together that were right in front of us. We learned that placing our hope in circumstances set our marriage up for failure. But by trusting in God and depending on his love for strength, our relationship will remain strong through changing circumstances and difficult life events.

When the future doesn’t turn out the way we expected, it can be difficult to accept and enjoy our lives. But when we fully dive into embracing our real circumstances, we can begin truly living. Looking for blessings throughout the day can lead us to discovering deeper joy than we could ever have imagined possible.

We’ve found new joy in:

• Simple gratitude for little blessings
• Single fun moments
• Smiling and laughing with one another
• Those special times when we do get time alone together
• The days both of our children are at home and not in the hospital

Your life together may not have turned out how you had hoped. But wonderful moments, enjoyable events, and deep gratitude and joy can still shape your marriage today and in the future.

The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease.

Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to my self, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!” Lamentations 3:22-24

Reflect on your current circumstances:

• What adjectives would you use to describe your relationship, daily life, and family circumstances?
• How can you more fully embrace your reality?
• What are small moments or blessings that you can enjoy and for which you can be grateful?

Steal away time together again. Create a list of all the good aspects of your relationship and how you can find new meaning and joy in the midst of your challenging circumstances. Form new, realistic, and practical expectations and hopes for your marriage.

4. Dream New Dreams

A marriage can’t survive on unrealized expectations and disappointments. We finally learned that just because our original expectations for our life together were not possible, that didn’t mean that we couldn’t dream together and create new hopes for our marriage. So, we began to dream again, revisioning our future together.

“But forget all that— it is nothing compared to what I am going to do.

For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?” Isaiah 43:18-19

Dream together. Describe how you want your relationship to be. What kinds of things would you like to do together? Within the context of caring for your family, how do you want to shape your marriage to fall deeper in love and enjoy life together?

What has helped your marriage?

Make sure to share with other couples in the comment section below.

Blessings on your marriage.

Todd and Kristin

All Scripture references are from the New Living Translation

Kristin Faith Evans, MA, MS, LMSW & William Todd Evans, MA, PhD

Todd and Kristin have been married for twenty years and have two children with differing rare genetic disorders and complex needs. They are coauthoring a marriage book for couples parenting children with special needs and disabilities. Their greatest passion is walking with others on their journeys to deeper faith and emotional healing. They both completed their Masters in Christian spiritual formation at Wheaton College, co-receiving the Lois LeBar Award. They have served together in church, camping, and retreat ministries. Kristin is a Christian author, speaker, and a Licensed Masters Social Worker. She is experienced in Christian counseling, couples & family therapy, substance abuse treatment, and crisis counseling. They enjoy traveling and the outdoors together.