What marriage mistakes do you see people around you making?

[Brost]

So this is inspired by having spent time with my cousin and her husband this weekend. She’s an overall good person but she can be a little tone deaf re how she treats her husband. For some reason she thinks it’s funny to talk down to him and patronise him. Ie she dropped some packaging on the floor and said “don’t worry Tom will pick that up”. If it was a one off it could be funny. But it’s non stop and almost awkward. Her husband is actually a decent guy. He tolerates it but I just don’t think it’s healthy. People shift uncomfortably when she speaks down to him.

Im not being superior or smug. I’m sure we all have our things which we do that is less than ideal.

It got me thinking what I might have become desensitised to in my marriage. Hoping something someone shares hits home and gives me food for thought. I think sometimes I may not be as engaged as I should. Ie I will have a conversation whilst looking at my mobile.

I think it’s just an easy win for my cousin. I’m all for having a laugh and a bit of banter but she just missed the mark. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Do you see similar?

I hope no one sees this as a female bashing thread. It just so happens to be a woman who got me thinking.

i guess im just looking for easy wins. I think we all slip into bad habits in our marriages

My SIL does the majority of lifting, organising and mental load for her family. Her teens are 18 and 15 and she’ll get out of bed at night to cook them eggs or supernoodles if they are hungry, drives them everywhere even though bus services are available. I’ve pointed out multiple times they really are at an age where they can feed themselves and do their own laundry, or load a dishwasher but she continues to baby them. This leads to major resentment towards her husband who works away from home and is of the opinion both DC need to grow up and do more.

So as a result when we are all together it comes out as passive aggressive sniping as to how he’s a bad father and lazy husband- compared to her who is saint like. It makes me die inside tbh. My DH only noticed she did it after I pointed it out. But now he can’t unsee it and as a result we spent a lot less time with her.

Obviously I don’t know the ins and outs of this particular story, but it’s very disheartening when someone changes dramatically in a relationship. If I married a man thinking they were fun, spontaneous, outgoing, free spirited (same as me, basically!) and they morphed into a colossal, oppressive bore after we had a baby, and didn’t want to do the things we’d always done, I’d be absolutely gutted and my head may well be turned.

Getting married but never have lived together first .
I know it doesn’t happen much these days , but it happens .

Good for her. I am stating to think it’s just all a load of shite and most couples end up hating each other in the end anyway. I know one happy older couple, and they got married very late 50s.

Really liking your DP. I see so many friends who are married and they just don't like each other. Then the bitterness, resentment and disrespect comes in & eats away at the marriage.

Friends separated last year and her reasoning is that she doesn’t want to be married to the town “p1sshead” however he isn’t (or wasn’t) drinking any more than he did when they lived together.

we think it’s due to some new friends in her life which didn’t include him in their weekend activities away from home.

It’s ok to leave someone if you don’t love them. Even if you have kids, you don’t have to stay together for them or sacrifice yourself to a relationship with no love. It does exist.

The worst I ever witnessed was my best friend’s mum when I was very young. She was absolutely awful. She didn’t work, just did a bit of hairdressing every so often on the side. She used to just sit around smoking all day and drinking coffee, barely ever ate. Her husband worked all hours god sends to provide for them but not just so they could live a basic life, she wanted to live like a millionaire.

She would constantly make him do DIY in the house. She’d just sit there getting random ideas like wanting walls knocking down or new flooring or a big patio in the garden. It would then be his job to do this alone in any spare time he had. She’d buy ridiculously expensive food like organic veal or caviar just for a midweek family meal. Insisted he drove a moped to work as well so she could have the car, even though she didn’t work so just needed it for the school run and pottering about. It was a big city with good public transport links.

God she was terrible. He just put up with it for some reason. One day he decided to go for a couple of drinks after work and she didn’t want him to so she called him up screaming and crying down the phone saying they’d been burgled. This was in front of me and my Mum. She was manipulating him to come home.

That has to be one of the most toxic relationships I’ve witnessed.

People thinking that other people are only there to do chores and shouldnt do relaxing things to unwind. And nagging the person until it's done. A recipe for disaster.

@Sartre yep there are a fair few princesses out there expecting nicely upmarket lifestyles without much contribution financially and still expecting 50/50 effort domestically , if not more -

I’ve a friend who hasn’t shagged her hub for many years, and has photos of her personal trainer on her phone. When I mentioned she doesn’t fancy her hub and has the hots for her pt she practically fainted with horror at what I’d noticed. Unhappily married people seem to go into a bubble of denial a lot of the time.

I just wish ppl would realise marriage is COMPLETELY different from.the loved up period of dating at the beginning of a relationship. So many ppl make this mistake. It's a contract..... like a job. You wouldnt slack off at work coz you'd get the sack; so dont slack off in your marriage or you'll end up a divorced. Duh!!!

This. All day, every day. He might be awful to her in private and this is her only safe way of showing her frustration. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors!

Exactly. Having sex with someone you don’t love is absolutely soul destroying and feels like you’re prostituting yourself. Their lives might seem unfulfilling from the outside but you can’t put a price on peace of mind and never doing something that you don’t want to, to please someone else.

Mismatches in social life

Not sure i understand you on this one, maybe she has finally realised his drinking is an issue (or always knew but felt pressure to stay and make things work) possibly because of her new friends noticing it and not wanting to include him because they dont want to be around a drunk, or are you saying he actually only has two beers on a Friday and she thinks this makes him an alcoholic, scenario.

I used to know someone who literally called her husband "ginger orangutan" and "shitbag" as an "endearing" nickname 🙄 so uncomfortable. In my opinion it was just abusive, absolutely no one thought it was cute or funny. I remember one time she tried to make my husband and I feel like we were the weird ones calling each other "baby" / "babe" . She was a horrible person through and through though.

😕

The total acceptance that husband goes off on lads' holidays and weekends away. The odd stag do i understand but the mn community seem to accept it as normal.

I got married 38 years ago without having lived with him first. Still married.

1. How do you know the marriages were “perfectly decent” if you weren’t in the marriage?

2. Would the husbands have been content to just remain in a housemate style arrangement with their wives as long as they continue to live together.

3. Why does it matter if they are still
   single? Are you only allowed to leave a marriage if you have somebody else to date?

Maybe she has realised that his drinking is actually a problem for her.

A "men are from mars, women are from Venus" attitude. Like men are some completely alien species who are fundamentally different from us.

It's an impossible foundation to build a relationship on.

Were you very religious or believed in gender roles? Every couple I know who did this and it worked for had very clear gender roles.

Neither. Our parents were both RC though, so it was really about respect for them.

We actually bought our house in the July before we got married and moved into it together on our wedding night in the October 😂

You can imagine what we got up to in it for 3 months.

We have never had gender roles. I honestly have a very happy marriage.

I agree with a lot of posts on here tbh. I have never fancied anyone as much as him. No one has ever made me laugh as much as him. He is my best friend but he has his friends, I have mine and we have joint ones. We have similar views politically and both love the same music. We also have completely different hobbies eg.

We both spent as much time with our sons as we possibly could when they were tiny and still do now they're adults.

However, we were together five years before we got married (skint) and married 4 before we had our first son.