This discussion was created from comments split from: Divorce on the horizon.
Few questions for older people (no offense):
1.) How do you know when you’ve found the right person? What did it feel like? Were you just blown away at first meeting them or did you just figure it was time to have some kids and just found someone you could live with?
2.) Were you scared that once you got married that you would feel trapped and then not know how to get back out of it?
3.) Is taking responsibility for someone else (wife, kids) scary? Did you ever doubt your ability to be able to do that?
4.) How do you find someone who still likes you even though they live with you and know about everything you do that’s irritating and mildly disgusting?
5.) How do you keep from getting bored with the same person for all that time?
I guess these questions are directed more at people who have been with the same person for a really long time, are still in love with them, and want to remain with them.
Sorry, but these are concepts I’ve always wondered about and wanted to ask older people. Many of these points sort of scare me right now, but I guess that changes. Do you like get old and just go, well, I better do this now before I get really bad looking and no one will want me or is that simplifying things too much? I hope no one takes offense, and that last comment was sort of a joke, but I can see how people would start to feel that way when they get older. THANKS!
@lil Shortay - good questions - I have long held the belief that for women, who you marry has much more impact on your quality of life than where you go to college, yet we put so little emphasis on choosing the right person. Unfortunate for many people, who you marry is a function of the dynamic you grew up with, better or worse. I think the best way to know someone’s right for you is to ask yourself if you feel happy and good with them. I do with my DH; I never did with my ex (but I was too young to realize it).
I’ll bite, Lil Shortay - hope it helps. My wife and I been married a little over 25 years.
1.) I’m much too analytical to ever be blown away immediately. It took me until age 26 to be emotionally ready for a long term commitment, so being in the right place in your life is pretty important to being receptive to it. Probably after our second date I realized that other women I may have been interested in stopped mattering. It kind of snuck up on me.
2.) Not scared. We were very compatible from the get-go. She was the one to bring up a time frame for getting engaged but by that point I was just waiting to see if she would dump me once she started working. A relationship needs to be able to survive these big life transitions.
3.) I married a highly capable woman, 12 varsity letters in HS, top 5% academically, in her senior year of nursing school when we met. This question was never going to be an issue. I joke that I married a woman capable of carrying me up the stairs when I get old.
4.) Life has its trying moments (five years of cancer treatments for us). The people you combine with need to pass through the filters of the dating phase. Be honest about what is important. Our lists of “must haves” in a partner lined up well.
5.) We have raised three kids together but our relationship has always been the first priority. We talk, we apologize, we still go on dates. We were empty nest for the first time last August and it has been great.
You will just have to trust that people like the parents on this site are raising a good crop of next-generation humans and that it will work out when the time comes. You will change a lot between now and that time, and so will all the potential mates. Best of luck.
I have been married for 27 years. We want to be together until the end of our lives.
You always marry the wrong person. You start out in romantic, butterflies in the stomach love, but once you have lived together for a while, both of you change, so the person you married 5 years ago isn’t the person you are with today. So you have to decide daily how to keep loving that person.
Marriage isn’t passive; it’s work. But like a lot of good work, it’s rewarding. I think the relationship I have with my husband now is deeper and more interesting than it was when we first fell in love, but it’s still a work in progress. Work like this isn’t boring.
Not everyone should marry. Some people really are meant to have fulfilling lives as single people. If you want someone who won’t expect anything of you, and who won’t change your lifestyle, don’t get married. You can’t be in a marriage without changing the other person, or being changed by them. It just happens.
When you find someone you think you want to marry, remember that the dating part should be easy. If you have a lot of drama before you walk down the aisle, don’t get married.
I completely agree with above that a good marriage like any valuable relationship takes a lot of work and effort and intention. It’s so worth it. And sometimes, no matter how hard you work at it, it’s not meant to last. People change and grow and realize things about themselves and deciding to end it, is healthier than staying. You never know what the future holds. I was married 26 years and I will never regret the decision. It did not end well but I was very happy for a long time until I wasn’t.
In many ways, with marriage, 1+1=1. You leave a bit of your own self-centered life for the life as a couple. You can’t only prioritize your own wants and fancies. Nor should the other. But you’re still you, can and should remain an individual. It’s about balance and the wisdom, strength and willingness to do the work to make it good. When you truly care about the other, and feel that coming back to you, it does work.
There are many compromises. But it feels as good to give as to receive.
People say, you’ll know it when you find it. That you’ll be willing to make the leap. But first, it helps to know yourself.
In order:
- This can work either way. I was “love at first sight”.
- Yes. But we were engaged for 4 years (we were in college) so plenty of time to make sure.
- Scary in some ways but we both had degrees and jobs. Either of us was able to support the other if need be. Being able to support yourself makes a huge difference. You don’t feel dependent.
- After four years you’ve seen a lot. I think this is one reason couples live together before marriage.
- Love and life go in cycles. Things can be “routine”–some would say boring at times. And then “you fall in love all over again”. Over and over. (now 40 years). Always remember why you fell in love with this person in the first place.
As for old people–they fall in love too. My aunt found new love at 88!
Before we got married we attended a group marriage counseling (almost as a lark) and it actually helped in many ways.
Most of the couples were already married.
The first thing was a list of questions–Do you want kids? How many? Religion? --it was a LONG list to find compatibility issues.
Some things we hadn’t even considered to ask each other. You took the test and then switched papers.
We were close to near perfect on that test.
Another “project” was to go out and take photographs that would represent your partner, how your partner sees you, how you see yourself. and how you think your partner sees himself. Keep it secret! We came back the next wileek with matching photos–we saw each other as an “anchor”. I can’t remember the others but they were similar.
I have been married 34 years, after dating him for 2 years. The first year of our marriage was not smooth, as I had some less than healthy ways of communicating and reacting to conflict. We were both committed to marriage as a life long relationship, so since divorce was not an option we had to work together to find a healthier path to walk on.
Dating is the butterflies in your stomach and the sweetness of a new relationship. Marriage is dealing with in laws, deciding who cleans dishes, scrubs the toilet, changes kids’ diapers, etc. Tough stuff like budgeting for both short term and long term, child-rearing and religion, how to handle holiday celebrations with both sides of the family, and how/where you like to vacation. Being considerate of your spouse’s needs, wants, and desires is your goal, but it is not an easy thing to learn to put others before yourself. Marriage is not 50/50, it is 100/100.
I highly recommend pre-marital counseling to everyone. Not necessarily religious counseling (although I am religious and think it is important too) but general counseling where you can learn how to argue without fighting, insulting, or shutting down your spouse. A good pre-marital counselor will walk you through a number of things you will encounter in your first year of marriage, and help set you up to navigate through them.
Another important thing to note is that each of us comes with baggage of some sort, and it is healthy to understand your own baggage and your future spouse’s baggage. Some of the baggage is minor and you might not realize you are hanging on to some hurts (feeling like you didn’t get enough attention from your parents because they focused on your sibling who was sick, or sibling was star athlete, etc.) or it could be you or your spouse come from a dysfunctional family.
Observe how your date relates to their family. Go to his/her family gatherings, and note if there is constant bickering, people shouting and disrupting meals, or someone is always on the outs and not speaking to someone else, etc. Do future in-laws treat your date respectfully, do they handle boundaries well, or are they constantly invading his/her privacy and insisting on knowing every detail of their lives?
While it is possible for two people who love each other to make changes to live together successfully, it is harder for those two people to change the family structure and behavior of relatives that has gone unchecked for decades. You can survive bad in-laws, or lazy, mooching Brother in laws, but it is healthy to realize up front the kinds of chaos marrying this person will bring into your new life together. What matters most is how your SPOUSE chooses to relate/disengage from dysfunctional family. If a potential spouse will not stand up for you in front of their family, it will be much harder for your marriage to survive.
Please don’t be scared away from marriage, it is a fruitful and worthwhile institution. It changes you for the better to learn how to interact with other humans, how to live peacefully, how to become a little less selfish. I think I am a better person for having married.
I have a 20-year-old son who is asking these same questions, and I don’t have good answers for some of them because it’s been so long and I don’t understand the new dating/marriage landscape or, I do, but I feel sad about what he’s facing. My answers are from 36 years of marriage in a 41-year relationship, so they definitely come from someone “older,” no offense taken.
1.) This is the toughest one to answer because DH and I were just violently attracted to each other from the get-go (both 19) and never looked back for a second. The thunderbolt hit each of us equally. You can’t plan this. We want to tell our son that he’ll “just know” when he meets that person and not to marry unless he is viscerally, breathlessly head-over-heels in love with her. I can’t imagine marrying anyone I didn’t feel this way about or for any other reason, but I know that our experience is not the only way and other marriages we consider good did not start out as ours did. (Kids never figured into our equation; our son was a surprise 20 years into our relationship.)
2.) Neither one of us were scared or had cold feet or ever considered backing out either then or at any point along our way. DH and I met the first week of my freshman year at college. He was the same age but a junior. He hung around our college town for two years after he graduated waiting for me to graduate. He says his biggest regret is that we didn’t marry a lot sooner. We tell our son that questioning a relationship is good but to listen to his gut. If he has real reservations of any kind, move on, this is not the right person. Nothing good comes from thinking you might be trapped. If he has those kind of thoughts in a relationship, something is triggering them and he should figure out why before proceeding any further.
3.) Back in those days, we never worried about our ability to take care of each other. We didn’t evaluate the earning potential of our degrees or potential careers like kids do today. We took it for granted that we would get good jobs and live a good life. On this one, our son feels the same way. He doesn’t worry about his future or ability to support a family. Most people find a way to stay off the streets and put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads.
4.) This is the million dollar question, isn’t it? It’s just a paraphrase of “how do I find the one?” I don’t think I’ve ever heard a good answer to it. Again, we keep falling back on “you’ll just know,” and I know that’s not terribly helpful until you experience it. We tell our son to keep going until he just knows and don’t stop at “good enough” because good enough never is.
5.) Bored? Ha! You WILL get bored at times. That’s the human condition. Anyone who says they’ve never been bored in a relationship probably isn’t telling the truth. Both of you work at not being boring and not boring each other, but there will be times when it’s not all excitement and that’s OK. You have a lifetime to ebb and flow. You will change, your partner will change, and that in itself tends to ward off long-term boredom. Boredom isn’t the enemy, contempt is. You need to work at keeping contempt out of a relationship.
Anyway, @Lil.Shortay, these are excellent questions and an excellent thread. I don’t have great answers, so I will continue to watch the comments coming in for useful things to pass along to my own son. Thanks for starting this.
Solid gold. Better said than what I tried to say.
For marriage to last…
Finances and differences in money management will kill a marriage.
Learn to manage money–read Dave Ramsey’s “Total Money Makeover” as a start.
The more your styles mesh the better off you are (unless you both like huge shopping sprees with no money in the bank.)
Learn how to fight fair. Read some books. Heated discussion with focus looks very different from a shouting match.
Do some reconnaissance on the species you are living with. “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” is a good start. It won’t change anything but at least you have a clue…
Stay faithful and expect it in return.
Loyalty lies with your spouse.
“.What matters most is how your SPOUSE chooses to relate/disengage from dysfunctional family. If a potential spouse will not stand up for you in front of their family, it will be much harder for your marriage to survive.”
1.) Another love at first sight, married 30 yrs now. It was ludicrous to imagine at the time that he was “the one” - on paper, it was a giant mistake to every friend, parent, relative concerned. The one thing we had in common - both sets of parents were long married, each family had 4 kids - oh and we were born on essentially the same day, a few hours apart - but on the other side of the world. Seemed fated. That was kind of the glue for us. It was “meant to be.”
I don’t think marriage has been work for us. There’s been great times and less than great times, but not work. If a relationship is work during dating stage, I agree wholeheartedly move on. But not all relationships have to sound like another job. They can be simple and fairly free of drama if you have that blend of easy-going personalities. I say, do a myers briggs test with anyone you are dating to see if you are indeed compatible - lol, my husband and I scored nearly identically except for the “I” or “E”
2.) We were both pretty fearless and “us against the world” at the time. Assuming divorce is the “out”, how is it that you’d ever be trapped?
3.) We were fairly poor and had very little responsibilities at the time. Like just out of college, no car, I had a simple job that covered bills, and worse came to worse, felt my parents would help if needed (like could always move back home if out of work)…made the whole thing un-scary. Didn’t have kids for 6 years so didn’t worry about much back in the early yrs. Certainly having the responsibility for kids upped the fear factor. So did buying a home (which we did when our son was born)
4.) I really think we are good, kind people - and we are kind to each other which has been key. He has flaws and drives me nuts but so do I. I have his back and he has mine. It’s a good partnership. Now, how do you find someone like that? Luck.
5.) Boring can be lovely. Excitement is way overrated.
These are some great questions. H and I have been married for 29 years and known each other for 34 years.
- How do you know? It’s different for everyone. My H knew immediately, actually proposed 3 times, the first time I thought he was joking and I laughed (oops) and the other two times I was not emotionally ready for it. We ‘separated’ (due to military moves) and reconnected 3 years later. I proposed to him. I finally realized that every guy I met and dated was measured against H. I have to admit that I am little slow when it comes to relationships. We were engaged for a year, then got married. During that time we had pre-marriage counseling. I would highly recommend this. It helped us set the ‘ground rules’ for what would become our married life. Rule #1- if things are soo bad, we will try counseling first before getting separated or divorced. (this came into play in year 7. we almost separated, saw a counselor, reconnected, made it work.)
- Scared? No. But aware that people change. Everyone grows. Growing together helps. Communicating when you are not happy also helps. Learn how to argue without hurting your spouse.
- Responsible for others? Luckily, babies take a little while to grow. As far as spouses, know your limitations. It's okay to need help when caring for someone. If you need help, ask for it. We do not need to be superhuman.
- I tell people that my H is the only person I know that would put up with the crap I do. If I was married to me, I would have divorced myself by now. I joke that I married H because he is tall and can make me laugh, but it's true. He always knows when to make me laugh to help reduce the stress that I sometimes put on myself. He is my rock. Plus, the more things stay the same, the more they change.
- Be open to change. marriage is hard work. Our marriage counselor told us that if both parties each try to give 100%, if one party couldn't quite get there, then the other party would make up the difference. Be aware of your limitations, feel free to voice concerns, don't add previous arguments into new arguments.
Just remember that every relationship/marriage is different. There isn’t a one size fits all marriage template. The one thing I tell my kids, it to make sure the significant other treats you right. If you have to make excuses for that person, then it might not be the right fit.
I’ve been married for over 31 years. I met my husband in graduate school - we had a few classes together and worked side by side in the lab. He proposed to me after we’d known each other only three months. I knew he was “the one,” but we agreed we would wait a year to make sure.
I was a poor communicator at first - I had always had difficulty verbally expressing my feelings. But we worked through that and do much better now.
We started our “mom and pop” engineering firm 18 years ago, so we’re together almost all of the time. People are fascinated by that - “How can you stand that??” The question mystifies me - we like each other! We try to keep it fun. Our two official office policies are: 1. Anytime it snows during a work day, we have to go sit in the hot tub; and 2. Sexual harassment is required. 
I would marry him all over again. The tougher question is whether we would have had kids if we’d known one would have schizophrenia. But I’m glad if I have to go down such a tough road with mental illness that I have my husband by my side.
I feel like I’m the one who got the better deal, but DH has said the same about himself.
I am in absolutely no way pretending to be an expert on marriage. I’ve only been married 2.5 years and we’ve been together 7-8. I’m answering these as someone who has recently had to make these decisions. I married at 24 so I was well before the “crap, I’m getting old” stage.
Prior to being with Mr R, I was engaged to my high school boyfriend. I thought I was happy. I didn’t know what happiness was until we broke up and I began my relationship with Mr R. I knew I was going to marry him after I told him exactly what I wanted out of life and a partner on our first date and he didn’t run away screaming.
There was always something in the back of my mind that said my hs bf wasn’t right for me but I had been with him for so long that I didn’t know anything different.
No, it’s never scared me knowing that I’d have to make decisions for him and us. In fact, that’s one of the reasons we decided to marry. I came home one time and he had passed out and hit his head on the toilet (he was extremely sick and passed out while throwing up). I took him to the ER and realized that I had absolutely no power over any decisions related to him because we were just dating. If heaven forbid he was in a coma or something, his parents would go against his wishes because they are extremely religious and he isn’t. I felt helpless.
As for the gross- Mr R and I went through a lot before we got married. One, we lived together for years. I would never ever marry someone without living with them first. It’s hard to hide your gross habits after living with each other for that long. During our dating period, I had to have emergency surgery that resulted in a drain thing and changing my dressings. It was gross but Mr R did it like a champ.
We’ve had a rough go of things. I was diagnosed with lupus and RA only a few months after we married so I’ve been extremely sick for most of our marriage. He has been my everything through it all. The possibility of not having bio children has been thrown at us and he never once let me see it affect him even though I know he wants children more than anything. Without hesitation, he said “ok we’ll adopt then!”
For not getting bored, Mr R and I have pretty separate lives and interests. It drives my best friend/roommate crazy because he can’t figure out how we’re so strong when we do so few things together. It’s all I know though because my parents, who are still disgustingly in love after ~30 years, do the same thing. I don’t feel the need to do everything with him and vice versa. I have no interest in his DnD and he has no interest in politics. That said, if either of us asks for the other to join in x, y, or z we’ll happily do it even if we don’t particularly like it- because we ask so rarely so it clearly means a lot to the asker that the askee be there when one of us does ask. We do love taking vacations and swimming together though so it’s not like we never do anything together
We basically never fight. Our relationship has never been work. It has a lot to do with the fact that we’re both laid-back people.
H and I met after I was working in my field, after we were both done with school. He is 15 years older, but we are very compatible in nearly everything.
By the time we met, we had each dated quite a few people over the years and I had been in 3 long term serious relationships.
We dated for a year and were engaged for a year and married > 31 years now. We did attend an engaged encounter weekend retreat, which is required to get married in the Catholic Church. It clarified how compatible we are in most respects.
We have had some financially lean times, and quite a lot of health issues between us, our folks and our two kids but weathered them together and have been closer due to all the shared experiences.
My life without H would have been very different. We are what we are and our kids have been a product of our relationship. We have no regrets.
Gonna echo what @gouf78 said. ALWAYS put your spouse ahead of your family of origin. He/She should do the same. If you don’t love your potential spouse more than you love your parents, don’t get married. Sounds shocking, but it works.
I didn’t know right away that H was the “right person” for me, but slowly over two years I realized he fitchecked he box on everything I could have asked for and I couldn’t imagine not being with him and looking for someone else. I was very nervous and scared the day we got married, my H was not at all nervous…he was extremely happy. Once we were actually married I never looked in the rear view mirror and I never ever thought about “what if we couldn’t stay married”…ever.
Having our first child was scary. It is for everyone. But just about everyone gets through it and it’s one of those immediate love type things. So no, I never doubted my ability to take care of a baby. Fortunately I’ve never had to take care of my Husband as he is in good health. We did take care of a couple seniors now who have since passed away and yes, I was scared the first time I had to take care of someone I knew I was dying…but you get through it and unless you are totally devoid of compassion it’s not “hard.”
I think everyone has “something” that annoys, maybe even could disgust, a partner, but typically you figure these things out BEFORE you get married and then it’s on you if you accept those traits or if they are so repugnant to you that you shouldn’t get married. Rare would be the thing that would be so well hidden a person would never know before they married.
I’m a huge believer in having friends that are your friends. My husband has friends that I don’t hang out with and I have friends that he doesn’t hang out with. H and I also do things without each other, even vacations sometimes. I think you never get bored with your spouse if you have interests and a personal life…then you always have “stuff” to share. If I cut to the chase, for us, we are not “dependent” on one another. We don’t “need” each other in any sense other than we love each other and want to be together and want to be married. The kids were a by-product of that marriage (so funny so see another poster say that as I thought we were the only ones who say that) so they weren’t essential glue in anyway and I think that was key for us in keeping the marriage together.
Married 31 years.
Wow, @romanigypsyeyes. Give him a hug from me. xx.
DH did not meet all my childhood dreams and fantasies. But I knew his strong points and our bonds would carry us through. Among those were his good will, humor, loyalty, smarts, spirit of adventure, willingness to let me pursue my own path, and more. (So what was missing, lol? Maybe great wealth and the white horse.) Add me to the list of “knew at first sight” (or rather, first conversation.)
Funny thing. In ways, he was there all along. Though we met in grad school across the country, he grew up in the next town to where my grandparents lived. I didn’t know til I met him that we’d been to the same places, ate at the same Chinese restaurant, etc. In important ways, this gave us a similar “frame of reference.”
If we hadn’t connected/lived together and eventually married, I knew he’d be the guy I’d have a later affair with…