Relationship Expectations: Kill Some Impulsiveness and Set Some of These Instead

There's something in a normal relationship called the "honeymoon period." The honeymoon period is the period in the relationship where both parties are blissful and neither one feels the other can do any wrong and everything about one another seems special and amazing and great. Your girl thinks you're the most perfect man on Earth, and you may very well think she's the most perfect gal on Earth a little bit too.

But before you completely drop everything and immerse yourself into the sunshine and daisies and rainbows of the honeymoon period, there's something you need to know: dropping rational thought and running solely on emotions is what kills things long-term.

What are emotions? Emotions are, defined quite broadly, compelling short-term decision-makers. Emotions compel you, more powerfully than anything else in your head aside from the instinctive, entirely subconscious reactions of your reptile brain, to take certain actions. The thing about emotions is, the actions they compel you take are almost always short-term focused.

How often are the emotions you feel right now related to something you think might happen in a year or two? Very rarely. Your emotions are almost always contingent upon what's going on in your life right now. And that's problematic for the outset of a relationship, when you're in the beginning of the relationship-building phase, for this reason: running a relationship on pure emotion without setting relationship expectations is a strategy that dooms you.