I’ve considered it a good thing to get the “You’re making a mistake” pushback for things like marriage and kids. Because it is hard and you do have to give up and lot of things for it, so you had better be damn sure thats what you want.
You should be able to hear that (from certain types of people) and think “what the hell do they know?”. And if you do think “oh, damn, am I making a mistake?” then you should really fully stop and consider that question.
I think it’s easy for people to fall into the traps of thinking marriage and kids are just the next steps in life and things will get better when you’re married. Marriage doesn’t make anything better.
A lot of people say things like “marriage is great, but its a lot of work”. Those are the people that I’m like “really? Sounds like you maybe did make a mistake there” because (and I’m not expert, I’ve only been married once) it’s really easy being married to my wife.
A lot of people say things like “marriage is great, but its a lot of work”. Those are the people that I’m like “really? Sounds like you maybe did make a mistake there” because (and I’m not expert, I’ve only been married once) it’s really easy being married to my wife.
I think you may not be understanding the meaning of “marriage is great, but its a lot of work”. Its not like work meaning carrying lots of bags of gravel or something.
The “hard work” in marriage is being truly open to communication, working hard yourself to communicate accurately, and being honestly self reflective. Its recognizing your own shortcomings, and trying to better yourself, but also being open to being told by your mate where your thoughts or efforts or deficient. A natural human reaction is to be defensive, possibly even striking back with your own criticisms of the other person in the moment, but that’s immaturity. Its hard work making real positive changes in yourself as the result of all of this.
When you have a mate you love and a mate that loves you, you can know these are things not said in malice, but in a genuine effort to make you a better person. All of this is a balance with your own sense of self-worth and critical thinking to properly evaluate your internal and the external criticism.
All of that is hard work.
Then there’s another part too that I’m seeing in the years ahead: seeing your spouse’s health decline and being their caregiver as your own health is failing from age at the same time. Alternatively, being that first declining health spouse, and watching your mate grow ever more tired caring for you. All of this effort are expressions of love, but it is most certainly hard work.
A lot of people say things like “marriage is great, but its a lot of work”. Those are the people that I’m like “really? Sounds like you maybe did make a mistake there” because (and I’m not expert, I’ve only been married once) it’s really easy being married to my wife.
Just wanted to point this out.
Life is supposed to be hard , Marriage isn’t supposed to be.
Nah I would disagree… 99% of marriage is just pure fun. However people forget about 1% that is relationship maintenance. This is work. Not the hardest work, but work.
But some people just ignore the fact you should take special care of this relationship. People can very easliy and slowly grow apart…
The hardest example is if a married person starys getting in love with someone else. This is common and noone is imune to this. However having a doscussion about this with your partner is unplesent and would more likely fall into a category of hard work as compared to category of fun…
Probably I am just disagreeing with the how much ‘a lot’ represents…
Relationship maintenance not being exclusive to marriage does not make it suddenly fun.
First do note I distinguish between loving someone and falling in love. My native language have two different words. One for the deep connection (being in love) and one for temporary feeling (deeply loving).
Married people falling in love (temporary feeling) is common. Not saying it happens to everyone every day. But you do not imagine people around you would often tell you about this really sensitive private topic?
Imagine you suddenly get a hot and a really friendly coworker that you have to spend time with them every day working on a project. It is in nature of falling in love to fall in love with a person you spend this much time with.
How on earth do you imagine there is so much cheating and divorce (especially with coworkers) in the world? People misinterpret a temporary feeling for a deep connection. And some even for destiny… This of course often leads to cheating.
I think we are again just differently interpreting a subjective word “often”.
In my opinion people saying marriage is happy but it is a lot of work just mean, you should not forget about relationship maintenance.
There are reasons 40% of people in relationships end up cheating. And I do not believe it is because couples are just incompatible. In my opinion this is a natural outcome of letting yourself grow apart from your spouse. And not being careful about getting attached to new people. And both are just symptoms of leaving out the “hard work” of the relationship maintenance.
You can feel how you feel and have wants. It’s up to you to respect the other person enough to let them know they need to move on.
People don’t cheat because of a lack of relationship maintenance. It’s a lack of respect.
Cheating indicates a lack of respect for the significant other to break things off. If there is a situation where you can’t leave the relationship then you’re not in a position to cheat, because you can’t be good partner for the other person.
It’s the same as finding a wallet and taking all of the cash. You should try and return the wallet, not take the cash.
This is the same thing. Maintaining trust, maintaining respect, maintaining spark, maintaining romance etc… All this falls into a category of maintaining relationship. And failure of maintaining each category can lead to disintegration of marriage…
I’ve considered it a good thing to get the “You’re making a mistake” pushback for things like marriage and kids. Because it is hard and you do have to give up and lot of things for it, so you had better be damn sure thats what you want.
You should be able to hear that (from certain types of people) and think “what the hell do they know?”. And if you do think “oh, damn, am I making a mistake?” then you should really fully stop and consider that question.
I think it’s easy for people to fall into the traps of thinking marriage and kids are just the next steps in life and things will get better when you’re married. Marriage doesn’t make anything better.
A lot of people say things like “marriage is great, but its a lot of work”. Those are the people that I’m like “really? Sounds like you maybe did make a mistake there” because (and I’m not expert, I’ve only been married once) it’s really easy being married to my wife.
I think you may not be understanding the meaning of “marriage is great, but its a lot of work”. Its not like work meaning carrying lots of bags of gravel or something.
The “hard work” in marriage is being truly open to communication, working hard yourself to communicate accurately, and being honestly self reflective. Its recognizing your own shortcomings, and trying to better yourself, but also being open to being told by your mate where your thoughts or efforts or deficient. A natural human reaction is to be defensive, possibly even striking back with your own criticisms of the other person in the moment, but that’s immaturity. Its hard work making real positive changes in yourself as the result of all of this.
When you have a mate you love and a mate that loves you, you can know these are things not said in malice, but in a genuine effort to make you a better person. All of this is a balance with your own sense of self-worth and critical thinking to properly evaluate your internal and the external criticism.
All of that is hard work.
Then there’s another part too that I’m seeing in the years ahead: seeing your spouse’s health decline and being their caregiver as your own health is failing from age at the same time. Alternatively, being that first declining health spouse, and watching your mate grow ever more tired caring for you. All of this effort are expressions of love, but it is most certainly hard work.
Just wanted to point this out. Life is supposed to be hard , Marriage isn’t supposed to be.
Nah I would disagree… 99% of marriage is just pure fun. However people forget about 1% that is relationship maintenance. This is work. Not the hardest work, but work.
But some people just ignore the fact you should take special care of this relationship. People can very easliy and slowly grow apart…
The hardest example is if a married person starys getting in love with someone else. This is common and noone is imune to this. However having a doscussion about this with your partner is unplesent and would more likely fall into a category of hard work as compared to category of fun…
Probably I am just disagreeing with the how much ‘a lot’ represents…
Relationship maintenance isn’t exclusive to marriage. It’s just a part of life.
also
Nah man. Not common at all. Not saying it doesn’t happen but I’d really need to see something that this is ‘common’
Relationship maintenance not being exclusive to marriage does not make it suddenly fun.
First do note I distinguish between loving someone and falling in love. My native language have two different words. One for the deep connection (being in love) and one for temporary feeling (deeply loving).
Married people falling in love (temporary feeling) is common. Not saying it happens to everyone every day. But you do not imagine people around you would often tell you about this really sensitive private topic?
Imagine you suddenly get a hot and a really friendly coworker that you have to spend time with them every day working on a project. It is in nature of falling in love to fall in love with a person you spend this much time with.
How on earth do you imagine there is so much cheating and divorce (especially with coworkers) in the world? People misinterpret a temporary feeling for a deep connection. And some even for destiny… This of course often leads to cheating.
I think we are again just differently interpreting a subjective word “often”.
In my opinion people saying marriage is happy but it is a lot of work just mean, you should not forget about relationship maintenance. There are reasons 40% of people in relationships end up cheating. And I do not believe it is because couples are just incompatible. In my opinion this is a natural outcome of letting yourself grow apart from your spouse. And not being careful about getting attached to new people. And both are just symptoms of leaving out the “hard work” of the relationship maintenance.
You can feel how you feel and have wants. It’s up to you to respect the other person enough to let them know they need to move on.
People don’t cheat because of a lack of relationship maintenance. It’s a lack of respect.
Cheating indicates a lack of respect for the significant other to break things off. If there is a situation where you can’t leave the relationship then you’re not in a position to cheat, because you can’t be good partner for the other person.
It’s the same as finding a wallet and taking all of the cash. You should try and return the wallet, not take the cash.
This is the same thing. Maintaining trust, maintaining respect, maintaining spark, maintaining romance etc… All this falls into a category of maintaining relationship. And failure of maintaining each category can lead to disintegration of marriage…