0:00:00 – Speaker 1
Welcome to the nextTalk podcast where we share real stories and practical advice for parenting the digital world. Typically on our show it’s Kim and I, but today we’re changing it up.
0:00:13 – Speaker 2
Our husbands have talked about some great topics, and so we like featuring them on the show occasionally, because they bring a totally different perspective and some new insight. So thanks for tuning in to hear this episode of the Dad Takeover.
0:00:28 – Speaker 3
This is Charles, and I’m here with my buddy, matt, and today we’re asking the question what is the ultimate cost of missed?
0:00:35 – Speaker 4
expectations, missed expectations, not miss expectations. Yeah, m-i-s-s, but missed.
0:00:41 – Speaker 3
Missed My S-S-E-D missed expectations, missed it Like you swung and you missed, like you guys weren’t even on the same page. So true story. This is a couple summers ago.
0:00:52 – Speaker 4
Do you have permission to share this?
0:00:53 – Speaker 3
I do. I’ve received wife permission. This is all 100% true, with wife approval. So couple summers ago, we’re getting ready for a trip to Grand Canyon, right? So it’s the week before this happens The kids are at VBS, which is Vacation Bible School, for those that don’t know, and it’s basically like mini day camp for four days. You have three children. I have three kids. All three are at this. Wonderful, you know, it’s really fun. Vbs is out. The kids all love it. Every year They’re like can we go? Can we go? I was like, absolutely Well, this summer I had taken the week off because we were getting ready to go on this long road trip.
So for four days, no kids, husband and wife alone in a quiet home during the daylight hours, cue the music, cue the music. And you know, I know we’re not sponsored by Afternoon Delight, but if we had a song that in my mind was I was looking forward to, i was thinking we’re going to have some Afternoon Delight. Okay, is that what happened? Okay, so day one no. And so I was like in my, oh, we’re getting it day by day, yeah, well, i was just thinking like it was going to happen first day. Well, apparently my wife had an entirely different set of expectations for all four days. So I just had one expectation. You know, yeah, we’re probably going to go on this long trip, i get it, and there’s things that we have to pack, whatever, but like daytime alone with the wife, i mean, that’s like irreplaceable, right.
So the first day goes by and no delight happens because there’s a lot of Well, there’s other things My wife has. One of the things I love about my wife and it frustrated me at first is that before a trip or before a vacation, my wife goes into like super crazy cleaning mode. She wants the house clean. So when you do come back, you come into a clean house, so there’s less things to do. You know, you’re usually really tired after a vacation or a trip and it’s just great to come home to a clean house, clean sheets. You could just go right into bed and you’re good, right, wow, yeah, anyway, i’ve learned to appreciate it.
So day one goes by and we do a lot of cleaning and I’m thinking all right, fine, day one, no problem, still three more days, yeah, so what? Day two, there’s a whole nother level of cleaning and other to-do lists that were on her mind. And then day three and then day four happens and I cannot believe. Like I think by the end of day four or by the middle of day four, i’m just at a loss. I’m like there was no point in these four days of this alone time. That sex was not even on your mind, like why did I take vacation days? I’m like And she’s like what do you mean? Of course we could have sex at night. We could have sex Like there’s no interruption to the schedule. But to her this is uninterrupted time without kids. She never has that opportunity, right. And in her mind it was like all these to-do lists And again this led to a pretty big argument. It blew my mind that four days, daylight hours, all this opportunity and none of it happened. Wow.
0:04:10 – Speaker 4
Yeah, that is from a marriage perspective. That is just a great example of missed expectations.
0:04:17 – Speaker 3
Yeah.
0:04:18 – Speaker 4
That led to huge arguments Like I’m talking. Tell me just a bit about these arguments. play-by-play on the arguments Or you win, or did she win?
0:04:25 – Speaker 3
No, well, it was We both lost because it was like, By the time we were like in the car now going towards, you know, Arizona, which we’re driving from San Antonio to Arizona, you know, not the shortest of trips. You know. My argument was you know, we’ve been married for so long. Don’t you realize, like, how important sex is, Like physical touch right Is to me, And then physical touch is always available. Do you know how hard it is for me to get the house ready? And you should know. And so it was just We thought that we were communicating and we thought that we had a great understanding of each other, But never once prior to these four days did we actually sit down and And talk to each other about what the expectations were for these four days leading up to our family road trip.
0:05:11 – Speaker 4
Now that doesn’t have to be super formal, right It’s not like you guys schedule time on calendars or anything But I think maybe what I’m hearing you say is that this is one of those situations that you both made the assumption that you kind of knew the priorities of this opportunity And both of you had assumed wrong, And so that’s the danger in creating assumptions without communication.
0:05:34 – Speaker 3
Yeah, absolutely Yeah, and it just led to Yeah, it wasn’t the most romantic road trip. Let’s put it that way. Yeah, i bet not. You know, i think you know. When we talk about nextTalk dad, there’s the marriage component, there’s the dad component too, and there’s definitely opportunities for us to communicate those expectations ahead of time with our spouse, with our wife, but I think also it’s really important that we share some expected outcomes with our kids as well, right, man?
0:06:02 – Speaker 4
oh man, this one is a sensitive topic from a marriage standpoint. The concept of missed expectations and communicating really well so that you don’t have missed expectations is so important in a marriage. But I’ll tell you, it is probably equally important, as from a parenting perspective, that you really try to communicate with your kids as much as possible. Regarding the expectations, and I say this for a couple of reasons why it’s such a challenge. You know one you’re the parent, they’re the child. And two, sometimes you’re outnumbered. Right, there’s maybe more kids than there are you, yeah. And then, of course, you’ve got the teenage stuff right. That is always fun. But I think, in terms of missed expectations, what I found is I can’t expect my kid to be a better communicator than me. I have to take the lead there recently.
So my daughter is about to go to college and so we don’t see her a lot anymore. She’s senior in high school and she’s enjoying it, having a great year and just got all tons of friends and they’re all doing the high school thing And we just don’t see her as much as we did. You know, my wife and I are having some struggles with that. I think, actually, i’m struggling with it more than my wife. So we decided recently that we were going to have a family night, like we used to have, with all four of us. We’ve got dinner, we’re going to watch a movie, we’re going to go on the back porch It was cool. So we fired up the little fireplace and we were going to do s’mores out there. Hang out, i was going to play guitar. Right, just hang out, relax. You know nothing special, but we were all going to be together.
So it didn’t quite happen that way And again, that was my expectation And I was really looking forward to that because again, i missed that so much the buildup of the fact that I hadn’t seen my daughter a lot because she’s starting to do her own thing And I know I’m going to see her even less next year when she’s away at college. So it’s a big deal in my mind. I had not shared that with her and my son who, unfortunately, he was the well, i think he caught some crossfire. So again the point, really the detail of the story that I think a lot of the dads will probably might be able to relate to We’re in the back porch and I was playing guitar and nobody’s listening, nobody cared.
You know my daughter and son. They were playing around together doing their, their bonding And I was looking at my wife and I was just steaming like I’m thinking to myself hey, i thought we all understood that this is an opportunity for dad to enjoy his time with his kids. Right, that was my expectation. My daughter and son clearly did not have that expectation And so it didn’t go super well And I think they got the point. Whenever I got really frustrated and I threatened to throw them both in the pool, i just, you know, got really bent out of shape And I kind of blew my top and was not the best nextTalk dad moment, but I did in fact threaten to throw them in the pool and um, nothing like forced compliance right For family night.
Well, yeah, exactly Yeah, that was the missed expectation, and I think. And then things got even chillier after that when they realized how upset I was. Again, that did not need to happen. It did not need to happen. I needed to be able to, you know, tell my kids hey, look, really looking forward to a little bit of time with you guys, because you’re both busy and my daughter particularly busy, and so when we’re hanging out on this family night, one a few, can we, can we just kind of do our thing like we used to do? right? And then I did, have did go back and apologize to them for my behavior and for my threat of throwing them in the pool.
0:09:57 – Speaker 3
I think like that that is a great story. I was actually with you on that one man. I was like you told a great story there. I could totally see like and I’m not there yet with my kids, but I know I will be soon And I mean, there’s so many times where I look at my kids and I’m like that particular stage of their development is gone, it’s over, but there’s still like little snippets of it that you want to keep holding on to, at least, you know, for a few more times. You know, and you know, not having those things met can be really devastating for dads And we don’t always know, like how to communicate that right? Oh man, i tell you, i just wanted to have this one night together and everybody else is like what are you talking about? You know, we’re doing our own thing.
0:10:37 – Speaker 4
You never said anything about it. So in this topic of missed expectations, i will have to say this I think women, most women extremely generalizing here, but I think most women I mean my sample. I have a sample of one and that’s my wife, so that’s probably not fair, but I think most women do a much, much better job of attempting to share expectations. I really do believe that, again, my sample of is, you know, basically you and me well, and other friends that on the guy side, that I really feel like we are really bad, really bad about saying, hey, you know, this is kind of what I’m expecting to happen. Right, i mean, we’re just thinking that we are telepathically communicating or not even communicating, just again just saying, well, yeah, of course this is what we would do.
0:11:25 – Speaker 3
You know, what’s interesting, like one of the things that I’ve learned to do because since then is we do have like weekend talks, like, let’s just say we have like a free day, typically it’s a Sunday, there’s no games or anything like that that we have to go to.
So typically the conversation goes hey, after church, you know what are your expectations for the day, and then not that those expectations have to be met, necessarily, but we give each other the opportunity to kind of say, hey, what’s on your mind, what would you want to do today? And then how can we kind of make that work. I tell you where this has really come in handy for me. You know, maybe I might be the I don’t want to generalize here either but I typically don’t like going to big functions like weddings or parties or those kind of things. Yeah, and my wife does and it’s great.
But one of the things that I’ve learned to do is hey, what are your expectations for tonight? Particularly, like you know, how long do you want to stay? Are we going to be? you know, talking and meeting a lot of people, and I do it not in an unkind way because you don’t want to go to your wife and say, like, how long are we going to stay at this place, you know, because that’s already going to send the tone like in a negative way And she’s going to be like, well, you know, great, my husband doesn’t want to be here.
And every time I look at him he’s going to give me the look like hey, it’s time to go. What I’ve learned to do is sort of just, you know, open up and say like, hey, look, so what are your expectations for this? I mean, i got a lot of things to do tomorrow. Or, you know, i got an early morning. How long did you want to stay? Or, like, really, who do we want to spend a lot of time with? And you know what are your expectations for tonight? And just kind of roll with it and just enjoy it.
0:12:56 – Speaker 4
I’ve heard my wife present countless times, whenever she goes and gives talks at functions, from a, from a nextTalk perspective And samples or comments that she gives frequently about this idea of missed expectations with your kids are that of cell phones. So you give your kid a cell phone and you don’t tell them your expectations. It’s a recipe for disaster And I think there’s a role for dads there, there’s a role for moms. The setting, the expectation doesn’t just end on day one, right, right. Same thing with driving the car, right. You’re not going to sit down and say, okay, just don’t get into a wreck. Here are the keys Go, enjoy, right. I mean the value of creating communication to ensure an ongoing dialogue that ultimately establish expectations as a parent for your child And then as an equal partnership and marriage could be one of the most critical things to success.
0:13:53 – Speaker 3
Yeah, i think you’re right on target there And this is what we talk about in nextTalk. So much is, yeah, you leave the lines of open communication for things after the fact, so that you don’t want to like, condemn or judge or punish your kids every time with a conversation but or throw them in the pool or throw them in the pool. But I think the reason why expectations are so important is because typically, when you communicate expectations, it’s before the event happens. So you’re right, and so you’re having those conversations before the cell phone and proactive for the keys to the car before you know, dating four days before a wedding or an event. And so what you’re, what you’re allowing everybody to do, is to understand your expectations ahead of time, and it allows you to adjust to different expectations from the other folks in your home, right, and so that was not some huge surprise And it’s not some huge blow up fight or this, really, like you know, what could have been a really great event or a great event you know thing or you know right of passage ends up being a fairly negative one, and so I think that that’s huge.
You know, the lines of communication don’t just have to happen after the fact Let’s do it ahead of time, and that’s that’s practice. Folks, i don’t know if I mean I’m not used to that sort of thing. It’s not something that I would naturally would tend to do, but I think that’s just a habit that we’re having to learn about, and to really practice as dads is to actually be the ones. It’s investment right, right.
0:15:17 – Speaker 4
It’s investment for its, investment now for a future benefit?
0:15:22 – Speaker 3
Yeah, absolutely. I just want to encourage all the dads out there, you know, if there’s something that’s coming up in your lives, or even if it’s just the weekend, sit down with your wife, like Friday night, sit down with your kids Friday night and just say like, hey, what are your expectations for this weekend? I know we have to do this, this and this, but what are during our free time? What are some things that you really want to get done? Because here’s some, here’s some things on my plate that I really want to get done.
0:15:44 – Speaker 4
Now, if you’re single and you have no kids, you can really just disregard this entire show. Yeah, right.
0:15:52 – Speaker 3
Yeah you’re single. We probably should have put that at the beginning of the show. Yeah, i don’t know too many single men out there like Hey 20 years from now. I really want to download this podcast and remember this Whenever you’re dating. I think that’s actually kind of important, though, right? Well, i mean look.
0:16:08 – Speaker 4
I joke with the reality is this idea of missed expectations is an every type of communication and relationship you have work, friends, parents it’s truly everywhere. Your neighbors, i mean, it really is everywhere, yeah, i mean, no matter who you are. I think I think an investment in focusing on communicating expectations and really again just leveling up that communication is so critical.
0:16:33 – Speaker 3
Yeah, couldn’t agree more Levelling it up, love it, step up the communication. It ends up benefiting everybody.
0:16:39 – Speaker 1
Thanks for listening to our husbands and their dad perspectives. We value their opinion so much and we hope you found it helpful. Tune in next time, though, because Kim and I were taking our show back.
0:16:51 – Speaker 2
We have lots of resources for you, from counseling to live events. Or if you have a show idea or a question for our team, visit our website at nexttalkorg. We’d love to hear from you.
0:17:02 – Speaker 1
At nextTalk. We’re more than cyber parenting. It’s conversations to connect.
0:17:07 – Speaker 3
This podcast is not intended to replace the advice of a trained healthcare or legal professional, or to diagnose, treat or otherwise render expert advice regarding any type of medical, psychological or legal problem. Listeners are advised to consult a qualified expert for treatment.
Transcribed by https://podium.page
