You assumed they'd call when they were running late. They assumed you'd want to spend Christmas at their parents' house. You assumed they'd notice when you were overwhelmed and offer to help without being asked. They assumed that "fine" meant fine.

None of you said any of this out loud.

This is where most marriage fights actually live. Not in the big disagreements about money or parenting or whose career gets priority. Those fights are hard, but at least you can see them coming. The fights that blindside you — the ones where you're suddenly furious and your spouse is standing there looking genuinely confused — those come from the gap between what you expected and what you actually communicated. Unspoken expectations in marriage are the invisible rules you didn't know you were enforcing until someone broke them.

And here is the uncomfortable part: you probably have dozens of them. We all do.

Where these expectations come from

You didn't make them up out of nowhere. Every expectation you carry into a marriage was shaped by something — your family, your culture, your previous relationships, or just the way you'd been living before you shared a life with someone.

Maybe in your family, the person who cooked never did the dishes. Maybe your parents always called each other on the way home from work, and that daily check-in felt like a given, like breathing. Maybe you grew up in a house where birthdays were a big deal — cake, decorations, the whole thing — and you walked into marriage assuming your spouse would know that a card and a "happy birthday" wouldn't feel like enough.

Your spouse, meanwhile, walked in with an entirely different set of invisible rules. In their family, maybe birthdays were low-key and that was a sign of being easygoing, not uncaring. Maybe their parents never called during the day because it meant they trusted each other.

Neither version is wrong. But when two people operate on different unspoken rulebooks and neither one knows the other's rulebook exists, you get the specific kind of fight where both people feel completely justified and completely misunderstood at the same time.

The running-late fight and other classics

Let me give you some examples, because these tend to be painfully specific.

The running-late thing. One partner grew up in a house where you called if you were going to be more than ten minutes late. The other grew up in a house where people showed up when they showed up and nobody tracked it. The first partner waits for a call that doesn't come, and their brain goes from "they're late" to "they don't respect my time" to "they don't care about me" in about four minutes. The second partner walks in the door, totally relaxed, and is baffled to find their spouse upset.

The holidays. You assumed you'd alternate between families. They assumed you'd always go to theirs because their family lives closer. Nobody discussed it until November, and now you're in an argument that feels much bigger than a travel itinerary.

The help thing. You're drowning — the house is a mess, the kids are melting down, you haven't sat down in hours — and your spouse is on the couch looking at their phone. You expected them to see the chaos and jump in. They expected you to ask if you needed help. You're both following rules the other person never agreed to.

The money thing. You assumed big purchases over a certain amount would be a joint decision. They bought new golf clubs and didn't mention it. Or you assumed separate accounts were fine, and they assumed marriage meant combining everything. The fight that follows isn't really about the golf clubs or the bank accounts. It is about the fact that you each had a version of "how married people handle money" and never compared notes.

These aren't character flaws. They're just two people who didn't know they needed to have a conversation they didn't know they needed to have.

Why you don't say the thing

If unspoken expectations cause so many problems, why don't we just say them? Simple question. Complicated answer.

Part of it is that you don't always know you have them until they're violated. The expectation was so deeply wired that it felt like common sense, not a preference. You didn't think "I expect my spouse to call when they're running late" because you didn't frame it as an expectation. You framed it as what people do.

Part of it is fear. Saying "I need you to ask me about my day when I get home" feels needy. Saying "I need more help around the house" feels like you're keeping score. Saying "I need you to make a bigger deal about my birthday" feels childish. So you stay quiet and hope they'll figure it out, and when they don't, you feel hurt by something they never knew about.

And part of it, honestly, is a belief that if you have to ask for it, it doesn't count. This one is particularly destructive. The idea that your spouse should just know what you need, that love means reading each other's minds, that asking for something ruins the magic of receiving it. It sounds romantic in theory. In practice, it is a setup for disappointment.

Your spouse is not a mind reader. They love you, but they cannot feel your feelings or see your invisible rulebook. Communicating needs in marriage is not a sign that something is broken. It is a sign that you're doing the actual work of sharing a life with another human being.

How to start saying the things

You don't need to sit your spouse down for a formal State of the Marriage address. In fact, please don't. That kind of pressure usually makes people defensive before you've said a word.

Instead, start small and specific. Here's what that looks like.

Name the expectation when you notice it. The next time you feel a flash of irritation or disappointment, pause and ask yourself: What did I expect to happen here? Then say it. Not as an accusation. Just as information. "Hey, I realized I was expecting you to text me when you left work. I think that's from how my family did things. Can we talk about what works for us?"

Use the phrase "I realized I never told you this." It is disarming. It takes the blame off your spouse and puts the focus on the gap in communication. "I realized I never told you this, but I really need help in the evenings without having to ask for it. When I have to ask, it feels like I'm managing everything alone."

Be honest about the feeling underneath. The expectation is the surface. The feeling is the thing that matters. "When you didn't call, I felt like I wasn't on your mind." That is vulnerable and it is specific. It gives your partner something to respond to with empathy instead of defensiveness.

Don't dump them all at once. If you've been holding unspoken expectations for years, it is tempting to unload the whole list in one sitting. Don't. That's overwhelming and it turns a conversation into a trial. Pick one. Talk about it. Give it time. Then pick another one next week.

This kind of ongoing conversation is really about building a deeper friendship with your spouse — the kind where you can say the awkward, vulnerable thing and trust that they'll hear you.

What to do when your spouse's expectations surprise you

This goes both ways. At some point, your partner is going to tell you about an expectation you had no idea existed, and your first reaction might be defensive. You might think, "How was I supposed to know that?" or "That's not reasonable."

Take a breath. Here's a better way through it.

First, don't argue with their expectation. Even if it seems arbitrary or unfamiliar to you, it is real to them. The fact that you didn't grow up the same way doesn't make their need less valid. Listen to understand, not to debate.

Second, get curious about where it comes from. "Tell me more about that. Was that how your family did things?" This is not therapy-speak. It is just genuine interest in the person you married. And it usually softens the whole conversation, because when someone feels understood, they stop bracing for a fight.

Third, be honest about what you can and can't do. Maybe their expectation is something you can easily meet once you know about it. Great. Maybe it is something that feels unnatural to you and you'll need to work at it. Say that. "I can try. It's not how I'm wired, but I hear you and I'll make an effort." That's real compromise — not giving in, but genuinely trying to meet your partner where they are.

And sometimes, you'll realize you have an expectation that isn't fair. That happens too. Being able to say "I think I was expecting something that wasn't reasonable, and I'm letting it go" is a sign of maturity, not weakness.

The expectations that matter most

Not all unspoken expectations carry the same weight. Some are minor — how the dishwasher gets loaded, whether the toothpaste cap gets replaced. You can negotiate those over coffee and move on.

But some are about the big stuff. How much privacy each person gets. How you handle disagreements in front of the kids. How involved each partner's parents are in your life. What fidelity means, specifically, not just the obvious things but the emotional lines. How you'll support each other through hard seasons — job loss, illness, grief.

These are the ones worth putting on the table early and revisiting often. Because they shift over time. What you needed in year one of your marriage is probably different from what you need in year ten. The expectations you had before kids are not the expectations you have after. A marriage where both people feel safe to say "this is what I need right now, and it's different from what I needed before" is a marriage that can grow instead of calcify.

What happens when you start talking

Something surprising happens when you start naming your unspoken expectations. The fights get smaller. Not because you stop disagreeing, but because you stop being blindsided. When you know what your partner expects, you can meet it, negotiate it, or at least understand why they're upset when it doesn't happen. That is a massive upgrade from the old pattern of "I'm hurt for reasons I can't articulate, and you're confused for reasons I refuse to explain."

It also builds a kind of intimacy that goes deeper than romance. Knowing that your spouse needs a ten-minute debrief when they get home, or that they feel loved when you plan something without being asked, or that holidays need to involve certain traditions from their childhood — that is knowing them. Really knowing them. Not the surface stuff. The wiring underneath.

And they get to know you the same way. They learn that when you go quiet, it doesn't mean you're fine — it means you're processing and you'll need to talk about it later. They learn that you need to hear "I appreciate you" more than you need to hear "I love you." They learn the small, specific things that make you feel seen.

That is what communicating needs in marriage actually looks like. Not a conflict resolution technique from a seminar. Just two people, slowly and imperfectly, learning to say the thing they used to only think.

Say it now

Here is the part where I get direct. You have something you've never said to your spouse. An expectation, a need, a wish — something you've been carrying quietly, maybe for years, hoping they'd figure it out on their own. They haven't figured it out. They're not going to.

Say it tonight. Not perfectly. Not with a rehearsed speech. Just honestly. "I realized I've been expecting this thing that I never actually told you about." Start there.

The gap between what you expect and what you say is where resentment grows. But it is also where connection can grow, if you're willing to be the one who speaks first.

If this made you think about the things you've been carrying, When I Die Files helps you put the important stuff into words — the things your family needs to hear, the things you don't want to leave unsaid. Start writing today.