Your thoughts on what should change once youre married - if anything should and why!

[ChibiFelicia]

Maybe that's why so many marriages fail? People have this ideal about what should change, and then suddenly they are no longer happy with their lives and each other and they need to break free? Hmm thoughts for another thread!

<--Zephii

So i pinched this from another thread from the LFAD section. I cut the quote a bit but you get the idea. So do you guys think because of your ideal of the marriage you change and then become unhappy?

Obviously i dont think it's as simple as that but i do believe people think they need to change because they are married. People always say people change once they're married, i mean my man always jokingly says to me once we're married this summer i'll change. And he obviously doesnt want that (i proceeded to tell him all my bad habits haha because seriously thats the only thing i really hide from him when im there - i slip up though, he knows im awful with my clothes - take them off throw them on the floor...and he picks up after me or when we're going out i seem to HAVE to take all my clothes out the closet and do some weird fashion show, choose my outfit then leave all my clothes on the bed...which again he picks up and puts away for me lol).

Then again i think people change cause they dont feel like they have to hide their bad habits anymore (i guess thats why some people believe its good to live together first, amongst other reasons).

So i took that quote regarding a thread about cutting ties with opposite sex friends after getting married. I personally wouldnt meet with guys alone (in a 1v1 situation) while im in a relationship. As long as there is someone else there i dont care. Most of my friends are guys and as long as im meeting say 2 of them im ok lol. Would i change that when i get married? Nope. Then again im moving to the states so i'll have zero friends to begin with but thats not the point.

This thread is just for your thoughts, i keep reading how sooo many marriages fail and its true in my experience. I think everyone believes that their marriage will last and i bloody hope mine will too but is there a mindset we should be in before we get married? Should we make more of an effort to change during the marriage - to be the perfect wife/husband? I dont think so. Through time people change, i just hope that my SO and i can adapt and carry on working on our relationship when things change. Lets hear your thoughts! (sorry i ramble a bit)

[lyonsgirl]

I'll be honest: you can say you're going to change. You can say all you want "He'll change" or "I'll change", but if it's something they were raised doing or a habit they have (like say, biting their finger nails or chewing "too loud") it's not going to change.

I don't think anything should change AFTER marriage. If you & your SO disagree about something huge before you get married, marriage is not going to "solve" it. Marriage is where "two become one". If you think about it like that, you are two single people. With single people problems-and single people mindsets. Marriage is about becoming one, so now your problems are his problems and his problems are your problems. Now add on top of that the stress of actually being married (even if you lived together before hand, I think that the husband/wife "titles" add more stress to your relationship).

So, I'll be honest. I think most marriages fail because couples stop communicating. Another reason they fail, IMO, is because couples think they have "fallen out of love". Another topic for a longer thread, but I believe that love is a decision (I'd be more than happy to share if anyone wants to hear more, PM me). So the couples who have fallen out of love, they stop trying to fix it because they don't think they love each other any more.

Anyway, I don't think things should change after marriage. If you want to make the relationship work, you need to be willing to compromise for each other from the beginning (or from when you decide you're going to be in this for good).

ETA: I know things will change after marriage-but I don't think you should say, "Oh "this thing s/he does that I don't like will go away once we're married."

[lucybelle]

I think a lot of the stuff Chibi mentioned is stuff that "changes" when you move in together. Not necessarily when you get married. You have to learn how to live with each other's bad habits and obsessive compulsions. If you live together before being married, then you can get all that stuff worked out beforehand. If my SO was going out to strip clubs every night and promised me he'd change when we get married, I wouldn't believe that for a second. If I don't want to marry the man I'm with right now, I wouldn't marry him. Like, I wouldn't hold out hope that one day he'd treat me better. He needs to treat me like a queen EVERY day. Not some day.

With that said, I'm sure we'll both change if we get married. Not any major changes, but slight changes since our experiences shape who we are every day. I hope that in a marriage I become more tolerant, more patient, and an overall better person. But who knows, I could become a bitter, hateful hag.

[lyonsgirl]

I think a lot of the stuff Chibi mentioned is stuff that "changes" when you move in together. Not necessarily when you get married.

With that said, I'm sure we'll both change if we get married. Not any major changes, but slight changes since our experiences shape who we are every day. I hope that in a marriage I become more tolerant, more patient, and an overall better person. But who knows, I could become a bitter, hateful hag.

I agree with you here. But everyone changes with time-it's just a matter if you make sure the change is beneficial to you & your partner.

[nicole]

Well I got officially married 2 months ago, and neither of us have changed. We have exactly the same dynamic as before, and we've lived together before so we know each other's habits. I think change is gradual, we will both change over time, but I did not marry him thinking "this will change" or "that will change" just because we're married.

I know of a couple of my acquaintances seem to be tying the knot as a way to fix their already unstable relationship. One broke up with her then boyfriend over his over-excessive flirting, and then made him propose to her in order to "forgive" him. She seems to believe that a ring on her finger will give him a personality transplant? He will only change if he wants too, not because of a ring and a piece of paper. Another's baby-daddy cheats on her every other month, she also thinks a contract will change his behavior, I'm not so sure.

That being said, I know a man who used to drink, gamble, party all the time, but as soon as his wife got pregnant? Well he won't even buy a lottery ticket anymore. But that was because he WANTED to change, and wanted to be the best he can be for his family. I think people who enter a marriage and think just that will change things, that's when they fail. They don't realize they need to want and work for it to make it happen.

[Haley53]

I was actually discussing something similar to this with my mother the other day, about how there's this idea that marriage brings you to having some deeper level of commitment with your partner, when in reality, it's little more than an illusion. An engagement can be broken off, no problem, as a relationship, and though a divorce is messy and complicated, given that 50% of marriages end in divorce, well... For me, I have never seen engagement/marriage as being "the next step" as far as commitment. I have never thought that we would "try harder" because we were all of a sudden engaged or married and that meant we had less incentive to pack up and go. To me, engagement is being ready to take the next step in a relationship and be settled down with someone. To me that's growth, not commitment, especially when there are factors beyond emotional readiness preventing taking those steps, as is the case for many of us in LDRs.

I feel similarly with what should change. I do believe that people hold marriage on a high-ass pedestal. :P People are obsessed with it. They're obsessed with the perfect day and the perfect honeymoon. They're obsessed with getting engaged and being able to call their partner their fiance. They're obsessed with wedding shows and magazines, and I'll admit it, it can sometimes be easy to get caught up in the fever of it! But the thing is is that marriage, and its emphasis, is more or less a cultural construct. Sure, it may be a symbol of tying the knot and starting your lives together, but it's still a symbol; it's not concrete. Someone who gets married in a courthouse is no different than someone who gets married in a church with a fancy reception, and someone who's lived together with their partner for 50 years, happily, is no different than either of the two married couples. It's simply how people choose to celebrate their commitment. The problem is that so many people put so much pressure on the idea of marriage. So many people continue to see it as something it's not. And when you hold something in such high regard, as is pressed culturally, you often end up with false expectations, which I don't feel like most people who have grown up in this culture are able to avoid; if they're not explicit, then they're potentially implicit. The issue is that so many people put so much pressure on the construct of marriage, whether that's an increased level of commitment (e.g. people who won't move in together with their partner without a ring attached) or an increased level of expectations (e.g. think what marriage can do for our relationship!) or simply creating ideals for what married life should be like (e.g. I should no longer go out with men one on one), that I feel like people end up disillusioning themselves.

I realise that sounds horribly cynical, but it almost goes in with what lyonsgirl is saying about love. We have so much propaganda forced down our throats about what it means to be a happily married couple that unless you can separate from the societal ideal of marriage, it's possible you'll end up experiencing marital disappointment. And this is especially true, in my opinion, for Western culture and especially in America, where we aren't allowed to be second best. We aren't motivated by our shortcomings, but rather our weaknesses are something to be swallowed. This is not true for Eastern cultures. While I'm not doing a comparison of divorce rates or marital happiness, I will say that Americans are least likely to describe themselves in contradictory terms or negative terms, and I think that that's a problem. I think it's a problem that we can't embrace the messy and ugly part of marriage as we would embrace the happy and fluffy part. I think that a denial of our weaknesses and negative attributes can lead to either a denial of others' weaknesses or attributes or a heightened perception to them and need to point them out. This can cause problems.

While I do believe that issues can boil down, specifically, to a lack of love or a lack of communication etc., I honestly think that the broader, overarching issue is that we simply grow up with cultural expectations for what marriage should be. People put too much pressure on marriage and frankly, too much emphasis. Yes, things change. When moving in together, when working as a couple, things change. Why? Because people grow (or they should) - not always together, but it happens, and as a result of it, change happens. Especially at the ages of most of the people on our forum! Between 20 and 30 is when you actually go through the most changes, contrary to the idea of adolescence, and I suppose that it makes sense, because you have college and work and settling down and that's a lot to happen (I will save the argument that we tell people not to get married at 16, or we advise against it, because so much will change between then and graduation, when in your 20s, you're actually going through more changes - different ones, but still more - than in adolescence! This might explain, however, why when you breakdown the divorce rates, they're a hell of a lot smaller the older you are when you get married). It will change you, sometimes for the better, and sometimes it gives you something to work on, but it will change you. I think this is also where rigid ideas of what marriage should be like are detrimental, because change is fluid. People are fluid.

To me, you can't put something on a pedestal so that it becomes a game changer and all of a sudden all these things change because you're all of a sudden more committed to one another because you're legally bound. You can't expect that something's going to be perfect and you can't expect to figure out all the rules now and frankly, I don't think much should change between a relationship and marriage, as far as fundamentals (e.g. going out with friends and how many you can go out with and of what sex), simply because I don't think it's going to survive it. Getting married does not mean you have to fundamentally change yourself or your situation. If it's a problem in the relationship, getting married and no longer doing it is not going to fix it; the problem will surface somewhere else. But in the end, I suppose I believe failed marriages are little more than failed expectations, however cynical that may sound.

[ChibiFelicia]

Yeah i guess the stuff i've said are changes that happen when you move intogether. For me though i would choose not to move in with someone till we're married. My 6-8 week stays with him arent really living together, extended holidays really. Saying that an ex of mine moved in with me and we lived together for nearly 7 years. It sucked. Im glad i didnt jump in to marriage something always stopped me, i guess deep down i knew this wasnt going to last.
Ok so take out the bad habits stuff - dont think i thought that one through quite well enough : )

Its interesting reading everyones opinions. i do agree that people put marriage on a pedestal though and even i sometimes do. I dont feel it'll make our commitment to each other any stronger.

Seeing a fair few marriages break down around me and then seeing those couples who are still happily married at say 80 odd it makes me wonder. Why divorces are so much more common now. I've heard people say it's because in their generation giving up wasnt an option, obviously they've had their ups and downs but they worked through it. Then i look at the marriages now and it seems people are divorcing left and right. Is that cause we dont want to fight for it, work for it anymore? I hesitate to say its cause of age, my grandparents generation married young. I think its as you guys said this expectation of how marriage should be and then when it isnt like that it's like "well screw you im divorcing you". I know there are other reasons for example where my family is from men cheat. Thats just how the women think around there. Its like when something liek that happened and i was upset one of my elder family memebers walked up to me and said. Thats what men are like, here you either take it or well take it. I was seriously like .....and thats how you kept your marriage going? REALLY??

I remember a while before he proposed, he asked me whether i was willing to forever work towards our relationship like how i am now. I think thats the only thing he's ever asked of me in this relationship, to continue to work at it. I realise i've derailed my own topic but i actually find it interesting. Human interaction i find interesting. Other peoples thoughts and what got them to that i really find interesting. I guess i shouldve titled this something else...i cant think of what but w/e.

[Haley53]

I believe it's a generational thing, more than an age thing. I'm not convinced people who are happily married at 80 (I'm not sure I can call any happily married older couples, or even older as in in their 50s and have been married since high school, off the top of my head) have not experienced age-related issues, rather they belong to a generation where the woman had fewer rights in the situation. For example, even tracking it through music, there's a song from... I can't remember the era, maybe the 50s? 60s? - it's country - where the singer is singing about how if a woman really loves her husband, then she'll forgive him no matter what he does.

In today's day and age, divorce is not as frowned upon as it used to be. You're not expected to stay with a man because he's cheated on you or to stay with a woman because she's slapped you across the face several times for x- and y-reasons. If your marriage has fallen apart, it's okay to leave it and seek happiness somewhere else. It's not okay when you grew up in a generation that told you you have to stand for everything because you're the woman and you made the decision to commit yourself to the man. That said, I do think the lack of gender egalitarianism poses a huge problem. America is not exactly divided, but it's not quite egalitarian either; it falls somewhere in the middle. Rates of domestic violence, abuse, and marital unhappiness go up the less egalitarian a society is. In somewhere like Denmark, where there are more equal rights regardless of gender, you see fewer rates of domestic violence and marital unhappiness. It's the same with studies that have been done in America. People who report having feminists, male or female, for partners in heterosexual relationship are found to be more happy than those that either endorse or buy into traditional gender stereotypes.

This all somewhat ties back in to marriage being a cultural construct. It is very influenced by where our society and culture is at the time.

[Dziubka]

Marriage (apart from the party to celebrate your relationship) is mainly a legal contract for me. It adds a legal committment to the emotional one.
I don't think it's going to change how we feel about each other. I don't think anything should change about our relationship as such. If I wasn't happy in my relationship as it was, I wouldn't get married to begin with.

But once you get married you add a legal component to your relationship. You're now allowed or forced by law to do certain things (join finances, make certain medical decisions, etc). You are in a way legally responsible for each other. I mean, you can still cop out and get divorced, when your spouse becomes unemployed or disabled, but it's a lot more difficult then "ok, this sucks. Bye!".
I would also expect (apart from legal requirements) to be the one that my husband puts as an emergency contact person, I would like to have a bank account authorization (not to control or spy, just to be able to handle things in case of an emergency) and probably some more things. I would of course do the same.
In my opinion once you get married, you're each other's closest family.

[Zephii]

Hahaha someone quoted my sorry ass and spawned a thread. That's great! This is totally going to my head.

I thought things might change when Obi and I got married, and we talked about it... what we expected, if we wanted extra from the other etc. I know there were several times when I just moved to Canada I'd say or do something and he'd chip me on it - I wasn't supposed to do/say those things because we weren't married. And that really hurt me. One day I flipped my shit and told him that I don't need a bit of paper or a ring to treat him and our relationship in the way it should be treated. When I go into a relationship I give it my everything, and here in Australia you don't have to live with someone very long before you're legally considered "Defacto" and have almost every right and responsibility of a married couple, so perhaps that's why? I dunno.

But anyway, nothing really has changed.

They say wedding cake decreases a woman's libido, and that's bloody true lol. Either that, or it's the pregnancy >.> haha. But just to be safe, don't eat the cake ladies. Not even a bite, I only had a single bite!
I also feel more secure in the relationship, and so does he. I think that the legal obligation does weigh on you a little bit, and I can see how marriage would make a person feel trapped if they weren't ready for it. It's also not as easy over here to get married as it seems to be in the US. We take it seriously down here, you need to give at least a month's notice and all that - and on top of that we have all the visa paperwork, so that alone makes it feel more serious. Like, my government think this relationship is marriage material, that's got to mean something right? haha.

Someone once told me "no one goes into a relationship expecting to get divorced" but I've met people who, if they don't expect it it's something bloody close to 'expecting'! Obi and I however don't believe in divorce. Actually, before Obi and I had sex for the first time he said to me "If you fall pregnant, I will never leave you". If I was a different kind of person.... but that's beside the point. So, we're in this. No matter how unhappy we make each other. This is it. For him, it's about the children, for me it's a religious thing. We went through a sacred ritual and tied our souls together. If I've made a mistake, it's one that will haunt me in every life after this one. So if we fall out of love, I better learn how to love him again!
I think it's good sometimes to not give yourself a choice.

Thinking of which, I do know quite a few oldies who are still genuinely happily married. Obi's grandparents, for example, just celebrated their 50th anniversary. I respect that shit! I know plenty of people who make it til death or past the 30 or 40 year mark, so I've got pretty decent faith that it's doable. I also know way too many people who don't even make it to 5 years.

I do think it's important to live together first. Yeah, marriage itself might be a bigger rite of passage and might be more meaningful if you don't have sex and don't move in together beforehand, but... why would you risk that?! I would rather have a not-really-lifechanging experience of marriage that lasts than one that shakes the shit out of my world and I can't be 100% confident will work in a one-on-one living situation. Thinking of which though, my old next door neightbours are in their 70s, and married, but they can't stand to live together. They own seperate houses in different towns and see each other every other day, going on dates, they still love each other etc, but they just can't stand living together. While that's cool, and good on them, I don't want that for myself.

I wouldn't and have not ditched my male friends because I'm married. My best mate is a guy, we went out yesterday and Obi stayed home. I've never hung out at his place or my place alone with him, but that's probably because we live so far apart, not because we'd think it was odd. If Obi was worried and asked me never to be alone with him in a private place, I'd understand and comply with that, infact Obi used to have a few friends I'd set that rule for because they couldn't be trusted, and he agreed to it. But I'd never ditch a mate because I was married even though I've been told by several people I should.
Friends are important. I see written here all the time "I'm going to move to him and lose all my friends anyway..." uhm.. no. You can have fulfilling relationships with your friends and not see them often. You don't have to be in the same place to be friends. Living in Canada made me much closer to quite a few of my mates because we realised how much we missed each other when I was gone. And even in the event you lose contact with everyone by moving, you'll need to make new friends. You can't rely on your SO to be your only person of fun and contact and sharing. It will badly effect your wellbeing, and as your wellbeing and mental health suffers so too will your relationship. Humans, even the grumpy anti-social ones, need friends. We need a sense of belonging.

Marriage is just not that different from being common law/ defacto... it's not that different from 'being official" or "going steady" or whatever the proper term is. Commitment is commitment. My Gods don't care if I'm married - they care that we are in love and not hurting each other. And society doesn't seem to know what it wants or what is "right" anymore.

So why should the relationship change after marriage? If you're not 100% happy, why are you getting married? How exactly do people expect to convince their SOs to pop the question if they are holding back from the relationship, not giving their best effort or not being their true selves?

[ChibiFelicia]

Hahaha someone quoted my sorry ass and spawned a thread. That's great! This is totally going to my head.

well its interesting i see so many people not last 5 or 10 years, then i see oldies who are married for so long. They always say to me no matter what, you have to work at it. I agree with most of what you say except for the part of living together before marriage. Thats my personal choice.
I just dont get why some people think getting married changes everything. I have a friend who insists that when shes married to her man everything will change, he'll change, he'll work harder towards the relationship..and im like...eh probably not actually. If they aint gonna do it now before you're married what makes you think having that piece of paper will change anything? So because you're married you'll try harder? it's jsut a load of bs to me. Im just at the age where alll my friends are getting married and not one seems to say nothing will change. "he/she will be more commited/will try harder/will love me more" i dont get it. Why marry in the first place then.