To ask: Married ladies, what’s one reality check single women need to hear?

This IS a wind up!

The bad boy character does not age well...

Choose your PIL wisely…..

1. your MIL can make your life very happy or very stressful
2. one day your DH will turn into FIL

The in sickness and in health bit is hard.

I think i imagined sickness being a short cold and getting him some lemsip.

I didnt factor in him starting 5 years of debilitating mental health issues, after 24 years together and him never being quite the same since..

Surely this is just stating the obvious

This post is a joke right?

You need to be with the right person in the first place. For me personally someone I respect also with tolerance and kindness. I have friends but dh is absolutely my best, I can tell him anything and just be myself.

Tbere is no such thing as a stupid question. However, stupid answers are definitely a thing.

For me it was miles better than I expected.
When I always young I thought I was free spirted and didn't need to be tied down. However dh persuaded me to get married just after ds1 was born. I found that I actually enjoyed being a gang of 3 (and then eventually 4) and dh encouraged me to pursue things i wanted to and he always ( and still does) have my best intrests at heart.
It feels good knowing no matter how bad things are he has my back and will see me through it.

Life can be very hard at times, sadly.
Bereavements, fertility issues, navigating in-law family dynamics, redundancies, illness, disability, money problems...
If I had my time again I would;
Have the wedding we wanted
Insist that I had a private pension
I would not take on the "wife work" of dealing with in-laws and being the person that becomes the default contact/arranger
I would set better boundaries more quickly
But - most importantly - I would trust my gut
^ I think, perhaps, a lot of that comes with age and experience, though. I sort of drifted into being a sahm and caring for an elderly relative...it certainly wasn't a plan.

He needs to be kind to you, funny, and you need shared interests otherwise it will just grind to a halt.
Mine just happened to be very also very good looking and well salaried so I hit lucky on all counts !

Ideally maybe, but it's highly likely that one of you will be dependent on the other at some point, at least temporarily, if not permanently. This is one of the insights I took from my parents' marriage (mum became fully dependent on my dad due to a progressive disability) that I was acutely aware of going into mine. Make sure you choose someone you are comfortable being dependent on, and who you would be prepared to care for if it came down to it. Before meeting my DH, I left a couple of ostensibly good relationships because I didn't 100% trust that they'd stick by me if the worst should happen.

Yes, bit odd to marry cliched 'bad boy' then whinge about it afterwards

I really dont think much changed for us. We were together 8 years before we got married though, and spent most of that time living together so we were used to everything already
9 years later we're still happy. Just keep being grateful for each other

Life can be really shit at times, it can be messy. You need someone who’ll literally poke a pile back up your anus after you’ve given birth (this happened to a mate of mine, her husband is a keeper). Someone who will plod on through the bad times as well as the good. Someone who is fairly dutiful through it all and understands it’s not all about his needs, but the family unit as a whole.

In short you have to be a team and face the bad stuff together. Ideally you’ll be able to laugh at it too.

Reading Mumsnet, there are many marriages that don’t stand up to the above.

Choose someone you like to be with and who shares your interests - not necessarily opinions but wildly divergent ideas can be a problem. Don't be blinded by 'being in love' - this is passion (if you're lucky) and doesn't last. Love lasts and that is based on liking each other.

We lived together, had kids and a dog and then got married. So for us, the marriage didn’t change loads.
I think it’s important to pick your battles; is it worth arguing over the fact that they leave wrappers everywhere? Choose someone that you actually like, not just love and get butterflies and says all the right things but someone you genuinely have fun with because you will go through every happy and sad and tragic thing together; will they support you or will they bail?
That’s my little snippet of advice.

Hard agree. I've seen no evidence that unmarried women do less of the domestic work overall than married ones, but they do lack the legal protection. Inevitably some women are better off unmarried for various reasons, but at a class level, marriage protects and benefits women more than being unmarried.

If you're having kids I completely disagree. Marriage makes you a unit financially and legally. I don't know a single woman who hasn't, in some way or other, sacrificed her career and earning capacity when kids have come along. Even if they continue to work full time they are still the default parent, still get the calls from nursery when the kid is sick, still cook more meals, do more laundry, have less to give to their career because they are giving more at home. I'm sure exceptions exist, but even among my friends, women who are entrepreneurs, surgeons, lawyers etc it's always the same.

Personally I wouldn't be putting myself in that situation if I wasn't legally entitled to my share of the financial success being earned off the back of my unpaid domestic labour in the event that the relationship breaks down. It's not marriage that benefits men, it's the unequal share of parenting and domestic labour that women take on. Within that structure I'd say most women are better off being married.

I think since getting married and having kids, I can’t make selfish choices.

I can sometimes prioritise my own wants and needs over theirs depending on circumstances but I never do it without careful consideration. Same goes for my DH. Every choice is about 4 people, not 1.

Don’t marry the dickhead….simple really.

Kindness and honesty are worth way more than money.

Absolutely this. Being in love is great but ultimately is just chemicals sloshing around your brain. Someone who is kind to you, and honest, is someone you can build trust and a relationship with.

Marriage is completely overrated and when you want to get rid of them you need to give them half your stuff. Also I am not a lady 🙄