Marriage and the Power of Divorce

Second the notion that you should live with your fianc?e before getting married. Marraige has a better rate if success since you know a whole lot more going in. Loving someone and living with someone are two wildly different things. My wife and I lived together for 3 years before we got married to the point that getting married was more academic than anything else, we were already operating as a married couple.

Tarrant_sl said:

Marriage after a few months of knowing each other? What could go wrong?!

Click to expand...

I proposed after about 4 months, got married around a year into it. We'll have been married 9 years in August.

I've been with my wife for eight years now, co-habitated for seven and a half, married for six, and our son is nearing a year and half old. There have been better times and worse times, but all told we're happy and our relationship is as strong as ever. Getting married was one of the best things I've ever done for myself and I wouldn't take back a minute of it.

I've received several pieces of advice over the years that have served me well:

- Do not expect your partner to change. As people age their personalities only distill. Picture the most frustrating shit they do. Can you put up with that every day, forever? If not, move on.
- Find a long-term shared interest or hobby that you're both excited about. It doesn't matter what so long as you both have fun together at the same time.
- You are sometimes an ass. Own up to it and apologize.
- No TV in the bedroom. Major cockblock.
- Sleep on the same schedule unless there's no way to avoid it.
- Never go to sleep angry. Talk that shit out even if it takes all night.
- You cannot ever, EVER, allow you or your partner to treat the other with genuine contempt. The instant sentiment shifts from "I really wish you wouldn't..." to "You are such a..." is the beginning of the end. You can't take that shit back.

That's not a particularly uplifting list, but serious relationships are work. Marriage is more like going into business with your best friend than it is an extended romance. Sure, there's love and sex and all that, but if you don't manage the stresses proactively they are guaranteed to fuck up the fun parts. At times, though, you look back at your time and the things you've done and the life you've built together and realize that it's pretty awesome. That's a great feeling.

If that doesn't sound like something you want to do, please don't get married and especially don't have kids. There are quite enough damaged, mal-adapted people out there as it is.

Etoille_sl said:

We've been married since October 2010. Living together (bought a house together) since July 2007. So about 6 years at this point? We didn't need to get married first for any of that. Marriage wasn't this big life changing thing for us.

Edited for clarity - we've been together since Jan 2006. So over 7 years.

Click to expand...

Did you get married on October 2nd?

Earlier, Onoes hit on something important: the big issues. What are some things you and a potential spouse must have an agreement on to get married?

- Kids: Are you going to have any? How many? If you can't conceive, would you adopt?
- Money: Can you reach a compromise on spending & budgeting? Are you comfortable with their career choice (or lack of it)? What is the plan when you have kids?
- Religion: Do the two of you share it? If not, is there a compromise that both of you are completely comfortable with? How will you handle religion with your kids?

There may be more as well I am not thinking of right off. These are the issues most likely to create a divide, lack a satisfactory compromise, etc. You and your partner are unlikely to change views on them as well. Make sure you have answers both parties are truly ok with before even considering marriage.

From an observer's point of view, I think a lot of guys just hand over their balls once they're in a committed relationship/married. I have one friend who has dated the same girl for about 6 years now, and she did her best to enslave him. He started off kind of a pussy, but over time manned up more than I ever expected. I'm so impressed. She was the stereotypical woman people are railing against here. On multiple occasions, he threatened to leave, and she turned on a dime back to the ideal girlfriend...for a time. As far as I know, she has improved by orders of magnitude since the beginning. Part of that is certainly just maturity, but so much of it is also him knowing that he needs to stand up to her shit now and then. For example, she used to get mad at him at him the 2-3 times a year when he'd go to the strip club when his buddies were in town, and now he basically tells her "I'm not doing anything wrong. I want to spend time with my friends, so quit bitching about it." A stark contrast is his married coworker who once made us lie an entire weekend to his wife that we were playing xbox all night.

The thing I worry about, however, is when they get married, will she flip a switch knowing that he can no longer go anywhere?

Women *in general* like to test their boundaries I think more than men. Or maybe it's the same, but they do it in different ways. If you're a woman and your man goes to a strip club a couple times, and you're ok with that, maybe he starts going more often and gets to going twice a week. Or maybe he goes out drinking too much with his friends, or gets a little too close to a female coworker. At some point there you needed to put your foot down and let him know it's not ok. In contrast, women tend to go too far with nagging and nitpicking. The same principle applies though: you have to compromise to a certain extent, but you also have to stand up for yourself if it goes to far. Men tend to want to avoid the confrontation, so they withdraw to get it to stop (this is a well-documented phenomenon called "demand-withdraw"). However sometimes it is important to have a major confrontation and stand up for yourself to improve things later down the line.

tl;dr Just because you're married doesn't mean you can hand over your balls.

What is everyones opinion of sleep schedules? My wife and I are on a similar work schedule, I work 8-4, she works 8-5, but her commute is a bit longer and being a woman it takes her a LOT longer to get ready in the morning, so she generally gets up about an hour before me, but also wants to go to bed about 2-3 hours before what I'm comfortable with.

I've heard through the years that an important part of a lasting relationship is going to bed together, but I just flat-out can't go to sleep at 10pm. I don't even start to feel tired until well after midnight, often after 1. Early on in our relationship, I'd go to bed with her around 10 and just lay there in bed for hours trying to sleep. Now, I pretty much stay up until midnight or after, doing whatever(watching movies, playing video games, etc). I'm definitely a night owl, and she's more of a morning person(she'll still get up at 6am on the weekends, where as I like to sleep in).

We're going to have our first kid in July, so I know ideal sleep schedules are pretty much out the window at that point, but for those of you who have been married a while does going to bed at the same time really seem to matter?

It hasn't been any sort of a problem/issue or anything, I'm just trying to get some opinions before it possibly does(or maybe I'm just paranoid)

I think the success of your marriage is based on whether or not you bought her a masonite ring or not.

Draegan_sl said:

I think the success of your marriage is based on whether or not you bought her a masonite ring or not.

Click to expand...

heh, my wife doesn't even wear a ring. We got white gold because we both dislike regular gold, turns out she is allergic to nickel or something and it was fucking up her finger. So even though she is my property I allowed her to remove my signet. But I force her to wear a burka just in case.