"Marriage is hard work" - do you agree?

[GoGoGadgetShoes]

Hello all,
This is something I've been mulling over for a while, since I decided to separate from my STBXH last year.

You hear this a lot - in the press, on TV, in advice columns and anecdotes from friends and family, in wedding and anniversary speeches... "Marriage is hard work."

I don't disagree but I realise that with this statement comes the notion that we should endure, or even suffer bad times, that those who leave their marriages somehow haven't worked hard enough.

It's the reason why I stayed in an emotionally abusive relationship for so long, as I completely bought into the notion that marriage is supposed to be difficult.

It's very hard to get away from this mindset and I wonder how many others are staying in abusive or dysfunctional relationships because they have been conditioned to believe this as the absolute truth.

My epiphany came during my first solo counselling session when I realised I wanted to split and the counsellor told me "marriage is not meant to be an endurance test".

I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts!

A marriage shouldn't be hard work, otherwise why on earth would you bother. Of course stuff comes along that will be difficult to deal with - that's life, and life can, indeed, be hard work, but you deal with it together. It becomes hard work when one partner doesn't do their fair share - leaves the child rearing to one partner, leaves the financial worries to one partner etc.

I lived on my own for years before DP moved in. I find that living with another adult, having to take their needs and preferences into account instead of simply doing as I please all the time, does feel like work sometimes. I have always imagined that this is what the phrase means. The work refers to negotiation and compromise, rather than simply enduring a load of shit and misery.

The question is then whether the benefits of the relationship outweigh the negatives. With DP they most certainly do.

My relationship with ExH was most certainly hard work, every day felt like a slog and I was miserable. In that instance the negatives outweighed the positives, which is why he is ExH.

Women, and yes you might think this is a generalisation but I don’t care, are programmed by society to be the carer, nurturer, martyr, saint. Sod that. Our existence is just as important as any man.

I fully agree.

However, if we accept that societal programming exists we have to accept that men are conditioned by that same society to be providers, unemotional, achievement orientated, ambitious, dominant, tough etc

While these toxic stereotypes are rightfully being challenged for both men and women we still see plenty of women on these pages wanting a 'traditional' household set up of her being a stay at home mum married to the successful high flier man. There is still a long way to go.

No definitely not. I married DH because we love being with each other and are truly compatible. DSis can't understand how I can cope with doing the grocery shopping with DH, or why it takes two of us to do the school run (depending on his shift pattern) or why we both need to go anywhere like clothes or school uniform shopping together. She values her time shopping alone. Her and BIL will take turns doing the school run. Hobbies are their own. DSis is often left with the housework and childcare despite being the main breadwinner and her man is also currently furloughed.

DH and I do things together because we enjoy each other's company. The children love the fact that mum and dad are there to see them off to school. DH has just as much input on buying food or school uniforms.

Our marriage is not hard work. In fact, it's half the work! Everything is shared and chores are done together making them simple and will only take a fraction of the time and effort. Just moving around the kitchen serving up dinner is like a dance, one handing over a plate while the other grabs the pans. He'll have a serving spoon held out by the time I realise I need one. It's like one of those cheesy tv adverts where the couple are throwing plates and food to each other like a well rehearsed routine.

I think if marriage is hard work then you're doing it wrong. It should come natural to a couple to be able to compromise equally without even thinking about it and get along great.

@HouchinBawbags
"I think if marriage is hard work then you're doing it wrong. It should come natural to a couple to be able to compromise equally without even thinking about it and get along great."

I'm not sure I would agree. If it doesn't come naturally then you aren't necessary doing it wrong. But perhaps just aren't compatible. No amount of trying to do it right will ever fix that.

I'm naturally somebody who is happy to compromise, and to seek consensus. I married somebody who took advantage of that trait. Was I doing it "wrong"? In my case the only solution was to stop doing it altogether!

Houchin

It reads as though you have a wonderful marriage. You are very fortunate. I hope it long continues.

It shouldn’t be hard work where it is a draining slog that leaves no hope in sight, but it shouldn’t always be smooth sailing as life doesn’t work that way.

It pisses me off when people say that.

No it's not meant o be hard work.

Sometimes you might feel annoyed at each other but as a rule I feel you should slot together happily, you should look forward to coming home to each other you should have each others back. You should know if you have a moan to your partner he/she will be sympathetic to you etc.

If it's hard work and you feel you are struggling and dreading retirement and being with your spouse. Then I think you need to reconsider your relationship.

My work colleague's marriage broke down because she didn't really want to work at their problems and just wanted to go out all the time to meet other people and eventually she did and had an affair. Her husband got all the blame for this and that and lost the lot.
She had a lot of flack from people for behaving as a man usually does when they are unhappy or just want something different.
I don't know what he was like to live with or what really did go on , but mostly I felt she took the easy way out by just not engaging and trying to save the marriage. There wasn't any abuse or anything like that going on she just admitted she no longer liked or wanted him in her life.
Women will be judged much more harshly than men for doing what she did. I know I sound a bit judgy too here and she could have just been straight with him rather than sneaking about with other people but that's just me : she obviously didn't feel he warranted any respect and he must have realized that she would find someone else I think.
I've known four women to do this : one left her children behind with her ex. She was 'demonized' for years for this and one run off with an old flame and now happily married ! The other one did what my colleague done.
It's just that we don't expect women to behave like some men do. But they do.
I think you go have to work a bit at give and take and respect their views and the bad times. It's not easy living with someone all the time but it also has to have some fun times as well! I can totally understand why people become fed up or look for new partners as well as that must be more exciting than trying to work through the problems. Different if it's an abusive marriage of course but none of these were ( as far as I know , but who knows what goes on )
My parents had a very dim view of divorce ( old school ) and felt it was wrong ! That is a very narrow view too I think.
How my brother puts up with his wife I'm not sure really but they have been married for 46 years! She is hard going but they stuck it out. I don't think many men would have though.
It's a fascinating subject.

@GoGoGadgetShoes "doing it wrong" can simply mean that you've chosen the wrong partner to marry. It's the first and most important step to a happy, easy marriage.

I think that overall a marriage or partnership should make your life better rather than worse, however I think it's normal to experience bumps in the road and tough times occasionally. I think assuming no abuse and no fundamental incompatibility issues, then giving up at the first hurdle is often a mistake.

And I do dislike the expectation that people should stay in a marriage and put the hard work into keeping it scraping along. If it needs that much work it's too often the wife who has to do the compromising and when it inevitably fails, it's because she didn't work hard enough. Which is rubbish.

I blame my brothers for getting married at 24 because they got married much younger and it looked a bit more glamorous than being stuck at home with my older parents who were in their 60s by then! I guess I wanted security and a home and children and I thought it would be easy. My siblings had all this and seemed happy enough with their lot on life ! I hadn't much idea about the real world I suppose.
It has worked out , but I cringe at my romantic view of it all back then. Too many fairy tales and Disney films as a kid maybe?
Plus it was expected that this is what you do : many of my friends did the same things back then. It seemed to be the way forwards.

No. Life can be hard work. Life can be exhausting. And there are some pretty tough challenges. Marriage is the strength that pulls you through. And when a marriage is struggling, it's the people in it who are only human and dealing with stuff- yes, sometimes it is the harsh truth that the love isn't there anymore and ending the marriage is for the best. But marriage itself is not at all hard work. My marriage is everything to me. It fuels me. It can, at times, drain me and yes, DH can be a pain in the arse (I'm worse!) and yes, we've had some very tough times where we've had to work our way through the blockade. We have nearly finished! But every day married life is a doddle! Especially as I get older, I feel incredibly fortunate to be married to DH. Our marriage has certainly gotten better over the years. Humour is everything!!

Every marriage is different - I don't think it's possible to make a global pronouncement on whether it's hard work or not. It's also true that only the married pair really know the inside of their marriage and how exactly it works - no matter what outsiders might observe or be told.

I don't think a marriage being hard work at times is a bad thing, where this applies. In a long marriage, you and your spouse will go through changes of circumstance and changes as individuals and you might not always be 'in synch' or bad times generally might affect your relationship.

Marriage shouldn’t be hard work.

When you first move in together there’s often a few bumps and irritations getting used to sharing your space together but after that things should mostly run smoothly if you’re compatible.

I think that it can be hard work, but that the hard work of a good relationship is very different from grinding endless drudgery. It's more the equivalent of walking up a steep hill to see the magnificent view from the top, or tending a garden all year round and being surrounded by the fruit and flowers you've grown.

And it's not comfortable or effort-free, but the work that feels tough is stuff that is good for us both. For me, the hard work often looks like having an honest conversation when I'm not happy about something, because my natural tendency is to pretend everything is OK and then resent DH for not being psychic. And it's about taking responsibility for my actions even when I hate admitting that I've done something wrong. And I hate doing both of those things. But every time I grit my teeth and do them, my life is better for having done it.

It's not a marriage thing at all really. It applies to any relationship that you stick with, whether it's friendship, family, love, or work.

No - your job might be hard work, but a marriage should largely be a supportive, not subtractive element in someone's life. Being hard work during difficult periods is understandable, if you define your marriage as hard work, it means the negatives outweigh the positives. It means that the couple aren't very compatible and are staying together for financial or parental reasons.

Lots of marriages go through phases of being more or less happy and successful. It can be hard work but the type of hard work that reaps rewards.

If it's just hard work without the rewards for a sustained period of time then you should be reassessing why you are in it.

In conversation with sil, chatting about our other halves in a light-hearted way about whiskers-in-the-sink sort of things when she said in all seriousness "Actually I work very hard at my marriage". As though I should be impressed.
I'm afraid my immediate response was that I was so sorry to hear that and what a shame.
She hasn't spoken to me since.
Btw, her husband was and still is a complete arsenal and she's still working hard.

arsehole. As far as I know he's never played for the gunners.

“While these toxic stereotypes are rightfully being challenged for both men and women we still see plenty of women on these pages wanting a 'traditional' household set up of her being a stay at home mum married to the successful high flier man. There is still a long way to go”

I think this is very true and I think complicating this is the fact that there are different expectations of men now - so in previous generations, within this dynamic, women didn’t expect their husbands to do much in the house or with the kids - no matter how frustrated, exhausted or stressed they were, they were just expected to get on with it. Now that’s different but it disrupts the expectations on both parts. Working part time for example muddies it further. It’s exhausting negotiating these different expectations.

A lot of spouses end up as carers for their other half. I suppose its not the marriage thats hard but life itself but all that easy getting along, lets compromise and support each other disappears.

It’s like practicing the piano. You do a bit every day and it gets better and better plus you enjoy the process.

Nice analogy. Unfortunately my marriage was like Victor Borge meets Les Dawson.

My marriage is hard work, we met at a young age, he's not a bad man,we are so different, it didn't matter in the early years but now those differences make marriage hard work,when the kids are bigger I might leave if it's still hard work