Why do people even get married if they cant handle the fact that bodies change?

[jackslife]

When you decide to marry, you are usually in love, in the prime of life and see a long rosy life together. However you change a lot as a person over the years. You are not the same person at 45 as you were at 25.

I think it is a huge expectation to think that you will still feel the same about each other in 40 years time. Illness, jobs, sex, children all can negatively (and positively) affect a marriage.

What really amazes me isn't that people divorce but that so many actually stay together. Pretty amazing given the pressures of modern life.

[waterwoman]

Weight gain is not the only change that happens though and it is one that can, to a certain extent, be controlled. If I choose to allow myself to balloon and do nothing about it, I could accept my H losing attraction for me but I would hope he wouldn't stop loving me. But there are many other things that do change that we have far less control over - lines on your face, stretch marks over a once pregnant belly, thinning hair for men. Those are things which cannot be prevented completely and if stop loving someone because of those I think you are being pretty shallow and unfair.

[Els]

I'm going to try to answer the actual question in the OP.... Because many of them don't take marriage seriously as a lifelong commitment, IMO. They're swept away in the honeymoon when they marry, and they're not actually envisioning themselves with this person in 50 years' time, and the ramifications of such. More and more folks are perceiving marriage as simply a legalized relationship that they can end at any time - which is their right, and I won't judge them for it, but it does end up in situations like what you describe.

[atreides]

Weight gain due to medication and such.... i would agree with other posters... more of an excuse.... i have friends that had to change their eating habits because of the medication and had they not they would have gained lots of weight..

 

I cannot fault either opinion, there is validity on the one hand of commitment through thick or thin but on the other if the spouse becomes something so alien to whom you once knew whether it be behavioral or other issue, losing attraction seems to be a normal reaction.

 

My mom stayed with my dad's alcoholism for many years... they are still married and overcame the problem. I have had other addicts and cousins with serious mental issues where the spouses stayed but made "agreed understandings" when it was obvious certain emotional/romantic needs were not possible to give any longer because of the meds and thus the lack there of was found elsewhere "with respect to the mutual understandings." should i fault them for losing out on have emotion/romance reciprocated? I did not. While it is the situation for everyone, the spouse took care of her husband and never neglected his needs.

 

Everyone has a threshold on where the vows will not apply, maybe not with some examples you list here but I am pretty sure with others such as my in-laws with abuse.

 

The definition of "though good times and bad" is a moving gauge with many of us.

 

i guess my faith in love is now completely gone though. i do not believe that two people can both be happy together until the end.

 

I will agree in part with this, but in attempt to restore the OP's faith, you are linking to separate things. love does not equal happiness but they certainly can be attributes of each other.

 

Love is very real but is it permanent? I think not as we are ever changing in of ourselves. I may like 1 thing today but not tomorrow. In principle the changing nature of ourselves would answer that question, but to lose faith in love is also denying yourself what you can have and be. Just looking at it in terms of permanent happiness "till the end" is one sided. How could we appreciate love or happiness if there was no risk of losing it or having lost it? It would cheapen it.

 

Short of lies and deceit and the plethora of wrong that comes with for example.. infidelity, if at least genuine effort is put forth to overcome the change or honesty and communicating it as such perhaps about not being able to cope to their spouse and the need to move on, which i know is a crappy deal, I cannot fault either argument other than the OP's loss of faith.

Edited July 16, 2014 by atreides

[Madman81]

Nothing to add here really, just weird to read stories about people losing their attraction to their partners and leaving them because they got fat or something. Why even marry then? There are so many things that could happen to a person that would make them look different. If you're not prepared to stand by the person you love, do everyone involved a favour and don't marry them.

This is only true up to a point.

 

Attraction isn't a choice. We can pretend it should be unconditional, but it just isn't. And it encompasses a bunch of things that initially made each of us want to be with the person we're with. Physical appearance is one of the major components.

 

In my view, people in a relationship have a general responsibility to take reasonable but solid steps to keep attractive for the benefit of their partner, in order to keep that attraction alive. That doesn't mean, e.g., that a person should look like a 25-year-old underwear model when they're 50. Nor does it mean that a person entering a relationship with somebody is entitled to expect them to "change" into somebody they're attracted to. But it does connote, I think, a responsibility to keep reasonably fit and active, to keep one's weight in check, to eat reasonably healthily, to practice good hygiene, to keep up with grooming, and to generally wear clean clothes.

 

Excessive weight gain strikes nerves repeatedly, though it probably shouldn't in the absence of a severe, documented medical problem. Imagine a scenario in which a person's partner hasn't gained weight, but they've stopped bathing, stopped brushing their teeth, and wear mostly dirty stained clothes. Would anybody here fault the person for their diminished attraction to their partner? Of course not. Weight -- again in the absence of a medical condition -- is no different, or at least it shouldn't be.

 

As somebody who really should lose 30 lbs and who has been at least somewhat overweight for much of his life, I know intellectually that, in the absence of a severe medical problem, it's pretty simple math: calories in vs. calories out. If "calories in" is consistently higher than "calories out", you'll gain fat. If you want to eat a large volume of food, you'll pack on fat if the food is pizza, but you probably won't if the food is light on calories but nutrient dense, i.e. VEGETABLES. If you drink alcohol excessively while eating a balanced amount of food, you will gain fat. And every little nibble of food counts towards "calories in" -- not just the actual meals you eat.

 

Naturally it's much harder to put into practice than to talk about it. I'm as guilty of that as anybody. But while fat shaming is unacceptable, it's artificial and unreasonable to treat weight gain as "untouchable" as a component of diminished attraction, while treating things like decreased hygiene, dirty clothes, laziness, lack of grooming etc. as valid targets for criticism.

 

Now, I also believe that a person has a responsibility to at least set a good example, to get exercise themselves, to buy and cook healthy meals, and to attend to their own grooming and appearance. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Madman81

[polynomial]

This is only true up to a point.

 

Attraction isn't a choice. We can pretend it should be unconditional, but it just isn't. And it encompasses a bunch of things that initially made each of us want to be with the person we're with. Physical appearance is one of the major components.

 

In my view, people in a relationship have a general responsibility to take reasonable but solid steps to keep attractive for the benefit of their partner, in order to keep that attraction alive. That doesn't mean, e.g., that a person should look like a 25-year-old underwear model when they're 50. Nor does it mean that a person entering a relationship with somebody is entitled to expect them to "change" into somebody they're attracted to. But it does connote, I think, a responsibility to keep reasonably fit and active, to keep one's weight in check, to eat reasonably healthily, to practice good hygiene, to keep up with grooming, and to generally wear clean clothes.

 

Excessive weight gain strikes nerves repeatedly, though it probably shouldn't in the absence of a severe, documented medical problem. Imagine a scenario in which a person's partner hasn't gained weight, but they've stopped bathing, stopped brushing their teeth, and wear mostly dirty stained clothes. Would anybody here fault the person for their diminished attraction to their partner? Of course not. Weight -- again in the absence of a medical condition -- is no different, or at least it shouldn't be.

 

As somebody who really should lose 30 lbs and who has been at least somewhat overweight for much of his life, I know intellectually that, in the absence of a severe medical problem, it's pretty simple math: calories in vs. calories out. If "calories in" is consistently higher than "calories out", you'll gain fat. If you want to eat a large volume of food, you'll pack on fat if the food is pizza, but you probably won't if the food is light on calories but nutrient dense, i.e. VEGETABLES. If you drink alcohol excessively while eating a balanced amount of food, you will gain fat. And every little nibble of food counts towards "calories in" -- not just the actual meals you eat.

 

Naturally it's much harder to put into practice than to talk about it. I'm as guilty of that as anybody. But while fat shaming is unacceptable, it's artificial and unreasonable to treat weight gain as "untouchable" as a component of diminished attraction, while treating things like decreased hygiene, dirty clothes, laziness, lack of grooming etc. as valid targets for criticism.

 

Now, I also believe that a person has a responsibility to at least set a good example, to get exercise themselves, to buy and cook healthy meals, and to attend to their own grooming and appearance. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander.

 

Thanks. I like this answer. I still have many thoughts but I realised all relationships and situations and people are different (no matter how similar ) and you can never compare two. I guess.. Anyway. Probably why I will never want to get married. Just too much hassle.

[ForeverTainted]

I have never seen a couple IRL divorce over looks. I know quite a few couples were one or the other has let their looks go and they still seem happy together. But I do know exessive weight gain or a masectomy or a disfiguration can do havoc on one's self esteem. And I think sometimes the person whose looks changed hate it in themselves and will project that feeling onto ther spouse.