Do you go into official relationships expecting anything other than affection? Why or why not?

11 comments

1. Hmm could you elaborate? I can’t think of a situation where a relationship shouldn’t be affectionate – either physically and/or emotionally depending on the people.

   I’d go into it expecting affection and much, much more, and would want to reciprocate as much.

2. I expect loyalty and care from any close relationships, whether they are romantik or not. That’s something I will bring to the relationship myself and I cannot have a close relationship without it.

3. Yes, things like mutual chemistry, healthy communication, respect of boundaries, faithfulness and honesty.

4. I mean, yeah? Respect, fidelity, shared long-term goals such as marriage and children to name a few off the top of my head

5. I expect A LOT more. I expect them to remain financially stable, to continue working on themselves in therapy, to caretake others (not just me), to caretake their own health, to better society at large.

6. Yeah, I expect this person to become a partner to me. So, that’ll be likely eventually moving in together, making joint decisions, meeting each other’s families, getting pets together, going on vacations, and having someone as a support (who I can support as well).

7. Yes? Mutual affection is the minimum, it’s not nearly enough for a fulfilling relationship in my book.

8. Yes. Affection is only one aspect of a healthy and successful relationship, so I do expect more than just that.

9. Emotional support through stressful times.

10. I expect commitment which means someone who is on the same path as me as we learn more about each other and hopefully choose each other daily. Ideally yes for me this would eventually lead to marriage, but it doesn’t have too.

11. Of course, my husband and I have a lot of “expectations” of each other. Some of them have grown over time. When we first got together, I didn’t really have preferences about not leaving his socks in the bathroom and he didn’t have real thoughts about my habit of leaving cabinets open; we didn’t live together or have children.

    But from the beginning, I expected fidelity, honesty, communication… I also personally wouldn’t have wanted to be in any relationship that we both didn’t think could lead to marriage. That doesn’t mean we have to go before the priest next week (we dated a few years before marriage) but that it had to be where we potentially envision seeing us going