Do you think you realised how hard marriage would be before you married

[Housewife212]

I think I was very naive

I thought things would fall into place like a romcom
Love dh but I definitely don’t think most people realise it’s work

I don’t think it should be hard 😮not hard here sorry😐 whatare you finding hard exactly?

I think you would be incredibly lucky or a liar if you felt marriage was never ever hard so I agree in some ways. One thing I’ve learned over the years is for anything to be good quality and flourish you have to work hard and I agree that yes that includes a marriage, however I wouldn’t say it’s hard all the time it has peaks and troughs just like friendships, family and work. I don’t think anything in life is 100 percent easy including marriage, but then again I have high expectations lol.

I haven't yet found marriage hard, although perhaps that stage is yet to come.

Year 1: Took a bit of adjusting to, but it was also our first year living together.

Years 2-4: Easier. We had a fair amount of loss and sadness which was challenging, but our relationship got stronger.

Years 5-20: Easy.

I think I would find marriage hard if DH were to become 'not himself' e.g. dementia or a brain injury which significantly affected his personality or behaviour.

I've been living/married to dh for 25 years, together for almost 30 years.

Of course it is hard sometimes, never had even the slightest problem with trust, respect or an equal partnership. The honeymoon period (first 10 years or so) was a breeze but, there have been a couple of extended periods where we just weren't on the same page and it was only our commitment to each other that got us through when many would have thrown the towel in, we are in a good place now.

It really depends on why you are finding it hard?

Also I quite like the hard times, call me mad but in life I’m the sort of person that enjoys a challenge - some might say argumentative so I’d get bored if my marriage or anything else in my life was plain sailing...maybe that makes me weird I don’t know lol

Marriage isn't the hard part in your case. It's the moving in together part. It will get better once you get used to each other and set up routines.

Remember that the MOST important thing is a clear communication. Don't let things "slide" and just quietly stew about it, because it will once all come back and it won't be pretty. Just talk to each other about what bugs you and work on solutions.
Calmly 😁
Good luck and congrats on the marriage.

I have been on my own for years. I'm engaged but I'm really concerned about getting married. Its not him, its the lack of space. Personal space. I hate sharing a bed I don't sleep as well. I hate not having control over my tv. I've said if we are going to make it work I'll need a granny flat for me.

@donajimena second bedroom. Bloody saviour especially when snoring is present 😂

Why is it work? If it’s hard you’re with the wrong person.

My marriage wasn't fun or easy from start to finish. I had never been in a proper relationship before I met ExH but each step just seemed like the logical thing to do. I should never have married him. I didn't see any signs of the narcissism or emotional abuse, financial abuse or the emotional affair he ended up having until it was too late.

Newly married was hard for us!

DH often quoted his work pal who got married and was shocked because he spent the first year of marriage arguing with his new wife. He was stunned but then said he was expecting everything to suddenly be marvellous because they were married but that they argued more in their first year of marriage than they did in the previous 3 years of living together.
I have to say me and DH were the same, we had never argued more! Like the magical (certificate) made our lives amazing....it didn’t. We argued so much in the first year I actually wondered what the reason for getting married was.

2nd year was better.

22 years later we are still married.

I just don't see the pride or achievement at sticking with something that makes you unhappy. The accusation of 'throwing the towel in' like it's a weakness or a failing.

We get one shot at this life; one precious run through and that's it. I just don't see the point at sticking with something that I'm getting nothing positive from. What is to be gained from sticking with it? More years of the same and a fancy cake when you hit your Silver/Ruby/Golden wedding anniversary?!

I think life is hard, but marriage is easy and is supposed to be what makes everything else easier.

I can't imagine what becoming an actual carer would be like. I hope I will never have to find out! Apart from that health aspect, marriage is easy. Neither DH or I would be still married if we were struggling.

OP: how long have you been married? DH and I didn't live together before we got married and it took me several months to adjust to it.

We married fairly young, and he went through a brief phase of wanting to live a similar lifestyle to his single friends - this coincided with when our first child was a young baby, so there was a discrepancy in expectations.

We developed better communication habits and things became a lot easier after that.

I dont find marriage hard, I do find parenting and life hard in general though.

Is it marriage, or is it living together?

I’ve lived with two men, ex and dh. I’ve not found it hard or a compromise. I’ve flat-shared and house-shared and every time I have fucking hated it. I found it really hard. Do you mean like that?

Dh and I have had some very hard times. We’ve lost a dd, infertility, two dc diagnosed with ASD, amongst other difficult times. We still endure. As someone above says, it’s not a romcom, but we rub well together mostly. When the chips are down, I function much better knowing I am not going through something alone.

Parenting? Well that will fucking break me, especially this Easter!

No way, but then I'm not sure it's the marriage I find hard, it's the stuff that's come since that I suppose we wouldn't have had to deal with together. So health stuff , kids (good of course but tough at times!) and of course the fun thing-money. That's what we have the biggest issue with in our marriage because I'd never been in debt before kids and it was a big shock to the system to have to deal with (beg) electricity providers, banks etc, to have no money for food, to go without heating and to lose everything that kind of made me me. Plus a lot of our romance is gone. We still love each other to pieces, still make each other laugh, still have great sex (when we do) etc, but it's definitely not the same and I never thought it would be this difficult.

If it's really hard can you try to fix it?

Mine isn't hard and I'd never lived with anyone before either.

Now teenagers. Teenagers are the hardest yet.

Happily married for 11 years and I agree it’s hard. I like everything my way, he likes it his way and it’s a lifetime of compromise. Some may say I married the wrong person if it’s hard but I knew from very soon after I met him that he was the only person I ever wanted to be with and I would rather him driving me crazy than be without him. If it wasn’t him I definetly wouldn’t have got married at all.

I think marriage INVOLVES hard work ie the ups and downs of life over many years, but it’s not hard work (or shouldn’t be) in itself.
I think the hard work is reminding yourself that this is a marriage and not just a relationship and so when you go through a difficult patch you can’t just chuck it all in easily like you would in a boyfriend/girlfriend live in partner type of way.

I do take my vows seriously and so does DH, I think. 23 years together. So sometimes if there’s a difficult time in my life he makes a positive difference being there, he’s been my rock, my partner, my reassurance. Very occasionally he has himself been part of the reason my life has been difficult, usually through reasons and strains outside our marriage, but it has affected him and how we interact with each other. Other times I’ve been the cause of the difficult part of my life!

So if you attend a marriage ceremony in church the vicar will sometimes talk about the “for better for worse” bit. We had a civil ceremony, but every time I attend a church wedding and the vicar does a little sermon about those times, then yes, I know exactly what he/she means.

It’s ups and downs and getting through it together, and sometimes that is hard work.

Never lived together before we married. I didn't find to hard work as such, just different. The fact that I developed severe depression 6 weeks after the wedding was probably challenging for my DH, but we got through that.

I couldn’t put it any better than CherryPavlova. Sums it up perfectly.

I have found it very hard too and I've been married 11 years. It's been hard for most of them, very hard the last three since we had our first child. We didn't live together before, we were young, we both had and have hang ups, issues - like everyone does. It's a gritty, shitty compromise. But I don't want to end it. I don't think it can't get better. I love him and we're family - we just sometimes really really hurt each other and a lot of those wounds have never been fixed. Might take us another 11 years... But we are where we are

I know quite a few people who found marriage very hard at the beginning, for different reasons, and so I went into marriage thinking it would be this hard grind, basically expecting to be miserable. In fact it was easier than I thought it would be and more fun. This was maybe down to more realistic expectations but maybe also due to choosing a partner who has a very similar approach to most things in life.

Even 'easy' marriages are work in the sense that ideally you should be investing in it / each other on an ongoing basis -- making sure you're not taking each other for granted, trying to spend quality time together, caring about each other's emotional needs as well as helping each other practically, doing activities the other enjoys that aren't you're favourite, etc. This may come naturally but it doesn't always, especially if you're tired, sick, stressed, or hungry yourself!

All relationships take work, did you think getting married would solve a crap relationship?