Someone Asks People To Share The Harsh Truths About Marriage, And 43 Deliver

If it doesn't work, you may have the dubious pleasure of seeing somebody who you knew *through and through --* someone you knew as well as you know the fit of your own gloves -- turn into a complete and total stranger in front of your eyes.

And I'm not talking about "*you were deluding yourself, the signs were there, you didn't really know them.*" Contrary to what many believe, people *do* change, and not always for the better.

On the bright side, having experienced this, and being able to understand and accept that people change, can make subsequent relationships a whole lot better. It's the disappointment and inability to accept -- or not -- that your partner is no longer the person you met way back when that makes a lot of people (and marriages) miserable.

And the experience also removes the need for a lot of the "work" that folks keep talking about. An awful lot of that is just negotiating around the fact that people have the *right* to change or make mistakes. And they don't always owe you a price or explanation for everything.

If you have stuff that you aren't happy about in yourself, marriage won't sort it out for you. Anxiety, low self esteem, depression, and any other issues are your own responsibility and you are the only one who can sort them out.

Your spouse and you fart in front of each other. Also no one looks good in the morning.

This wasn't harsh for my husband and me, but, it seems that many young people think that they should have 100% of the same level of autonomy and privacy that they had while single even after marriage. When you are in a committed partnership, married or not, you have to have consideration for the other person. You can't just navigate the world as if you were alone and you shouldn't have any meaningful secrets from one another or secrets that can impact your relationship.

If you don't want to be accountable to another person in any way and if you want a lot of privacy, it is probably not a good idea to marry unless you have a partner who also wants exactly that. You don't lose your identity or sense of self (or at least I didn't), but you also have to act more with a sense of being a team first and foremost. People don't struggle with the idea of putting their children first, but they do seem to struggle with the idea of putting their relationship/partner first compared to friends and their family of origin.

As a man in a long marriage of 35 years I learned that women really do perceive the world differently. It takes a long time to grasp these differences. For my wife, the relationship between us is a kind of being greater than us individually which we both (ideally) submit our own needs. If the relationship approves those needs get met. Later in the relationship as I began to explore my needs more and the relationship granted more. I understand this more like symbiosis then as codependence.

You can’t change anyone. Either accept who they are, faults and all, and be happy or don’t marry them.

People stay in them for tons of reasons that have nothing to do with love. Mostly optics I think. I never encourage my kids to get married. I think that piece of paper creates expectations to stay together till the end of time even if you make each other miserable. I always told my sons that if it’s not working, just let it go and move on.

That learning how to fight fairly is really important thing to sustain a marriage.

Marriage is not a 50-50 thing. If all you are giving is 50% you are doomed to fail.


Also, if I feel like my wife isn't meeting my needs, she probably feels the same way, and the only person I have any control over is myself. If I step it up she will notice, feel better about things, and respond by stepping thing up herself.

Harsh truth: Too many people find marriage too hard, because they marry the wrong person. They make terrible choices or are impulsive and immature. Maybe, they’re terrible people themselves, who never look to themselves as the reason things didn’t work out. 

Don’t marry only for looks or money, because of a pregnancy, out of desperation or despair; because your parents arranged it, because you’re the “right age”, because you're “behind” all your friends already doing it, because it “looks good” in your career. 

You marry because you simply cannot imagine living the rest of your life without your favorite person in it; a person who is kind, with whom you share essential values, for whom hard work and sacrifice aren’t really. Whom you can trust and respect. When it’s a situation where every day is a better day, whenever you can talk to or spend time with them.

Don’t marry people who can never tell the truth or who always place the blame on others; who dominate or control you or pick themselves over you—or never out you first, over their friends or family. Don’t be those people yourself, either. 

IOW: marry in haste and repent at leisure. Better to never marry at all, than to settle for less and have to put up with disrespect, infidelity, chaos and damage, for the rest of your life. .

Ladies, your status as a responsible, respected adult will instantly be demoted. One example from my own life to illustrate this common feature of sharing your life with a male: For many years I owned a very nice ocean-front beach house, and payed a local real estate company to oversee it since I lived on the opposite coast. Then I married, and ADDED my husband’s name to the property. (Not dumb, as he did the same) IMMEDIATELY, ALL mail from EVERY Source concerning the house, was addressed with his name, and only his name, as though my (unchanged) name had never been associated with this property. No mistake, just “policy.”.

You have to talk. Even if you’re both introverts! I’m convinced that the majority of marriages fail because the two people just run out of things to talk about, and then they find one another’s company boring, and who can stand to live like that? And then they turn to others to talk with, and pretty soon they have hardly anything in common.

You'll hardly ever get alone time ever again, except in the car.

Having a baby ends a lot of them.

There are ways you feel and moments you experience at 10 years and 20 years in that simply aren’t available to you earlier on in life. Yes having a crush and new love is wonderful, but there are long slow silent moments you will never know about if you don’t stick around for the long haul.

Don’t stay in a bad marriage, keep communication as open as possible, out in the work… but know that life continues to surprise you in good ways even later on.

Do not stop pursuing your spouse after the wedding. There's always somebody else who will pursue them once you take your spouse for granted.

If your goals in life aren’t aligned, you will not maintain a happy marriage for long.

If you're going into marriage hoping that someone will 'complete you,' you will eventually be disappointed since this is not their job.

If people didn't have kids the divorce rate would be higher.

Literally as soon as you get married, women may come out of the woodwork flirting with you. 


I'm assuming it's because you have become less threatening perhaps or maybe you're just safer to flirt with since you've dedicated yourself to one person. 


To be clear I don't believe all of those women want to break up your marriage. Quite the opposite! 


But for the guys out there it is something that should be prepared for.