To ask, why do people say marriage is hard?

[chickpea1982]

Just as the title says really. I was just watching something on TV and someone said, "marriage is hard", and I wondered, "how is it hard?" So I thought I would ask for opinions!

@ThreeTreeHill A two hour move would be blissful, DH and I have moved countries and cities!

I did seriously consider ending it when DH accepted a job offer in a city that I didn’t want to move to. My career was flourishing where we were and I liked the area, I was angry with him for considering the offer.

But, the city had good universities so I said it was the perfect opportunity to do a Master’s while I worked out what I would do next! 😂 If you want to make a relationship work, you can.

Reading some of these are very depressing. I refused to marry until we had discussed what ifs and what our expectations were etc etc.

We talk about everything and anything. Life has been really hard these last 10 years, but our relationship/marriage has always been easy. We have each other's backs always!

I don't think it's depressing. I think working hard at something really great is a deeply happy thing. Again, I think the issue is about the meaning of 'hard'. Effortful is not always bad; far from it.

I think that is me also. I've just spent an hour talking to my exDH on the phone, we get along so, so, much better now that we are living apart. Neither of us has anyone else in our lives, but together we were toxic.

Many do these discussions before getting married, and still would say marriage can be hard.

As many pps have pointed out, the definition for hard to people is subjective and things being hard or needing effort is not always a bad thing. We work at things (many we like/love) to be better at them, to do better, that isn’t considered a bad thing. You can also have your spouses back and still be annoyed at them, find parts of them challenging, hard to deal with. People change as they get older, go through life’s challenges, and through that what ifs and expectations discussed years ago can change. It’s easy to say this what I expect and what I will do for xyz until you actually get to those points.

My first long marriage wasn't hard at all. Then suddenly and sadly it ended. My second marriage has been full of everything in your list and it's a daily slog. I think I'm with the wrong person and life has required we adapt but we haven't changed together and he doesn't choose me.

44 years and we have never found it hard. Of course we have had rows but nothing major.

I think it helps if you are best friends as well as husband and wife. Also we chose not to have children so have never had the pressure they can bring to a relationship

Marriage is hard if you choose the wrong person.

Some people like a relationship where it's all fire and drama and make up sex after arguments because to them relationships have to have peaks and troughs. Creating drama means that there is ''passion." To me that's just histrionics.

I can't think of anything worse. My husband and I are very different people but our personalities 'fill in the gaps' where the other is lacking. He's patient, I'm not. He's a worrier, I'm not. It's not like I CAN'T be patient, more like I'm 30%and he's 70%.
So the balance is there.

He's fantastic company. We both have outside friendship groups but really enjoy the time we spend together. But we're not in each other's pockets.

We have the same aims in life, similar goals. We support each other, we champion each other. We cherish each other.

I don't think there's a point in getting married if you don't have that sort of foundation. It absolutely boggles my mind when I read on MN the absolute shit that a lot of women put up with.

I think you're stereotyping. I've been in two serious relationships prior to my DH. They were both lovely and it was nice, but after about 5 years I got bored. The initial choice was actually a good one each time, compatible, attractive, respect and fun. But it just got boring.

And your point is...? We're talking about marriage, not 5 year relationships that didn't last the course.

It’s not that hard to fathom that plenty of couples are in happy relationships that are different to yours?

Most people aren’t perfect- they each bring their own hang ups, flaws, insecurities or attitudes shaped by their own experiences into a marriage.

I think it takes effort and compromise to accommodate each other, resolve conflicts and always make each other happy. So yes that can be hard- but also massively rewarding.

I’m well aware that I can be difficult to live with sometimes,I struggle to open up, sometimes I’m probably annoying.
Dh isn’t very good at verbalising his feelings- he often assumes I can read his mind.
Sometimes it’s hard to pull together and resolve things but it’s well worth the hard effort, the sometimes difficult conversations or compromises, the effort not to take each other for granted.
Ti me that’s hard sometimes.

There seems to be an inference that if you’ve ever found being in a marriage “hard” then it’s all terribly wrong.

Of course no one should stay in a relationship where they’re treated badly- no one has said that.
What people are saying is that many healthy marriages require some work and effort to survive as you both grow together and change.

Im always a bit skeptical when you see older couples declaring “We’ve never had a cross word in all our 40 years of marriage”
Either they're glossing over a lot of the niggles or one person defers to the other’s power and decisions completely. Subservience negates any conflicts.

I tend to think they’re lying 😂
Nothing in life is perfect.

I agree with all this and would also add that even when you do have a great marriage with a wonderful man it can still be hard. For example, I'm a real introvert who really needs a lot of time alone. As a child I always said that when I grew up I'd want to live alone with a cat in a little cottage. I'm now almost 50, happily married with children but still feel that perhaps I would have been most happy living alone with a cat as I'd originally planned!
That's nothing wrong with my marriage. It's a good and healthy relationship. My husband is a such a kind man. However, he happens to be a person in my space a lot of the time. So for people like me, marriage can be hard whether you've chosen the right person or not.

Endless compromise, being monogamous, most married couples I know could argue over nothing!
and I’m in a very happy marriage 😉still tough times but the good bits far outweigh the annoying bits

Lucky you, lovely story

Thanks 4 your honesty

Relying on another person. Your own happiness in a way is dependent on an other person and they can have a power over you. You never have a break from the other person and have to take them into account when making own decisions. Big or small. Being accountable to someone else. Those things have their positive side aswell. In relationships I struggle with taking the other person into account. I can be a bit selfish and easily think that my waybis the correct way. In friendships I'd doesn't matter cause you have limited time together and they're not involved in big life decisions. That can be hard sometimes. Yes, I've wondered if I'm designed to be in romantic relationships in general 😅

It’s not only hard when it’s the wrong person. Some people have come from dysfunctional backgrounds and have no idea how a healthy relationship works, that can make it difficult. Some people have problems like mental illness or nd or past trauma and may struggle with communication or balancing their own needs with their partners (then kids might come into the mix). Some people get together before they are properly mature/ early in life and they have to grow up together (sometimes at different paces). It can be very difficult to support someone through everything life can throw at you, physical illness, bereavement, pregnancy loss, depression, addiction, losing your job, getting into debt…
I think it’s very obvious why marriage is hard for some people and not for others. I don’t believe anyone could genuinely not see this unless they were very young, very naive and only married a very short time.

Also, I usually hate to say stuff like this but if I heard someone saying this and then found out they’d been married less than twenty years, I would be rolling my eyes inwardly.

It's only "hard" if you picked someone with very different attitudes to everything relating to living together, having children together etc. If you manage to find someone with similar values and attitudes, it can actually be pretty easy. Trouble is, that a lot of people (especially younger) go for lust and get married because they "fancy" someone, and choose to ignore the differences, enjoy the "make up" after arguments, etc., and make the fundamental mistake of thinking they can "change" their partner, or that they'll "grow up", etc. People also seem to get together too soon in their relationships and enter into commitments before they really know the other person (i.e. marriage, children, buying a home together etc)., then feel trapped when they realise they're not compatible after all "in real life".

Or, y'know, if you have two children with disabilities, repeated unemployment and health issues and all the inevitable tensions that those things create...

I sympathise, but surely that's just demonstating that life is hard? Rather than marriage itself.

I've been with DH ten years and I can't ever say that marriage (or being in a long-term relationship generally) has ever felt 'hard'. Life has been very hard on us during that time, definitely, but we've both felt glad to have had someone else to navigate those things (some unexpected family deaths, long periods of ill health and unemployment) with. All relationships require a certain amount of nurturing and respect to stay healthy but I feel like with the right person that shouldn't feel like hard work.