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by maria on 30.04.2009 - 01:43  

Before I got married I had no intention of getting married. I got married because otherwise I had to separate from my boyfriend for a year and a half. My suspicions about marriage were confirmed, and I myself fell into a couple of marriage traps. The biggest one is complacency. We will be together no matter what, so I can let loose. Nothing like taking a relationship for granted to cause it to fall apart. It has since come to my attention that there are other reasons for complacency in relationships, but I still maintain that marriage is the biggest and baddest. The second marriage trap is the expectation. At the same time that you are starting to take the relationship for granted, your expectations of the relationship suddenly increase. Weirdly enough, not just your expectations for the other person. Suddenly you think you need to give up this or the other thing, or make some sacrifice that has never been requested, because wives do x or husbands do y. Or maybe you think you are suppose be spending time or money on something, but turns out the other person has entirely different expectations, and may not even notice you bending over backwards for something they couldn't care less about. We find ourselves acting as if there is some model that we must all follow. Some model based on fairytales and tv shows and our own baggage... Of course I thought I could get around all of this by just not marrying again. Silly me, don't know what I was thinking. Becoming a nun might have saved me from it, but that would have landed me in a padded room instead, I expect, or I would be like one of the priests photographed with a woman. Celibacy, shmelibacy.

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18.05.2009 - 19:05  

Maria comments on her own post:

Apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way. As a response to an article "A New Trend in Motherhood", Mark Regnerus has some of the same complaints I do about the perception of marriage in this country. The article is here,

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/a-new-trend-in-motherhood/

and his is the fourth response. I must add that I agree with the first comment below the article, that his conclusion, "And men lose out on the one institution — other than the military — that can pull them out of their extended adolescence" might expose another expectation of marriage that is very, um, ridiculous. As the commenter writes "if that’s actually what marriage represents for men, no wonder many women have no interest."

13.07.2009 - 14:09  

Dana comments:

We've always said you know you've married the right person when you don't feel like you "HAVE TO" work on it, but you want to. I think the important thing is to be friends first, and treat them as you would a really good friend (honesty, compassion, empathy, and pick your battles carefully). Give each other room to change and be yourself in your own time. For me it hasn't been a ball and chain but a delicate silken thread of connection, stronger than it looks, but needs to be treated with care.