Beginning of marriage

[Night Elf]

Did anyone talk to you about what you might expect from marriage before the fact? My mom pushed me into marriage before I was ready because she wanted someone to take care of me. I can appreciate why she did that, but despite her failed marriage with my dad, she seemed to have this romantic notion about marriage. She never talked to me about what kinds of problems I might encounter. And at the beginning of my marriage, when I would talk to her about problems I was having, she always took the attitude that I must be doing something wrong. Thankfully, she didn't stay that way. She became very supportive as my marriage started suffering from problems that just seemed overwhelming. She was unable to offer good advice though. My first husband an I had an amicable divorce at least. As I remarried, I knew so much more and that has truly helped me grow as a person and a spouse. My DH felt the same way. He didn't know much about marriage and sometimes had trouble navigating the problems. His first marriage lasted twice as long as mine did, although for half of that they were really individual people. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not at all suggesting that first marriages never work. As much as I love my DH, I can't help but wonder what would it have been like if in my first marriage we had overcome our problems. I was just so young and inexperienced. I wish we had known people who would have talked with us, but our families just kept out of it. At the end, we tried to go to counseling, but it was really too late. I'd like to talk to my children about what makes relationships successful even through troubled times, but I'm not sure how to start or what to say. Is it good or bad for parents to want to talk about marriage to their kids?

 

FWIW, since I was a child of a divorced couple, I talked to my first husband about how to handle our dd when we got divorced. We even took a class that discussed how to handle kids. I think it helped. We were supportive of one another, at least until he remarried. That's a whole different ball of wax though.

[regentrude]

Did anyone talk to you about what you might expect from marriage before the fact?

 

No.

DH and I both had our parents as models for a functional marriage, and we gave ourselves several years to develop and figure out our relationship before tying the knot.

I believe in teaching by example. Nothing I could tell my children now about marriage will have as much effect as observing our life as a married couple while they are growing up.

[Night Elf]

No.

DH and I both had our parents as models for a functional marriage, and we gave ourselves several years to develop and figure out our relationship before tying the knot.

I believe in teaching by example. Nothing I could tell my children now about marriage will have as much effect as observing our life as a married couple while they are growing up.

 

This is true. My dd22 grew up with two families. Both her dad and I remarried when she was young so she didn't remember what it was like when we were married. Her dad's marriage is nothing like mine. The way they relate to one another is a huge contrast to how my DH and I relate to each other. Dd has told me she doesn't want a relationship like her dad has. She got more positive experiences from my marriage.

 

[Tap]

No discussions.

 

Dh and I were together from 18-22yo before we got married, and lived together for at least a year, so we pretty much had the nitty-gritty figured out before the ceremony. LOL 

 

The challenges that we faced in our marriage weren't until many years into our marriage.  No one could have prepped us for those before we got married. 

[unsinkable]

Just the priest who did our pre-marriage counseling.

 

He gave us this compatibility test, and we scored 97% compatible on average for the whole thing. He told us no couple he gave it to had ever scored that high! He said he usually would pick out the biggest discrepancies in the test and explore those topics but since we didnt have any big ones, he was at a loss for a moment. :lol:

[BarbecueMom]

No, my mom has never married, and I was already engaged before my dad married. If they had married each other, they would have divorced, because neither of them are easy people to live with. "Don't be difficult to deal with, and don't marry someone difficult" is the message I took away, and it's worked very well.

[Crimson Wife]

Our church had a required marriage preparation program run by a lady whose day job was as a MFT. It was expensive but really helpful.

 

The issues we've had in our marriage have mostly been from one or the other of us changing his/her mind from what we had discussed and agreed upon during the marriage preparation counseling sessions. We were so young back then (22 and 21) and so optimistic about the future. Back in '98 during the "dot com" boom, we had no clue that within a decade would come the worst economic turbulence since the Great Depression. It has helped to distinguish between being mad at the other spouse and being mad at the external circumstances that have put us into a situation where we disagree about the way out.

 

My parents and my in-laws are both still married so I don't think either of us had any illusions about marriage being all rainbows and butterflies. We knew it would be hard work and would have its ups and downs. But neither of us realized just how tough it was going to be at times because of things way, way beyond either of our control.

[cathmom]

No, no one ever did. Do and I were dating for three years before we got engaged, and then were engaged for another 14 months. We did a weekend retreat for marriage prep and we had already discussed everything they wanted us to discuss. So I was sort of shocked about how difficult the transition was. I don't know if he thought it was, but it was for me. Little things came up all the time. It was difficult dealing with him leaving cups everywhere, even though I'd seen him do it at his mom's house. Our first Christmas was full of things that we had never discussed - white lights on the tree or colored ones? Do we put the angel on top when the tree is put up or on Christmas Eve or Christmas? Oh, and different styles of dealing with money, too. Before we were married, he always used his ATM card and I hardly ever did. So we bounced a few checks that first year because he didn't know that I had written checks to pay bills while I didn't know that he had withdrawn money! The biggest thing for me was that I changed my last name to his. I wanted to. I strongly believed in us having the same last name, and I even liked his better than mine. But getting used to a new name was really hard. I remember thinking, "I don't even know who Firstname Newlastname is!"

 

We got through it fine and celebrate our 20th anniversary this summer, more in love than ever, but, yeah, it was hard. Some warning would have been nice. I'll have to talk to my dc about it before they get married.

[Miss Mousie]

No - we were both over 40 when we married.  We were close friends for more than 20 years, and lived together for about 7, before we got married.  We pretty much knew the ropes.  :)

 

We would have found it odd had someone tried to give us a primer at that point!

 

[fairfarmhand]

No not really.

 

For my dd, we've talked about stuff as we've seen them played out in friends and family's lives.

 

"See that. He married a lazy woman. Look how big of an issue it has become!"

 

One of Her friend's parent's marriages are just...bizzarre.

 

She asked me about it. My synopsis was this. "They both married within a year of their divorces. People usually don't think very clearly during that period. They are still trying to heal from all the hurts. People often make big mistakes when they are making life-changing decisions after a big hurtful event. Now they are divorced again, and it is so sad that everyone has to go through all that crap."

[Mnemosyne]

We didn't talk much about it before hand. I had a positive example in my parents (25 years this September), so I have taken what I learned from them and applied it to my marriage. My husband came from a divorced family, and has very different ideas. I think being around my parents a lot has helped him as well, tbh.

 

Our marriage is definitely a work in progress, but I think every relationship is. We are learning from each other, learning what works and doesn't work. Communication is key for us and something we're working on all the time. We've only been married 3 years at this point, though.

[Crimson Wife]

 Little things came up all the time. It was difficult dealing with him leaving cups everywhere, even though I'd seen him do it at his mom's house. Our first Christmas was full of things that we had never discussed - white lights on the tree or colored ones? Do we put the angel on top when the tree is put up or on Christmas Eve or Christmas?

 

This made me laugh, because if someone had asked me on our 5th wedding anniversary in 2003 I probably would've given a similar answer. But the roller coaster ride of the past 7 years has put those trivial little quibbles into perspective. I definitely miss the early days of our marriage where our disagreements were about things like serving turkey vs. ham for Christmas dinner.

[Desert Strawberry]

I was under the common misconception that if I chose the "right man", everything would work itself out. I spent our entire courtship, engagement, and most of the first year of our marriage (3 years total) discussing every possible expectation, outcome, contingency, and circumstance. I believed if we had a plan for every possibility, we would be prepared for anything.

Unfortunately, as soon as we hit a minor bump in the road, as all marriages continually do, I was convinced it had all been a big mistake. Added to that a husband who was waiting for me to abandon him, and sadly, we haven't had the easiest time of it.

 

I make a point to talk to my son's about both choosing a mate wisely-none of that love at first sight, soul mate, Destiny, the One nonsense-but also how to make a marriage work. The wedding is the starting line, not the finish line.

[Night Elf]

No discussions.

 

Dh and I were together from 18-22yo before we got married, and lived together for at least a year, so we pretty much had the nitty-gritty figured out before the ceremony. LOL 

 

The challenges that we faced in our marriage weren't until many years into our marriage.  No one could have prepped us for those before we got married. 

 

My first husband and I lived together for a year after dating for a year. I thought we knew one another pretty well, but for some reason being married was just different. It was all just so serious when just living together was fun. We had a roommate for that year too and that worked better than we just lived alone.

 

[fraidycat]

My mom repeatedly told all of us growing up that it would take AT LEAST ten years for us to learn all the ins and outs of marriage and learn full acceptance and living with your partner for the long haul. She was adamant that unless extreme issues (cheating or beating) you must give it at least ten years before you can make an informed decision re: staying or leaving.

 

She and my dad married young, still 'make out' in front of us kids and now the grandkids, and have been married 41 years so far.

[Scrub Jay]

No but DH and I were together for 5 years before getting married, close friends for 2 years before that and lived together for 4 years.  We felt married already, just without the papers.

[Aiden]

None of our family tried to talk to us about marriage before we married ... and if they had, based on the states of their marriages at the time (and continuing through to today), I would have done exactly the opposite of whatever they recommended anyway--some of them have tried to give marriage advice since that time, but we almost never take it, and we are not divorced and have never considered divorce, nor have either of us ever threatened to leave the other if something didn't change, which makes us unique in our family.

 

The pastor did what he called premarital counseling ... we shared a meal with him and he talked to us for about 20 minutes.

 

We decided not to pay for real premarital counseling from a licensed therapist/counselor, but only because we'd been long distance for a long time and had spent a lot of time discussing ALL the hot button issues over the phone--much more talking, much less other stuff when you're long distance. Even then, we did buy a premarital workbook from the Christian book store and worked through it together to make sure we hadn't misssed anything. If we hadn't felt pretty confident that we'd talked things out and were compatible on all the major issues (money management, having and rearing children, religion, household roles, even where we'd live and how much my husband would travel for work), we would have paid for real counseling. We'd both seen, and lived as children of, miserable marriages, and we were determined that we wouldn't do that to ourselves or to our future children, but as Christians, divorce also was not an option. We had to get it right on the first try, and we were willing to do a lot of work to make sure we did.

[trinchick]

We did have church counseling from our priest (married, Episcopalian), which was very nice, but I don't think I was open to it being anything more than just a step towards the wedding as opposed to actual marriage preparation.

 

My father died when I was 4 and my mother never remarried. I didn't have any good model of how marriage should be - good, bad, or otherwise. I was not very good at first. I engaged in lots of power struggles with DH and frankly browbeat him. I was very unhappy. I disliked myself. I know he couldn't have been happy, either. Fortunately, our marriage survived that bumpy first year.

 

Not sure how or why, but I was able to turn that off, and I've become a far better team member. I am better at choosing my battles and recognizing that DH is his own person. He is a working adult and can make choices for himself that may not be exactly what I would do. I expect him to offer me the same degree of latitude, and he does.

 

My most recent discovery, though, is a sad one. I think DH used to really adore me and I don't believe that's the case any more. I attribute a lot of this to myself. I don't show him enough that he's appreciated. I don't show him that I think our marriage is important - or as least as important as the kids. I'm going to try to proactively work on this, but I'm not sure where to start.

[maize]

Can't say I talked much with anyone, but dh and I both had a variety of examples of long-term successful marriages to look to. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, cousins...divorce is extremely rare in both families, so we had seen people navigate through good times and tough times, with different approaches and different personalities; we just figured we could make it work. I will say the one thing I have been extremely grateful for is the complete support of both sets of parents--my inlaws in particular have been amazing.

[dirty ethel rackham]

Both dh and I had parents with mostly functional, intact marriages as our examples.  I can't say that either of our families instructed us explicitly about marriage.  But, as Catholics, we took the church's teachings on divorce very seriously.  The premarital questionnaire highlighted a few issues that we needed to talk about.  The Engaged Encounter weekend helped us learn a lot of tools that were helpful in our relationship.  We were in our late 20's when we got married, but I have to say that dh, despite his limited dating experience before me, was way more mature as far as expectations in our relationship.  I still had to unlearn that Harlequin Romance Happy Ending philosophy and learn to live in the real world.  Our first year was tough, partially because I had the expectation that marriage would make "everything all better" and partially because we had some major stresses that first year (my dad's first bout with cancer at the same time that dh contracted mono.) 

 

Early in our marriage, there were people who kept insisting on "date nights" even though I was nursing young children who needed me to sleep.  I was very naturally lead to "attachment-style parenting" long before I knew it had a name.  There were times that parenting was just so all-consuming, especially with my second child who was very high-need.  Date night just seemed like another chore.  Those people who kept insisting that I was not being "fair to my husband" ... many of them are not married any more.  But, dh and I are entering a new season of our marriage as our kids are growing and leaving us.  We need to find new ways to connect with each other . 

[Laura Corin]

Husband and I lived together for several years before we married, so we had a fair idea what marriage would feel like.

 

L

[Kathryn]

No. And someone should have. We really, really should have had some premarital counseling. I've written and erased a lot more, but out of respect for my husband and children, I won't go into details. Neither of us had examples of a good marriage. We were young. I was a very different person.

[marbel]

When I got married the first time, no one talked to me about anything.  I think my mom said something like "well, I guess you both know what you want."  Um thanks.  In retrospect, I think she was biting her tongue because that marriage was a mistake from about day 1.

 

Second time around, the church required pre-marital counseling with the pastor.  It was a very good experience and I recommend everyone go through some form of counseling suited to their particular beliefs/philosophy.  It just helps the couple think of things and talk about things that might not occur to them otherwise.   At the time it seemed particularly important for us since it was 2nd marriage for both.  Now my husband and I are in the midst of conducting pre-marital counseling for a couple couples (hahaha) at our church.    It's very interesting to look at the questions in the book we're using and see what sorts of mistakes we still make.  :lol:    Like, just how did we run out of coffee Monday morning?  :cursing:

[coffeegal]

Did anyone talk to you about what you might expect from marriage before the fact? My mom pushed me into marriage before I was ready because she wanted someone to take care of me. I can appreciate why she did that, but despite her failed marriage with my dad, she seemed to have this romantic notion about marriage. She never talked to me about what kinds of problems I might encounter. And at the beginning of my marriage, when I would talk to her about problems I was having, she always took the attitude that I must be doing something wrong. Thankfully, she didn't stay that way. She became very supportive as my marriage started suffering from problems that just seemed overwhelming. She was unable to offer good advice though. My first husband an I had an amicable divorce at least. As I remarried, I knew so much more and that has truly helped me grow as a person and a spouse. My DH felt the same way. He didn't know much about marriage and sometimes had trouble navigating the problems. His first marriage lasted twice as long as mine did, although for half of that they were really individual people. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not at all suggesting that first marriages never work. As much as I love my DH, I can't help but wonder what would it have been like if in my first marriage we had overcome our problems. I was just so young and inexperienced. I wish we had known people who would have talked with us, but our families just kept out of it. At the end, we tried to go to counseling, but it was really too late. I'd like to talk to my children about what makes relationships successful even through troubled times, but I'm not sure how to start or what to say. Is it good or bad for parents to want to talk about marriage to their kids?

 

FWIW, since I was a child of a divorced couple, I talked to my first husband about how to handle our dd when we got divorced. We even took a class that discussed how to handle kids. I think it helped. We were supportive of one another, at least until he remarried. That's a whole different ball of wax though.

 

[OneStepAtATime]

Briefly, by our minister.  Great guy but DH and I had been friends for a few years.  We felt we knew each other really well.  We had worked together for several years, too.  Both of our parents were still married and our grandparents had stayed married.  We got along really well and had a lot of common interests.   And we were extremely lucky that my family and his get along well.  I love my in-laws and he loves my family (especially my mom).  Honestly, we were pretty cocky about the whole thing.   :)

 

But once we were actually married and moved away from family, we discovered that things are not quite the same.  We had never discussed finances, for one thing, and had a lot of misunderstandings regarding that.  He just had such a different view from me.  There were days when I couldn't sleep from all the stress and strain and felt like a complete failure as a wife.  

 

We finally worked those out but then we had kids.  DH had no clue how to handle juggling a wife and kids and work, etc.  He traveled constantly and would come home from hotels and maids and full course meals to a crying baby and a dog with health issues and an exhausted wife trying to balance children, being essentially a single parent and running her grandmother's business.  We were not on the same page anymore.  It was a huge strain.  We struggled and didn't really need to.   Could someone have warned us about all of this in advance?  Well, some of it yes, I think maybe.  But not a lot of it.  We didn't really need a great pep talk before heading down the aisle.  We needed long term team discussions with an outside, neutral source that could help us communicate throughout all the changes and life shifts that were taking us away from the strengths we started out with.  

 

DH is a great guy.  We have now been married nearly 2 decades and thankfully are still friends and still love each other but there have been a lot of needless misunderstandings and hurtful situations.  I hope with all my heart we will continue to keep working on the weaknesses while shoring up the strengths. I just wish we had had some plans in place and some outside, neutral help with communication and understanding each other in those earlier years.   

 

For our kids, though, I would like there to be more than just hope.  Divorce is so high.  And so much pain can happen.  We have not always been the best example of how to work out problems for our kids.  We tended to stick our head in the sand and hope it would all go away (although we are a lot better with communicating about the hard stuff now).  I WISH it were just  standard practice that all new couples get helpful counseling in the weeks before marriage and then the first year of marriage and then maybe follow up visits every few months throughout marriage.  Maybe anyone who doesn't want it doesn't have to, but the norm is that you just do instead of it being a last ditch effort after there is too much water under the bridge. KWIM?

 

Best wishes.

[PrairieSong]

We both had good parents who were married more than 50 years (3 of 4 are deceased). However, my parents were gushy romantics. They were also responsible professional people. But...my mother asked me once when dh and and I had been dating a while, "Do you think you'll marry him?" I replied, "Well, we've talked about it." My mother was shocked. "TALKED about it? What is there to TALK about?" I told her, everything, Mom!! Where we might want to live, kids, jobs, finances, expectations. In her mind, the man pops the question and the woman screams, cries, and says, "YES!!!" No discussing anything beforehand.

 

It was the funniest conversation. Her view of engagement and marriage was straight out of an old Hollywood movie, yet they did have their storms and bumps in the road, as everyone does.

 

Our marriage prep consisted of an Engaged Encounter weekend, but NO ONE, not even the priest who performed the ceremony, talked with us about anything. We listened to speakers over the weekend and had a chance to reflect and talk to just each other after each speaker. These days couples meet with the priest quite a few times before the wedding. But...we've been married over 30 years now and still going strong!

[coffeegal]

Did anyone talk to you about what you might expect from marriage before the fact?

 

Yes, my mom spoke to me briefly several times about who to marry and how hard marriage is and how it takes work. There are times in every marriage you want out. The church also required premarital counseling before we married.

 

Mom and Dad married young and are still happily married. Dh and I are coming up quickly on 20 years.

[lavender's green]

No family or friends talked to us about it.  I don't know how much I would have listened, anyway, given their marriages!

 

The therapist I was seeing at the time, for a different reason, did say, as a general remark, to "marry him for who he is, and never, ever try to change him."  She said that so much marital strife can be traced to that!

 

We do have a happy marriage, with only some small bumps along the way.  I think we place a lot of emphasis on resolving things peacefully and productively.  That said, we've only been married for 5 years later this month, so I probably know next to nothing about the really big ups and downs!

 

I think that pre-martial counseling from a pastor would have been nice, mainly so we'd have something to refer back to when something happens.  A blueprint for how to go about resolving it.  I'll encourage my kids to get counseling.

[shawthorne44]

No, my mom has never married, and I was already engaged before my dad married. If they had married each other, they would have divorced, because neither of them are easy people to live with. "Don't be difficult to deal with, and don't marry someone difficult" is the message I took away, and it's worked very well.

 

I had a similar theory, although my parents are still married and happy-ish.  

 

But, I married late and previous relationships had taught me that love is easy.  Finding someone you love that you won't want to kill in a few years is much much more difficult.  

 

DH and I are ridiculously compatible.  Sometimes when I am mad because he says something like, "That dish isn't dirty.  It has a film on it.  Dirt is dirt", I remember that I'd want someone just like him if I went looking for someone else.  

 

We went through a book, "100 questions to ask before you marry" or something like that.  it went amazingly quick because we agreed on everything except "Dog: Inside or Outside".  

 

Tivo was helpful too.  While engaged and in the thinking stage ahead of time stage, we would pause the TV and discuss things.  I know he learned that I was really really really serious about thinking cheaters are low-lives.  

[73349]

His church required us to do a premarital workshop thing before we married. We were told at the end that our compatibility scores were low (only 66%). I looked over at his answer sheet. He had chosen "not sure" instead of yes or no unless he was definitely, completely, 100% sure we had discussed and agreed on something, and he remembered the conversation. :lol:  You don't give this guy a "not sure" option!

 

I would not have taken marital advice from my parents, who do not have a successful track record. His parents have been married long but not always very joyfully, from what I gather. I recommend some premarital counseling to engaged couples, even if it's not required.

[bnbacademy]

We participated in pre-marital counseling from our pastor and had an 8 month engagement period. We both had parents with stable marriages as examples. We are two nearly opposite personalities, so sometimes I need to remind myself that I appreciate the differences, not resent them.  

[LikeToListen]

No.  Most of our days together remind me of this one I read sometime ago...

 

"Marriage is about two imperfect people not wanting to give up on each other". LOL

 

That defines us.  Its been five years and its getting better now.  We still have a long way to go :)

 

Having seen our parents and siblings, I knew about it.  But I would say, my marriage has helped me mature in the way I see people and appreciate the differences (DH and I are way different in a lot of things).

 

[FaithManor]

As a general rule, my parents were great parents and very supportive of my decisions. But, like many from their generation, they didn't talk about marriage per se and they definitely didn't talk about sex. Thankfully, dh and I dated for a year and were engaged for a year and we spent a LOT of time talking about marriage, boundaries, expectations, reality vs. ideal, etc.

The pastor that married us had three counseling sessions prior to the wedding and these were completely unhelpful. The one on communication involved us going into separate rooms, watching a video, and then writing down our thoughts and exchanging the notes but we weren't supposed to talk.  :glare: That was the best of the three sessions so you can imagine the uselessness of this "counseling".

 

We are generally pretty open parents with our kids, and talk honestly about marriage, finances, having kids, in-laws, sex....dd was very well prepped going into her marriage, and our son-in-law is literally her soul mate. I can't imagine she could have ever found anyone more compatible than he. The boys are being very pragmatic about relationships. They are very goal oriented towards college and certain degrees, certain kinds of jobs. They have seen their friends get hung up in a lot of teen drama over relationships that one or the other party, maybe even both, took too seriously too young. They do not desire to date at this time and all three have said they really don't want to think about that kind of thing until they are into their junior year of college so they won't be tempted to marry before graduation. They know that dh and I married when I still had one year to go and it was a struggle with his job demands, which included some travel, finances, setting up household, etc. for me to finish and keep up good grades. DD chose to do the same thing...marry with a year to go. But, she opted to do so inspite of my experience and has never complained once. She is now set to graduate in 2015 and doesn't mind that her honorary sister remained single and graduated in 2013. Everyone needs to find the path that works best for them.

 

Dh and I are so compatible it's crazy. The bloom never did fall off the rose. I was engaged briefly once before dh, and am so glad that I had the sense to break it off because that person was no where near the person that dh is and there would have been major incompatibility issues.

[Mrs Mungo]

I wouldn't say anyone specifically and directly talked to me about marriage. But, I do come from a big family with some very good and some very, very bad examples of what marriage looks like. We both try to be adults, we both try to voice our feelings and opinions, we both try to take the other person into consideration, we have had to work hard at a few issues. 

 

 

This made me laugh, because if someone had asked me on our 5th wedding anniversary in 2003 I probably would've given a similar answer. But the roller coaster ride of the past 7 years has put those trivial little quibbles into perspective. I definitely miss the early days of our marriage where our disagreements were about things like serving turkey vs. ham for Christmas dinner.

 

 

I do agree that those early disagreements would be a lot easier to negotiate now, but I also think that navigating and negotiating all of those little disagreements helps you figure out how to deal with the big issues later on. If you learn to speak your mind and negotiate early on, then you have some practice before you get to the big issues. Few people have big issues right away, kwim?

[LostSurprise]

No. Other than every woman in the family telling me not to get involved too early, hold off and have some non-guy-related fun. 

 

I'm kind of glad they didn't. There were some hints that they thought dh was 'not good enough for me' which were thankfully held back by my parents' own marriage problems. Even though my father never said it out loud, he apologized to both of us separately a few years ago. He told dh he was a better husband and father than he was at our age. 

 

We had a remarkably smooth transition. I'm hyper-analytic and we didn't marry until I felt comfortable. We started as platonic friends and would rather do things together than with anyone else.  I don't think any of the subtleties came into play until we'd been married a few years and had a few babies. We were mature enough to yell a little, slam a door, and then sit down and tweak the variables in this great psychological experiment known as our marriage.  ;)  We were secure enough to want the best for each other and to make little changes until something worked. 

 

 

 

 

[gardenmom5]

:ohmy: :huh: :ohmy: :huh: :svengo:

I think it's good to talk to kids about relationships in general.  that sometimes things are easy and other times things are hard because that is just how life is.

Did anyone talk to you about what you might expect from marriage before the fact? My mom pushed me into marriage

   

 

 Is it good or bad for parents to want to talk about marriage to their kids?

 

FWIW, since I was a child of a divorced couple, I talked to my first husband about how to handle our dd when we got divorced. We even took a class that discussed how to handle kids. I think it helped. We were supportive of one another, at least until he remarried. That's a whole different ball of wax though.

 

my parents talked about getting a divorce (and as I child I was aware of that.) my father od when I was 12 - so that was the end of that.

 

I had a lot of opposition to my marriage because I was young and he wasn't.  honestly, I think some would have opposed no matter what.  we've been married 32 years.

[lamppost]

My most recent discovery, though, is a sad one. I think DH used to really adore me and I don't believe that's the case any more. I attribute a lot of this to myself. I don't show him enough that he's appreciated. I don't show him that I think our marriage is important - or as least as important as the kids. I'm going to try to proactively work on this, but I'm not sure where to start.

Have you heard of the Five Love Languages? There's a book & a quiz you can take to learn about the different ways you and your partner like to be loved.

[6packofun]

 

I believe in teaching by example. Nothing I could tell my children now about marriage will have as much effect as observing our life as a married couple while they are growing up.

 

I pray there is more hope than that for those of us who want our children to be *happier* in marriage than we are, even though ours is still happy, just not the best that it could have been and could be.  Our modeling will never be as good enough as I want for my children.

 

I try to strike a delicate balance in telling my girls what things might give a clue that the man they are interested in may not turn out to be the best choice without being obvious that many of those traits are found in their father.  I'm sure they are not ignorant of this, but there are flaws and then there are flaws that one wishes one did not have to live with forever, kwim?  lol

 

There is more than marrying for love.  You may love someone who is not a good candidate for being married at all, even though they are a decent person who truly loves you, shares your beliefs, etc.  Identify the flaws in the person you love and decide if you can live with them if they NEVER, ever change.  And realize that he should be doing the same of you.  Very unromantic and practical, but there you have it.

[NoseInABook]

No one really talked about marriage much. We didn't do premarital counseling either. We married young, I was 21 and he was 23. We'd been together for 2 years prior to marriage. We were the first of our friend group to marry and most of them *still* haven't married. My parents are divorced, their parents had divorced, there's divorce everywhere on my side of the family. DH's parents are still together but not very happy.

 

We got the kinks out before we were married as we moved in together after only dating for 10 months! I wouldn't recommend that to many but we went through our time of, "I'm not sure this is going to work, I may have to murder this person..." in five months of living in an efficiency apartment together. We then moved into a bigger apartment and I knew it was forever. We're very compatible. 10 years later, 8 of marriage this summer, and we're happy as clams together. There is absolutely no one I'd rather be with and I still do get butterflies with him. Not all of the time but they are there. ;)

[HRAAB]

No.  We did attend a marriage preparation class through the church, but it was truly a waste of time.  Neither my parents nor his parents really talked to us about marriage either.

 

What I see as positives for us:

 

Parents on both sides had long term, working marriages.  In-laws' marriage wasn't perfect, but worked.  My parents overcame a very bad period and ended up very happy and devoted to one another.  Dh and I discussed this - what had gone wrong, what had gone right.

 

We dated for almost 4 yrs before marrying.

 

I was 25, he was 27.

 

Both of us had lived on our own for most of our adult years.  

 

Even so, it wasn't all a bed of roses early on, but I think the above points helped us make it work.  I would have appreciated an older, married woman as a mentor at times as I could have used some advice.  Then I wonder if I would have listened.  Still, I think having someone there for support would have been helpful.

 

It's odd.  I was very, very close to my parents.  My mom and I were best friends.  Yet I never asked her for marriage advice, and she never interfered.  

 

 

[basketcase]

My husband and I have a fabulous marriage, and both of us came from homes with amazing marriages. That modeling is certainly very important. I don't think my husband's parents talked about marriage much, but mine did. They were quite open to discussing it with us, but never used it as a time to complain about each other.

 

A few marital rules my mother taught me: Never speak badly about your spouse to others. Support the other parent's decision. Don't spend more than $100 without discussing it with your spouse. Total fidelity - don't even ride in a car alone with another man.

 

Getting along with my husband came naturally because I had watched my parents control their tempers. It was clear that they were sometimes upset, but they chose not to take it out on each other. Encouraging my personal development and independence comes naturally to my husband because his dad supported my MIL's many small businesses. (Morally more than financially.)

 

ETA: I don't discuss my marriage with my parents. I just learned from them growing up. My husband and I spent our first year of marriage abroad, learned how to be married without any interference, and haven't looked back.

[Guest inoubliable]

No. 
DH and I talked about how we wanted our marriage to work. It's going on 12 years now. 

[speedmom4]

We had premarital counseling through our Church which was nice but not particularly helpful. The best advice I ever got was from my mother. She said you will fall in and out of love with your spouse over the course of a marriage. That was extremely helpful advice. It helped me know that if I didn't particularly like my husband at some point it would get better. I never had a particularly romantic view of marriage which has served me well. My husband isn't very romantic or sensitive but that doesn't make me feel unloved. We have been married going on 20 years and I love my husband more now than ever. I truly believe that marriage is about so much more than feelings. Companionship is the most important factor in the success of our marriage. My husband is still my best friend.

 

Elise in NC

[G5052]

It helped that we were both in our 30's and had seen friends and family make both good and bad choices.  My side of the family is pretty dysfunctional, but I had pretty much rejected their way of relating by then and was on my way.  DH and I read several premarital books together when we were getting serious, and pretty much had things worked out by the time we were engaged.  We had dinner with the preacher and his wife who married us and discussed a few issues, but he knew us well already and didn't feel that we wouldn't have any problems beyond what most couples have.

 

Since then it has been mostly the external events that have given us trouble, not who we are at our core.  Thankfully we work together as a team.

[foxbridgeacademy]

We did have church counseling from our priest (married, Episcopalian), which was very nice, but I don't think I was open to it being anything more than just a step towards the wedding as opposed to actual marriage preparation.

 

My father died when I was 4 and my mother never remarried. I didn't have any good model of how marriage should be - good, bad, or otherwise. I was not very good at first. I engaged in lots of power struggles with DH and frankly browbeat him. I was very unhappy. I disliked myself. I know he couldn't have been happy, either. Fortunately, our marriage survived that bumpy first year.

 

Not sure how or why, but I was able to turn that off, and I've become a far better team member. I am better at choosing my battles and recognizing that DH is his own person. He is a working adult and can make choices for himself that may not be exactly what I would do. I expect him to offer me the same degree of latitude, and he does.

 

My most recent discovery, though, is a sad one. I think DH used to really adore me and I don't believe that's the case any more. I attribute a lot of this to myself. I don't show him enough that he's appreciated. I don't show him that I think our marriage is important - or as least as important as the kids. I'm going to try to proactively work on this, but I'm not sure where to start.

I found when I stopped "yelling" so much and stopped taking everything so seriously my husband started to, as you say, adore me again.  So don't be discouraged, it just takes a little longer (and is a lot harder) then you would expect.  I still put the kids first but we are both in full agreement about that.

[AmandaVT]

DH and I both have divorced parents, so we learned a good bit about what not to do in a marriage. We also lived together for 5 years before getting married, so we had worked out the kinks by the time we actually formalized things. :-)

[trinchick]

I found when I stopped "yelling" so much and stopped taking everything so seriously my husband started to, as you say, adore me again.  So don't be discouraged, it just takes a little longer (and is a lot harder) then you would expect.  I still put the kids first but we are both in full agreement about that.

 

It's strange. At the beginning of our marriage, I was the yeller and nitpicker. I definitely had a vision of how our life would be and if everything didn't fall into place, I went berserk. Toothpaste globs in the sink = cause for battle. Spent too much money on lunch out at work instead of eating packed lunch = major infraction. We've undergone a huge role reversal here. For the past several years I've taken the "what's the big deal" perspective while he's gone bananas over every little detail in life. And of course, kids change everything. 

 

That said, we've been married for 15 years come September. I think every marriage (or relationship really) goes through a variety of seasons. We're in romantic hibernation right now. I need to push myself to make the effort to take us back into summer - or at least into spring (I'd even consider it a success to get to an early, chilly spring).

 

Like a PP I need to think about the marriages I want my children to have. If I think it's worth it and valuable for them, I have to start thinking that the effort is worth it and valuable for myself, too. And then do it.

[Guest]

No, I didn't get any briefing on marriage. Neither of our parents were divorced, though, so there is something to be said for example. However, I would not want a marriage overly much like my parents' marriage. If anything, I took more observations from DH's parents.

 

I do think it is smart to talk about some aspects of marriage long before the fact. I have given some general advice about relationships, such as, "when you marry someone, you marry their whole family, so think about how that will be."

 

IMO, the most probable way to make a marriage last is to decide to stay married. Of course, this only works if your spouse makes the same decision.

[sbgrace]

No one talked to us.

 

Both of our sets of parents are still married. I think that makes both of us more "expect ups and downs, and stick through thick and thin" than maybe we would be otherwise.

 

We married relatively young and definitely immature. I don't think either of our parent's marriages are ideally healthy, but they were way different. So we came at marriage with extremely different expectations. Neither of us, though, expected perfect.  Good thing..because we're not the easy marriage/very compatible sorts of people as it turns out!

[mrsrevmeg]

Many, many people told us we should not be getting married. We were too young. We should live a little, blah blah, blah. Our church required pre-marital counseling, but all the pastor said was "Make sure you use birth control in the early years."  My husband's uncle is the minister that married us. His brother, sister, and several cousins who had been married by this uncle told us that his counseling would make us think that he was trying to talk us out of marrying each other. He actually told us that even though we were young, he knew that we were mature and responsible and he hoped that God blessed our marriage. In retrospect, all but one of the couples that warned us are divorced. Maybe he was trying to talk them out of it.