35 Things Married Folks Wish All Unmarried People Knew About Marriage

You can't find instantly happy or perfect match, you have to build it.

Don’t get lazy with sex. Now that you’re monogamous, it’s time to explore and grow together. A single partner you can trust and no worries about disease or unwanted pregnancy can lead to the best sex of your life. Marriage is not a sentence to play with yourself for decades. It’s a license to get filthy with your partner! Now that I’ve had a vasectomy and she’s had a hysterectomy, we are having the best sex of our lives because no babies, no periods, no worries!

You don't have to argue or "fight". You're different people and it's OK to not agree on everything. It would be weird if you did!

I see a lot of people "fighting" because they're always trying to get the other person to come around to their point of view. Accept that you're different and have fun together. In addition to loving each other, you should *like* each other.

Your single problems will be your married problems. Marriage and your spouse can't fix you. Work on yourself as much as you can before you get married. For yourself and for your spouse.

Love is a choice. Once you choose to commit to your partner, choose to keep loving them. Choose to respond with love and compassion. Choose to put them first, and vice versa. There are definitely exceptions to this, like abuse and cheating.

If you go into marriage with a self-centered focus and telling yourself you can leave if things get hard, then you will. Marriage isn't transactional, where if they don't meet your needs 100% then you should leave. Marriage really should be a partnership where you are both trying your best and recognizing that what your best is will vary based on your circumstances.

It’s okay to sleep in different rooms. Really. We still have plenty of intimacy, but we both sleep much better and are able to have different schedules.

Getting married WILL NOT help solve any issues in your relationship...

You can feel lonely as F still being in a relationship. You have to love yourself first.

There are good people out there, you can be loved consistently, deeply, and with kindness.

Sex really does get better the longer you work at it.

Marriage changes nothing about a relationship. You’ll be exactly the same after marriage as you were before. Kids on the other hand….

Marriage (and long term relationships in general) are a lot less work if done with the right person.

It seems obvious, but looking through a lot of these comments, I'm seeing disasters of relationships leading to the idea that marriage is a ton of work, or that fights and insults are just something to be expected, or that you have to have a plan for therapy and constant apologies and reconciliation - my wife and I have none of this in our marriage. We're compatible: we enjoy each other's company, respect each other's boundaries, and get along easily.

It seems to me that the tricky part is finding the right person, so that you don't end up with the tricky part of averting divorce and disaster while married to the wrong person. I don't know that there are any magic bullets to that trick, but I can tell you that issues like sitting down with a marriage counselor or learning how to reconcile after a screaming match don't have to be part of navigating a marriage if you're not that incompatible to begin with.

You never marry a girl you marry her whole family.

Divorce is awful and terrible and painful. Before you enter into marriage, realize that the only way out ( except death I guess) is a very painful, public, and traumatizing experience. If you don’t truly believe you can make it work for the rest of your life, don’t do it unless you can handle the train wreck that is divorce.

That the butterflies in the tummy, the wibbles when you see them, the fairytale romance of it all is a big lie. Don't marry that person, it won't end well. And don't have a list of requirements that can change in an instant: good job, money, a certain physique or hair colour, house, car, etc. Three paychecks can change all that. If you must have a list then make it on qualities: kind, funny, tender, honest.

Marry someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, the person you want at your side to share in triumphs and disasters alike. Marry the person who will stick with you for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. Life is very different in your 20s and 30s than it is in your 70s and 80s. Will you clean up their vomit? Will they wipe your backside when you can't? Do you feel you have to hold back on what you tell or show them? Can you fart in front of them? Do you see yourself wiping up their eye gunk in 50 years time?

It's OK to have deal-breakers, but make them good ones. Ours are cheating and hitting. Anything else we can work out. A disagreement does not mean the end of our marriage, it means we need to talk and work out *together* what we're going to do about it. And if it's not the right time for a discussion then say so, talk when you are both well rested, fed and watered, not when you've both arrived home tired and hungry after a shocker of a day in work. Admit that there is a disagreement, but that it doesn't stop you loving each other.

We're 4 and a half years married, 7 years together. We have never had an argument. We disagree sometimes, but we talk it out and know that our disagreement doesn't mean we don't love each other, so if our talk is postponed because I am tired or he is stressed with work, we support each other with those things and talk it out when we're ready to.