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Are we expecting too much from marriage?


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redheaded-squirrel

Dear LoveShackers,

 

 

I'd like to bring up a broader, almost philosophical question: are we expecting too much from marriage as an institution these days?

 

 

I am afraid I certainly was expecting too much...I am not married yet, but talking about marriage. And already now, I see that there's as much as work, and as many issues to solve together as there is with yourself. We have this expectation of an ideal man that will be "everything" and The One, but f**k that, no-one's going to be the one, because people are all weird and flawed and imperfect and we just have to deal with ourselves....

 

 

Isn't there this expectation that you'll be constantly happy once you marry The One? You'll get a perfect house, a second home, xyz holidays, kids that never throw tantrums, great sex...and when it's not like that (it isn't!), you divorce? And if marriage means putting up with someone less than perfect for the rest of your life, with their past, your differing decisions, behaviour, having sex just to have it...why are we even getting married?

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Isn't there this expectation that you'll be constantly happy once you marry The One? You'll get a perfect house, a second home, xyz holidays, kids that never throw tantrums, great sex...and when it's not like that (it isn't!), you divorce? And if marriage means putting up with someone less than perfect for the rest of your life, with their past, your differing decisions, behaviour, having sex just to have it...why are we even getting married?

 

I know of no expectation that marriage will be perfect. But the reason we get married is because we love someone and the good far outweighs the bad.

 

There are no perfect outcomes in any part of life, so there's no reason marriage would be any different.

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IMO, marriage is no longer necessary if there is commitment. Depending on where you live and the laws regarding marriage, there may be some benefits that can't be achieved any other way - but there are usually risks and negatives that can't be avoided, as well.

 

The cost of entry into marriage is low, but the cost of exit if things go wrong can be extremely high, and often unfair to one party.

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I've honestly noticed that a lot of people nowadays seem to feel entitled to perfection, and ditch relationships as soon as they notice anything isn't perfect. I'm not sure why this is the case, and I'm not sure why it seems to be worse with each passing generation. Perhaps many of the wealthy kids in developed countries nowadays are raised in perfect environments where they don't have to go through any hardships or difficulties, and thus they expect that the rest of their lives will be that way? Of course, I'm just hypothesizing here.

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MWC BlondeKim

Is anyone or situation perfect, no. Yet there are some very good marriages out there including mine.

 

With time I have grown closer to my husband, love my family, career and house. It takes efforts on everyone's part to work together, understand and grow. Is the effort for the marriage worth the input? Yes very much so the rewards easily outweighs the efforts.

 

What has been so helpful in my marriage my husband has zero jealousy, yes rare for husbands, but that enables us to be more of a team and me to be my flirty self.. so yes there are good marriages and a perfect marriage I think that is unrealistic

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somanymistakes

Oversimplified question really. You're kind of expecting too much and too little from marriage at the same time.

 

A lot of people want to Get Married because they think it's the only thing to do, the only way to show love, the only way to have a family, and the only way to make themselves have value. They feel they're not real adults unless they have a job, a house, a spouse, and a kid. And if they DO get those things, then they point to them as material proof of success whenever they feel bad about life. "Yeah, I'm depressed, but at least I have a home and family." even if the home and family aren't actually making them happy.

 

Marriage can be many things to many people. You can be married to someone you never see, who has no effect on your life whatsoever. You can be married to someone and sleep with lots of other people. You can live with someone as The One True Love and be happy together for fifty years and never get married. In some countries you can marry someone and be only one of their many spouses.

 

Before you marry someone you and they really need to sit down and talk about what marriage means to you, why you're doing it, what you expect to get out of it, and what might happen if things go badly. Because it creates a huge mess if people have unspoken expectations and go "well, you're my wife/husband now, so you have to do X" when that wasn't agreed at all.

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If those are your expectations -- that somehow your spouse will fix all that is wrong in your life & you will magically be happy all the time -- your expectations are unreasonable & you will end up unhappy

 

Marriage is about having someone there all the time, being a team, building a family & going through both the good times & the bad together. It's not 50/50. If you are only giving 1/2 you meet your partner at a single point, with no overlap. The second somebody falls back or needs help, your connection is broken. Instead, it's about both giving 100% with complete overlap so that if somebody slips back you are still mostly connected. Then you work to pull your partner back, to support them when times are rough.

 

 

It is about balance and comfort / security but it does take work.

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Esther Perel does a good number of talks and even books on this subject.-[]

 

Long story short, yes I believe we put too much on marriages. One relationship cannot satisfy all our needs as an individual.

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losangelena

Esther Perel has so many wise and intelligent things to say about relationships.

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Dear LoveShackers,

 

 

I'd like to bring up a broader, almost philosophical question: are we expecting too much from marriage as an institution these days?

 

 

I am afraid I certainly was expecting too much...I am not married yet, but talking about marriage. And already now, I see that there's as much as work, and as many issues to solve together as there is with yourself. We have this expectation of an ideal man that will be "everything" and The One, but f**k that, no-one's going to be the one, because people are all weird and flawed and imperfect and we just have to deal with ourselves....

 

 

Isn't there this expectation that you'll be constantly happy once you marry The One? You'll get a perfect house, a second home, xyz holidays, kids that never throw tantrums, great sex...and when it's not like that (it isn't!), you divorce? And if marriage means putting up with someone less than perfect for the rest of your life, with their past, your differing decisions, behaviour, having sex just to have it...why are we even getting married?

 

Good question. I do expect too much from my husband and from my marriage. I wanted a man and a marriage to save me and TBH it DID save me a little but brought in many problems that I wasn't expecting. When I pictured marriage all I saw was a handsome man who'll take good care of me, for some reason I didn't expect the man to have a family or if he did have parents or siblings they'd be wonderful and make my life easier. I looked at pretty rings, wedding dresses and honeymoon destinations...I never looked at reality.

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Are we expecting too much from marriage?

 

Not really the problem. The issue is, as spouses, we expect too little from ourselves.

 

Those that get the most from marriage also give the most and there's no shortcut to this result. If you go in expecting happiness to be delivered like a take-out pizza, you'll surely be disappointed...

 

Mr. Lucky

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Good question. I do expect too much from my husband and from my marriage. I wanted a man and a marriage to save me and TBH it DID save me a little but brought in many problems that I wasn't expecting. When I pictured marriage all I saw was a handsome man who'll take good care of me, for some reason I didn't expect the man to have a family or if he did have parents or siblings they'd be wonderful and make my life easier. I looked at pretty rings, wedding dresses and honeymoon destinations...I never looked at reality.

 

Very insightful Brigit. I think it takes a lot of courage to examine our past decisions like you have.

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Very insightful Brigit. I think it takes a lot of courage to examine our past decisions like you have.

 

Thank you.

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GoodOnPaper

Most of us probably do expect too much from marriage. I know I can relate to this:

 

If you go in expecting happiness to be delivered like a take-out pizza, you'll surely be disappointed...

 

I thought marriage would automatically make up for everything I missed out on when I was single - being able to get a date more often than once in a blue moon, casual sex, or for that matter any interaction or connection of a primal, "purely physical" nature - but it's never come close to doing that. If I'm ever single again, I will approach things very differently.

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redheaded-squirrel

That's kind of what I was thinking too, that I'd get all the things I missed when I was single...except that my "The One" is divorced and has two kids and I am young and childless and caught by surprise that suddenly I have to deal with so much of someone's past and not just the present and the future...

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Some people today really treat marriage unfairly.

 

 

They expect spouse to make up for everything they don't have in their life, and that's a lot of responsibility to place on someone's shoulders.

 

 

 

I don't know of any other relationship that can have so much pressure to succeed, and that, in and of itself, can often lead to failure.

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devilish innocent

Redheaded-squirrel, it sounds like you don't really want to marry him. If it's not what you really want, don't do it.

 

There is such a thing as expecting too much for marriage. There's also the opposite problem of trying to put up with more than you should have to handle.

 

For me, I can honestly say my marriage makes my life easier than it would be otherwise. That doesn't mean things are perfect. We get annoyed with each other from time to time. We have sex less often than most couples. But when we get annoyed with each other, we've always been able to work it out in a fairly short amount of time. Despite not having sex that often, we have other hobbies that we frequently enjoy together in our free time. That's enough for both of us.

 

We like the life we have together. Even if marriage didn't exist, we'd want to continue until one of us was in the grave. Marriage was simply a way to get the social recognition for the commitment we would have had made to each other anyway.

 

You make marriage sound like it's an institution everybody needs to enter just because they once fell in love with someone. They must have sex so many times a week. They must have 2.3 kids. They must purchase a single-family home with a white picket fence in the suburbs, and so on. My husband and i don't want kids, and as I mentioned before, we don't even have sex all that often.

 

The nice thing about marriage these days is that you are free to create whatever life you want together. And if the life you would be creating with somebody is not the life you want, you are free to say no to marrying them. It is no longer the 1910's where just because a girl gets romantic notions for a man who can provide for her financially, she must become a proper housewife to him.

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Ruby Slippers

Marriage is "becoming one" with another person. It's hard enough to become one with yourself, let alone a totally different person! ;)

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