Thoughts on Getting Married

[system]

I’m a little late to the party, but I thought one of your initial questions was “what kind of changes you go through when you tie the knot.”

I’m 28, and I just got married in January of 08.

I had some freak out moments right after the wedding. Little stuff; my wife leaving dishes in the sink (which I hate), insisting that the bed be made (which I think is dumb), etc. The problem was that I was amortizing these tiny little issues over the course of the rest of the marriage. I came to the stupid ass conclusion that I married a selfish person that only cared about her peccadillos (the bed being made) and not mine (the dishes in the sink). It really bothered me until I thought about it for 5 minutes. When you get married, you need to have plenty of lubrication. . . not just for the honeymoon, but for the relationship. I ask her to do the little things for me, and I do the little things for her. Does it bother me sometimes when she forgets? Sure, but it just isn’t worth taking a stand. I have learned to let certain things slide. We both understand that we’re not perfect, but we try and we’re pretty good at making compromises for each other.

Newlywed fights suck. This is the flip side of the above. When you do decide to argue about something, the stakes are so much higher because you are “setting the stage” for the marriage. I had this feeling that I had to set my boundaries and not concede certain things because I didn’t want to deal with them for the next 70 years. It makes the fights more intense. I’ve learned to let her try something her way, then try it my way, then decide as a team what works best.

Don’t go to bed angry. Even if you have to fight until 5am, don’t fall asleep pissed at each other. In my experience, a “good night’s sleep” doesn’t help because you won’t sleep for shit anyway if you are angry. The end result is that you wake up tired and pissed off and then you have to go to work.

For some reason I find myself looking at other women more often. Just looking. Never touching. Obviously, it has something to do with the fact that I can’t ever have another woman again. Maybe I just want to see what I’m giving up. Either way, I’ve never seen any girl that would make me even take a step in the wrong direction. Not Eason, not Alba, not Pressley. So my eyes move, but my feet don’t.

Hope that makes sense and helps out. Oh, and don’t have a big wedding. They are a ridiculous waste of time and money.

[jaybvee]

[quote]flightspeed wrote:

Newlywed fights suck. This is the flip side of the above. When you do decide to argue about something, the stakes are so much higher because you are “setting the stage” for the marriage. I had this feeling that I had to set my boundaries and not concede certain things because I didn’t want to deal with them for the next 70 years. It makes the fights more intense. I’ve learned to let her try something her way, then try it my way, then decide as a team what works best.

Don’t go to bed angry. Even if you have to fight until 5am, don’t fall asleep pissed at each other. In my experience, a “good night’s sleep” doesn’t help because you won’t sleep for shit anyway if you are angry. The end result is that you wake up tired and pissed off and then you have to go to work.

For some reason I find myself looking at other women more often. Just looking. Never touching. Obviously, it has something to do with the fact that I can’t ever have another woman again. Maybe I just want to see what I’m giving up. Either way, I’ve never seen any girl that would make me even take a step in the wrong direction. Not Eason, not Alba, not Pressley. So my eyes move, but my feet don’t.
[/quote]

True words.

How I’m living right now - I got married this past March 2008.

Loving it, even the stupid inane fights now & then

[jakshafter]

I have been married for 3 years as of 5-21. I absolutly love my wife and being married is one of the greatest things God has blessed me with.

Marrage just doesn’t “work”. It isn’t an event that happens. It is a commitment to live your life with some one. It is up to the 2 of you to make it a “Happy or good” marrige.

[whoami]

Warning! This post is incoherent and probably annoying to read. You may feel like you’ve wasted two minutes of your life after reading it.

I’ve realized that my marriage (I’m separated now) was so messed up, that I don’t even think I’m entitled to voice my opinion on this. But I will anyway.

I’m sure marriage can be great Just really blissfully fantastic. I don’t know anyone who has that kind of marriage though, and I certainly did not have that kind of marriage. That being said, there are a few things I must mention:

1. I got married way too soon.
2. I think I’m a really bad judge of character. I just assume that people are inherently good and moderately unselfish, something which is not always the case. Duh!

Things changed really quickly after I got married. It quickly became clear that she did not want to be married in any practical sense. Through her religion she’d been taught that marriage is amazing and “the thing to do”, so when I came along (one month after she’d returned home from her mission) I must have seemed like a godsend. Literally! She started talking about marriage after we’d been a couple for about one month. At first I thought she was joking, and it kind of freaked me out when I realized she was serious. After a while, the idea grew on me and before I knew it I really wanted to marry this girl. We became a couple in may and married in early september of that year. Not once did I ever get cold feet. I thought it was fantastic!

I guess we started fighting about a week after getting married. She did not want to share anything. She wanted separate economies, even though she’s terrible with money. If I was going through some though times, she didn’t want to hear about it. etc etc.
I also became her butler, always doing everything for her. Stuff she could easily do herself, but why would she when she’s got me? Obviously I let her know how I felt, and she got pissed off. It helped though. Things just continued getting worse, and we recently separated. I actually thought things were improving, but I guess the joke’s on me.

I guess what kept us together for 2,5 years, was the physical aspect of the relationship. We were really good at that, and it gave us a lot of good experiences together. Obviously, that’s not enough to save a marriage. I think ‘feeling good’ both physically and emotionally, is often mistaken for love.

I know that no two people are alike, and therefore it would be idiotic for me to advice the OP not to get married. I do, however, believe that it’s a risk entering into any relationship. Taking the relationship to the next level, both emotionally and legally, is a huge step. I say this because, in many cases, one does not know the other person as well as one thinks. I don’t know why things often change when people get married, but by God they do and it scares the crap out of me.

All I can say from my own experience is:

Don’t marry after being together for only 3 months.
Don’t marry someone who is bipolar.
Try to marry someone who really loves you, not someone who only loves the way you make them feel.
Don’t marry someone who has a different religion from your own. That’s pushing it.

But if you do fuck up and you get a divorce, the upside is you might get to fool around with twenty year old hotties. I like that part.

[Rodimus_Black]

[quote]lixy wrote:
Vicomte wrote:
…

Marriage is more about protecting the woman than the man. Obviously, men’s natural drive is to inseminate everything with a pulse (the pigs!). Women, on the other hand, are more interested in a male sticking around to feed and raise her progeny. Not that they traditionally gave a shit about the father of the children being the same as the meat-bringing pigeon (the bitches!).

We’ve certainly come a long way since then. Nowadays, marriage is mostly about religion, peer-pressure and social status. Women are now having a lot more control over their sexuality, and they are pretty much on equal ground with us males on most things.

But the pair-bonding drive is still more noticeable in women than men. Probably because most women haven’t broken free of the patriarchal shackles yet.

In any case, to quote Desmond Morris, marriage is something we’re designed for. We are healthier, live longer and seem happier when married. Whether signing a contract has anything to do with it or not is up for debate, but I’m siding with the yes group on that one. The most important thing is to have some sort of moral commitment. The rest isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

P.S: EmilyQ, I’m jealous of your couple’s happiness. In any case, God bless! May I inquire about the exact number of years you guys have been together?[/quote]

Good post, although I was getting ready to disagree with you at one point! LOL. You’re not the only one jealous.