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!

46 years happily married and we have had our bumps in the road, but really it's been a breeze!

Lots of people marry someone who might not be entirely right for them. Hard work can get you through, especially for child raising, otherwise you’re divorcing.

It’s like anything in life though, unexpected and sad things happen. I’m 48 and still have both my parents and my sibling, others have not been so fortunate. People evolve when these things happen and it’s not guaranteed you move through them together. Others might be tempted by other people, you have to keep choosing your partner.

My marriage was easy until it was hard.

I had an accident and was left with life changing injuries. That was hard but we coped.

Our DD got very ill and no-one knew what was wrong. She dropped out of school and we spent 3 years chasing a diagnosis. That was hard but we just about coped. (She got one and got treated. She is disabled for life but is alive).

Our DS developed mental health problems for various reasons mostly involving the adults in his life not supporting him enough.

Between my life changing injuries and our kids problems it was very very hard and my ExH started drinking. My marriage ended when he hit our daughter.

It depends on your personality and their personality and the dynamic between you. I'm happily married to a lovely man. We very rarely argue. However, I still sometimes find it hard. It's not him or "us" it's simply the fact that nearly every decision I have to make in life now has to be a joint decision. I can't, for example, decide I want to move back to my parents town (which I'd actually quite like to do) because he wouldn't want to. He'd quite like to move back to his home country but I don't want to. I might fancy Italian for dinner, he might fancy Chinese. Life with a partner is a million compromises, some huge some tiny.
Also, I'm an introvert and I sometimes wonder if I'd be better off living alone. Living with someone for decades can become a little wearing. No matter how lovely they are they're going to irritate you at times.
There are also many wonderful things about being married. I'd rather be with my DH than not be with him - I'm just saying I can easily understand why people think marriage is hard.

Of course we argue occasionally, but basically down to teamwork. We married very young (24 him, 21 me) and both worked 7 years until we had (two) children. I went back to work when they were both at school, so were both contributing equally. We have been through some pretty hard times, but we dealt with these things together. I've got his back and he's got mine. Not magic but it works.

I think it can depend a lot on luck, life can be cruel and hit people with an onslaught of problems they never envisaged before getting married.

Because it would be so much easier to walk away when it starts feeling hard.

Various reasons imo. Either because they choose to marry someone who is hard to live with, or because they themselves are hard for their spouse to live with, or because life circumstances (maybe foreseeable, maybe not) make their marriage hard.

Some people think love/attraction is enough. There are plenty of factors which can make a marriage easy or difficult. I'm no idealist, and there are lots of things which would have put me off marrying someone even if they were someone I felt I could love. I would rather have stayed single than had a hard marriage.

To me it’s hard because people change. Different stages of life change people and then you have to learn to fall in love with a ‘new’ person all over again. And because you’re married you can’t just say ‘oh we’re not compatible’ and just walk away. There’s also life changing events- illnesses, accidents that result in a disability, prison/crime, and again you can’t just walk away. You have to work through things and sometimes you drift apart but you have to learn to drift back together. That’s my understanding of ‘marriage is hard’.

😂😂😂

Oh give over! Of course you know what people mean. Even if you don't have direct experience, which of course we don't all have. It's not particularly difficult to think about is it? I haven't found it hard but I can think...

It's quite smug and disingenuous to to act like you can't possibly imagine why marriage is hard

My marriage was hard at times. We are now divorced.
I have an amazing man in my life now who has been a better partner in 12 months than my ex H was in 12 years. It's about compatibility and treating each other well. It's not hard if the ground work is established.
That said, I won't ever get married again!

Marriage to the wrong person is hard.

No one seems to be mentioning fancying other people.

I've always been faithful but I've also always fancied other people (I still fancy my DH too!) - this is what makes marriage difficult for me 😂

Maybe I'm polyamorous, haha

Thats a good analogy, @IncompleteSenten. Any longterm partnership, whether romantic or business, will have its ups and downs.

I’ve been married nearly 25 years and we’ve had to communicate and compromise throughout.

It doesn’t mean that marriage is hard, per se, you just need to work with the other person and consider their ambitions/wants/needs as well as your own.

Agreed, lots of smug, unimaginative people on this thread showing off how perfect their marriages are... We have a good marriage but we've had some hard times, and they've only made us stronger.

Permanent compromise

I'm enjoying all the "my marriage is perfect!" responses though, because the people I know in real life who say things like that have terrible marriages

Good question. We’ve had some hard times but it passes, 24 years here. Day to day it’s not hard at all for us.

It’s hard for us because we have two children with disabilities who we home educate.
Also who don’t sleep well so we share a bed with one each. So we are exhausted and have minimal time together.

@Octavia64 raises very good points

I've been happily married over 30 years. No arguments / friction. All good

But, we've been very lucky not to face major challenges. And, much as I'd love to think our marriage would have survived them, I acknowledge it might not. I know several couples whose relationships ended due to trauma I've never experienced. We should never be complacent

Meh dunno. Have been married a long time. Feels like we're at our hardest part now since he's become a grumpy sulky middle aged man, who I seem to be incapable of communicating with in an effective way. We've been through some really hard bits, serious illness, death in the family, redundancy. Now that we should be having the time of our lives I'm starting to wonder what we're doing.

In laws. You have to deal with their parents, siblings, siblings' partners etc.. Some/many/all of whom may be arseholes.

Yes I agree with this one 😂

I don’t think it’s hard. I’ve heard people say it’s hard because of issues with finances, kids, in-laws etc. but surely in those cases it’s those actual things that are hard, not the marriage?