Marriage is hard - what does that mean?

[EbonyWood]

When people talk about how marriage is work, and that there are ups and downs, what might that mean?

I’m having relationship issues but most of the time I am happy. I just don’t know how much I, and he, should be putting up with!

I think they mean the compromise that’s required to share your life with another person who’s different to you in inevitable ways when you know you’ve got to find a way through as you’ve committed till one of you dies.

What each person is willing to tolerate is completely up to them. Ideally you know the other person well enough to accept the compromises needed before you commit to them. But people change and if you’re growing in different directions the compromises become too much of a sacrifice.

Is that what you mean? Only you know what you’re happy with.

People in general are quite selfish, annoying and a bit thick and also lacking in emotional intelligence skills to tell how other people might be feeling, they can also be either massively narcissistic or have such a low self esteme they are infuriating, and have a passive agressive way of making sure people know how much they are martyring themselves. Of course the magnitude of these traits vary from person to person but no one is clean of all these (and more)

When you start a relationship you hide these traits in yourself as much as possible and are expert at ignoring the evidence of their existence in your beloved as your hormones are driving you to accept this mate and start making babies.

After marriage and settling down it all comes out. You stop pretending, and stop not-noticing. And if you can make it through you get to a point of accepting that you are two imperfecr and annoying selfish people who do actually quite like eachother and are prepared to put up with the other person's annoyingness as they put up with yours. This doesn't come easy. It takes work.

Of course sometimes the traits are too bad and actually start being abusive or downright unpleasant, or one person doesn't have the maturity to recognise their own shortcomings etc, and then the relationship dies.