Love is not always a fireworks thing, it's not always roses or fancy restaurants. It's standing by someone at their very worst. It's being there when they're sick...when they're very sick. Love is a decision..you choose to love the person you're with every day. You need to settle the children and money issue BEFORE you get married.

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ZAPanda

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But if you aren't bothering with roses and restaurants it means you take the person for granted. Keep trying to impress them. Both ways. Please make an effort to engage your partner, do things they like, ask them what they like, want and need, do not assume that, e.g. cleaning the house, is good enough, or what they value. Maybe they value sex. Maybe they value date night. Maybe they value a theoretical conversation about politics, say. Very few people primarily care about quality of home environment; most people care about being cared for as a person. HOW you show that care is something THEY must tell you, you cannot assume that your way of showing care is what they want.

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People say you should be willing to sacrifice anything for your spouse, but you should have a spouse that isn't willing to let you sacrifice everything for them.

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You don't have to like all the same things, but it really helps if you hate the same things.

Source: Me, married 18+ years.

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Cecily Holland

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2 years ago

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Ooohh definitely LMFAO

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They should both be aware of what each other is bringing to the relationship in terms of their own issues - EVERYBODY HAS ISSUES! And they should go into the marriage with the understanding that each person is going to take responsibility for their own issues. I highly recommend pre-marital counseling - it’s healthy - think of it as getting a mental massage.

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ZAPanda

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never mind counselling, being aware of your psychological issues individually as well.

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Divorcee here. Best thing I ever realized after divorcing is that marriage isn't 50/50. You both have to give your all and be willing to be wrong sometimes.

Also, don't get married just because you think you couldn't find anyone else.

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Mtownmick

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If you think being alone is the worst thing, wait until you are with the wrong person.

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Find out what “i cleaned” means to your partner. If you’re a clean freak (me) and your partner is a slob (husband), you might have some interesting conversations you NEVER thought you’d have.

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My wife and I have been married for almost 7 years and have had one argument about money. It helps when your partner has the same view on spending money as you do.

Biggest thing I can stress is communication and not being afraid to tell the other how you feel. Also, make sure you are both on the same page about kids and be able to tether your expectations after having one. You may have wanted a big family with 3+ kids but having that first one may change one of your minds. Through thick and thin, make sure you are on the same page about any important decisions.

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ZAPanda

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not just how you feel, but actually accepting that the other person is allowed to feel that way. don't just dismiss their feelings and bring it back to your feelings all the time. IF they say they aren't getting their needs met, don't just have a tantrum and say well i am not getting my needs met.

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There's a book my aunt, who's a therapist, made me go through and it was amazing. It's called "The Hard Questions" by Susan Piver and it's just a list of questions for you to go through as honestly and as in-depth as you can with your partner. I highly recommend everyone go through it.

I've given mine away, but some of the questions that I thought were very valuable were:

Would we have a joint account or separate accounts? If it's a joint account, how much must we contribute to it? Who would pay for what sort of expenses? What kind of purchases require the approval of the other party? What happens if one party can no longer contribute?

What are you open to in the event of infertility? Sperm donation? Egg donation? Adoption? Surrogacy? IVF?

Who can stay over, and how long can someone stay over at our place? Are there any exceptions (eg. siblings going through a messy divorce can stay longer) and if so, what are the exceptions and how much longer can they stay?

What would we do if a family member can no longer live independently?

What counts as infidelity? Actively messaging someone and spending a lot of time with them? Sex? Kissing?

What should we do if one/both of us is no longer in love?

Definitely go through those sorts of questions with each other, especially the finances part. It's not romantic but so many people divorce over finances.

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Steve Ramaekers

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2 years ago

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Pre marital counseling through church did a lot of this

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Really think who you're having the wedding for. (Not the marriage, the wedding.) If you don't like big to-dos and you're having this big affair because of some obligation to your/their mother, just elope.

The biggest regret of my marriage is the wedding. Should have just gone to the court house.

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Kanuli

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My wife could choose: wedding or month trip to japan. We went to japan.

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People do NOT change. You can’t marry someone thinking in the future they may be different or aspects of your relationship will get better if you get married. Of course people grow and learn and may even better themselves but their inherent nature will be forever the same. Learn to except this or don’t get married.

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Julius Zuke

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My wife and I have been married almost 50 years. When we met, we were total opposites, and no one, including the minister, thought we could make it. But we agreed not to try to change each other, and that has been the strength of our marriage over many, many situations. having the same faith an core values was our rock. True love is accepting people as they are.

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Talk about money before hand. Know what kind of debt your spouse has. Know how they manage finances. Come up with a plan for how you will pay for things together.

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ZAPanda

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no, your spouse must pay off their own debts. Never ever sign a marriage where you take on their responsibilities financially. Make sure it's completely financially separated. If he has a gambling problem and your house gets attached, you lose a house, even if you paid for it. Don't do it. Have a shared account and put shared expenses in there. Money outside of that is your problem. If they have financial problems like large debt or gambling, do not marry them.

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If/when kids arrive, make sure both of you are on your the same page with EVERYTHING.

Kids are the greatest manipulators in the world, and they will break you to pieces if you can’t work together.

Rules are not just for them, it is for your sanity as well.

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Paula Marowsky

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Adults are the greatest manipulators. Kids ONLY pick what they see. They learn EVERYTHING their parents won't admit they truly are

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First, know what communication is.

Everybody will tell you "communication is key!"

While this is true, nobody ever tells you what communication really is. So a married couple could spend 5 years together, never fight, never argue, just exchange pleasantries, talk about their days, go out on dates, etc. and then suddenly one of them reveals they're unhappy and want a divorce.

And the other person will be very hurt and especially very confused. Because they did everything people told them to do in order to have a healthy marriage. They went on dates. They had that alone time. They asked each other about their day. They exchanged "I love yous" every night. So how does a marriage fail when you do all the things everybody says you're supposed to do?

Because people told you what you're supposed to do, but they never told you how to do it. And this is especially true with communication. Everybody will say "just communicate! just communicate!" But if you don't know what it is, you can't "just" communicate.

Talking about your day, discussing the bills, and saying "I love you" is not communication. That's talking. There is a difference between the communication and talking. Talking is just making noises at each other without any real consequence to what you're saying. Communication is relaying your inner feelings to your partner, regardless--and this is the important part--regardless of how you think it will make your partner feel.

Communication is talking about the bad stuff. It's talking about the stuff you don't want to talk about. You don't communicate in a marriage because you want to, you communicate in a marriage because you need to. A marriage where you never leave your comfort zone is a doomed marriage.

Now, don't get me wrong, communication isn't all negative. I'm just saying communication means you share everything about your emotional state with your partner. If they do something you don't like, you need to talk to them about it, and likewise them to you. A lot of the time, something will bother you only because you're keeping it bottled in, and after bouncing that thought off your partner, you could find that it doesn't even bother you anymore.

How you communicate these things is also important. There's no need to have angry outbursts and shout at your partner for every slight or wrong. You can calmly tell them about it, and use phrases like "when you X, I feel Y." It's important to avoid using blame phrases like "you make me feel Y!" Be calm, clear, and concise about how that activity is making you feel. Make it clear that overall you still love them (if that is the truth), but you're just informing them of how that action causes you to react emotionally. Maybe they'll stop doing it. Maybe they'll argue that it's unreasonable to expect them not to do it. But like I said, you may even find that just telling your partner about it makes it not seem so bad on its own.

Communication is absolute, unbridled honesty. And it requires you, first and foremost, to have the ability to be honest with yourself. People engage in all kinds of self-deception. They don't communicate with their partners because they're not communicating with themselves. They're not even admitting how they really feel about something.

Fear is what keeps couples from communication and what keeps people deceiving themselves. Fear that they might have made a huge mistake and what that might mean. Imagine, you've lived with someone for five years, you've tried to make it work. You have kids together, a life. You deceive yourself because admitting the truth means facing a very difficult time in your life. To fight that, you need to realize that self-deception only works for so long, and those difficult times coming up ahead are unavoidable, so you might as well get them over with now before you get yourself into an even worse situation.

The other thing to know, it's not your spouse's job to make you happy.

It's not your spouse's job to make you happy be

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Paula Marowsky

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Very true. "Just communicate with each other" is an empty sentence. Knowing HOW to communicate is the real challenge

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That there's no rush and that you don't have to get married if you don't want to. Relationships work just fine without legally promising to love each other until you die.

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Rei

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Great advice coming from a generation who is too afraid of committing to something wholeheartedly, although I understand this since marriages are increasingly either being terminated or bad. And being the children in such a marriage has broken something within us so that we now face this fear of commitment. So we shield our heart to protect ourselves to be hurt. Absolutely understandable. There is a difference of saying "we are in a relationship that has no strings attached and can be undone in a second" and actually speaking out vows of a long life commitment of love to each other in front of witnesses. I mean, actually saying those words out loud to your most precious person. I am not talking about how to form the marriage here formally, if its in front of a priest or whereever, but about the stance of the heart and expressing this verbally to that person, while also adding acts and thoughts of lifelong commitment to it.

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Have complete transparency about both of your finances.

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ZAPanda

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I disagree with this one. I think independence is important. I'd say you decide on what the shared costs are, have a shared account, and put the necessary into the shared account. Your leftover cash is yours. Don't try control each other, that is going to end in divorce.

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Before you get married ask yourself this, " If in five years they are exactly the same (specifically the things that bother you) will I still want to be with them?" Do not marry someone for who you think they can be. At the same time don't assume they will never change. You both will.

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ZAPanda

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people learn new skills but their basic character stays the same. If they have bad habits you can change those, but their general temperament, e.g. bad tempered, short fuse, lazy, etc., does not change.

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Don't expect your marriage to automatically be like a couple that has been married for 40 years. They've struggled hard to get there and you will too. Don't put unreasonable expectations on your marriage.

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Something my dad always told me was that you need to be with someone for at least 2 years to really see who they really are. That said, you want to see how your potential partner is in just about every emotional situation and how they handle it before tying the knot. Anyone can put on a charade for a year; only showing their good side. You don't want to find out after marriage that accidentally shrinking their favorite shirt provokes a similar reaction as if you smacked their mother. Goes without saying, live together to see if you're even compatible.

Something I learned was don't be the type of person to set ultimatums; my way or the highway mindset. Be ready to compromise and settle somewhere that makes both of you happy. Your partner should be able to bend as well.

Talk and communicate. From finances to sex. My wife is my best friend and I can talk to her about pretty much anything without worrying if she'll get mad or upset if I bring up a topic. A lot of issues can be resolved by just talking them out.

** Leave the past in the past...** Obviously, you should be loyal to one another but jealousy will destroy a marriage.

For the love of God, don't get married just because you feel like you have too much time 'invested'. It will hurt at first but walk away. I've seen too many couples split a year or two after marriage because of this; and the worse part is, they now have kids - they shouldn't have to suffer because you couldn't walk away 2 years ago. Also, FYI, if your relationship sucks, having children won't make the situation magically better....Neither will getting married for that matter.

Be ready to work to make it work.

Don’t ever go to bed mad.

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Marianne Saiso

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F that. When you're mad, eat, go to bed, and then see whether it was actually a problem or you were just hangry and tired.

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Separate blankets = the key to happiness

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Paula Marowsky

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Separate bathrooms and matrasses = the key of lifetime perfection

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It is generally frowned upon to sleep with someone other than your spouse.

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Sit down and figure out your finances. And continue to do that every few months.

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ZAPanda

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it's a business partnership. If you disagree on finances it won't last.

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In Thailand its £4 to get married and £6 to get divorced. Keep £6 in a savings account.

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ZAPanda

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wow that's super cheap, here it's thousands because you need legal documents drawn up by an actual lawyer.

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All of this advice is great, but often neglects that people change - and it's more commonly the kind of change that comes from the harder parts of life. Your lives may begin together in the same way with the same core ideas, but that doesn't necessarily mean things will stay that way.

The big advice (from me) is: you can't fireproof a marriage.

If half of all marriages end in divorce, I find it challenging to believe that many of those people didn't enter their relationships positively, mindfully, and with a good foundation (and thinking about relationships in the same way we are all doing here).

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ZAPanda

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I think a lot of people enter marriage when they're still giddy and in love, and that's a big mistake.

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I would say that it's better to wait until you are older and have been with your SO for many years. No idea why couples rush into marriage. If you love someone and don't plan on breaking up, why rush, they aren't going anywhere?

I got married to my wife at 23 after being together since age 18. We were together long enough, but still too young. The older I get, the more I realize that although we had a lot in common at age 18 and age 23, we have less in common at age 30. If we had met later in life, it's possible that we wouldn't even be together today.

We are working on salvaging the relationship as we speak...

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ZAPanda

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wow you are so young. Most people here get married in their 30s.

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No matter how in love and certain you are - you MUST prepare for the marriage to fail.

By this I mean, get a pre-nup to protect your respective assets, make sure to become and/ or remain employed or employable.

In other words, take care of yourself and make sure your partner takes care of themselves financially.

No one wants to be stuck in an awful marriage due to financial reasons. Take all necessary steps to avoid this pitfall, no matter how sure you are because lots of people get it WRONG.

Good luck xx

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Not married, but lived with a partner for about a decade. Here're my thoughts:

If you notice one day that you aren't communicating with your partner because you're afraid of their reaction, that needs to immediately be addressed. I don't just mean "omg s/he will hit me" I mean "I don't really want to do that right now" could be met with "You better have a good reason", even for the benign stuff.

In that vein, know what you consider benign and what your partner considers benign.

It does take a year or two to really know a person. If you don't like what you see after that time, then it's not realistic to expect that to change. Protip: depending on what goes on and how long it goes on, you might even find that if it does by some miracle drastically change that you are not in a position to accept that change because you have also changed.

Make sure that you and your partner are on the same page with short and long term goals.

Make sure you and your partner know how to compromise.

Make sure you and your partner know how to recognize patterns. You don't want to be stuck in a cycle of "This happens all the time" / "No it doesn't" / "Yes it does" types of conversations.

Be able to talk about the past. Not obsess, but just talk.

If you have to lie about the status of your relationship to others, take a deep breath and make time to think about why this is.

If your partner asks you to lie about the status of your relationship, or things that happen in the relationship, take a deep breath and analyze why. Perhaps get the help of a professional like a therapist, even if only for one session, for an external and neutral set of ears.

This last one may seem obvious but sometimes it can be deceptively insidious. Death by a thousand cuts, where a bunch of little lies come up one day and you realize it drastically alters you perception of what's been going on.

Realize that rarely are things about blame, but sometimes things happen because they happen. You might have an SO with PTSD, for example, that lashes out. You might find yourself saying, a lot, "hey it's not their fault they have PTSD, they wouldn't have done this otherwise". And that may very well be true. But whatever they did, they did do and it affects you, whether it was intended or not.

To that end, especially in a case where one of the partner's is chronically ill or has something like PTSD going on, both partners need to have clear boundaries of what is expected of each other. You're not your partner's nurse (even if you happen to also be a nurse) - you're their partner.

More broadly speaking: illness or no illness - partners need to have clear and respectful boundaries.

If you realize that you or your partner are only staying together for "lack of an exit plan" - don't. Make an exit plan instead. If you can't trust your partner to do it with you, do it yourself. If you cannot do it yourself, do it with a friend. If you don't have a friend, find a therapist. Even if only for a few sessions - what you need to figure out how to leave. Just get it done.

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H Moore

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Actually you are their nurse. Good and bad, if you can't stay and help when they are ill, don't go there in the first place.

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From what I understand alot of you love cowboy bebop on this website.

Getting married is like choosing who you're gonna have as you spaceship riding buddy for the rest of your life. Fights are normal and sometimes you ll be mad. But you always make up to make the team work

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Julius Zuke

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Whenever we get emotionally entangled with each other, one of us will always say, "You know what? We deserve each other." Always gets a smile, and refocuses us on solutions instead of blame.

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Once the knot is tied it is extremely expensive to untie it.

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Finances are tough, especially when there's not a whole lot of them. Budget together when you're engaged and make sure you can both live on your combined projected income. Be honest about debt and make a plan to pay it off. Establish dreams together, make financial goals together (buying a house, taking a cruise, whatever) and stick to those goals. It's a lot easier to stay financially focused when there's a REASON to stay focused.

Save a bit, but don't forget to have fun. Give each one of yourselves some spending money - even if it's $5 - that you can call your own. Agree on all the other purchases outside of your spending money. A couple who dreams together stays together. A couple who can get their financial goals on the same page can get their life goals on the same page.

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Leodavinci

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I'm a big believer in having separate accounts and a joint account, but a bit of advice. If your financial situation is such $5 (or anything less than 5X that) is your personal spending money... bite the bullet and put that money in your joint account until your finances are better. $5 was the weekly allowance for a kid when I was one. These days, it will barely get you a burger.

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You date the girl/boy but you marry the family

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ZAPanda

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Not necessarily. You can discuss their family with your partner and ask to what extent you need to tolerate them. Sometimes you might get lucky and find a person whose family is great and everyone gets along. Most times you'll find they have a range of asshats of various degrees that you have to tolerate. My suggestion would be to date them long enough to find out these details and then raise it as an issue if they want marriage: do we have to see your crazy brother, do we have to do christmas at your dad, etc., etc. If they insist, find out if it is guilt or if they really like those people that you do not like. If they do like them and they insist, rather call it off. Otherwise your rest of your life is living with asshats. If however they recognise their family is irreparably f*cked, maybe they can see their way to ignoring/avoiding them with you.

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