People are increasingly seeking self-actualization within their marriages. On top of the age-old love and cherish, the hope is that our spouse will help us grow to become a better version of ourselves.It is not uncommon to hear, "He's a wonderful man, but I feel really stagnant in the relationship."

Expectations of marriage

<ul><li>Before the 1950s, there were well-defined expectations for how people should behave. Women were supposed to be nurturing, but not too assertive. Men were supposed to be assertive but not really nurturing.</li><li>Around the 1960s, we rebelled as a society against the norms and preferred humanistic psychology with ideas about human potential and the possibility of living a more authentic life.</li></ul>

The cultural shift

The changing nature of our expectations of marriage has made more marriages fall short and disappoint us. But the fulfillment of a new set of goals is now within reach.We can have a beautiful set of experiences with our spouse. We can have a particularly satisfying marriage, but we can’t do it if we’re not spending the time and the emotional energy to understand each other and help promote each other’s personal growth.

Fulfillment of goals

The idea of going all-in is to realize that to ask your spouse to help make you feel loved and grow into an ideal authentic version of yourself is a massive ask.  You will do the same for him or her. And because it is such an enormous ask, you'll make sure to spend sufficient time together.

Going all-in

It is probably a bad plan to throw all your expectations on the one relationship.People who have a diversified social portfolio, where they look to an array of different people to manage different sorts of emotions, tend to have an overall higher-quality life.

Fixing an imbalance

A new book explores how marriage has changed in recent years, and why that's made staying married harder. Tall, dark, handsome, funny, kind, great with kids, six-figure salary, a harsh but fair critic of my creative output ... the list of things people want from their spouses and partners has grown substantially in recent decades.

Going all-in

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