What to expect from a marriage

What To Expect From Your Marriage?

Marriage is a wonderful experience when both partners are committed to one another. That doesn't just mean fidelity - it means being committed to the idea that every day might not always be a fairy tale. Learning what to expect from your marriage means enjoying the good times and accepting the potential for bad.

There are many things you should expect from your marriage such as commitment, trust, honesty, and love. There are also things you should not expect, like mind-reading or never having a disagreement. Having a realistic expectation of your life as a couple will help you have a healthier and stronger bond in the future.

1. A partner

Being married to your best friend is one of the most satisfying experiences you will ever have. When you both put your heart and soul into your marriage, you're guaranteeing each other unlimited love, compassion, fun, comfort, empathy, and support. As partners, you take part in an undertaking of the emotional, physical, and financial well-being of one another. This means you consult one another before making decisions and always have someone to come home to.

2. Challenges

Regardless of how much you think you know about relationships before getting married, the months following those wedding vows may throw you for a loop. Often, this comes from having an unrealistic view of marriage. For example, your personal insecurities won't go away just because you're married, just like your partner won't change overnight into Prince Charming or Mrs. Perfect just because you tied the knot.

No marriage is perfect, and there are going to be a lot of challenges along the way. Staying together with the idea of forever and ever in your future demands that there will be bumps and bruises along the way.

3. Relationship security

Some people miss having that "spark" they felt when they first started dating, but one of the best things about marriage is knowing your partner is always going to have your back. This means coming home to the same comforting arms every night and knowing that even if you have the most outlandish argument, neither of you intends to call it quits.

4. Anxiety

Life can throw some unexpected curveballs your way, especially in a marriage. Anxieties happen over financial situations, the welfare of your children, health concerns, or concerns regarding infidelity. It is human to worry, just don't let it take over your married life. When you always put the other one first and work as a team, you will have success in your marriage.

5. Sexual lulls

If you are married, you know that your sex life is always changing. This happens for a number of reasons. Medical problems, different sexual expectations, resentment, and dissatisfaction with your partner's physical appearance are common culprits for why your sex life may diminish over time. However, the biggest cited reason for a waning sex life is boredom. This is why so many couples look into different ways to spice up their sex lives over time.

Your sex life may not be as rambunctious or as frequent as it was when you first got married, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be fun, exciting, and satisfying. Both should practice forgiveness and understanding in the sexual department if they are ever going to find a happy middle ground.

6. To constantly fall in and out of love

Many couples stay together for the rest of their lives but that doesn't mean they've been madly in love for the whole duration. A relationship is like a roller coaster. It has high highs and low lows. For example, you may love your partner, but that doesn't mean you will be IN love 24/7.

You may have found the love of your life to spend the eternity with, but that doesn't mean they're not going to annoy you, frustrate you, and make you crazy. Trust the process and never stop working at understanding one another and putting one another first. This will combat any relationship blues you might be feeling.

7. Conflict

No two people are the same. No matter how much you believe you and your spouse share the same brain and finish each other's sentences, you are going to experience conflict in your marriage. Not getting along with family members, not agreeing on money matters, and saying things you shouldn't have in the heat of the moment are all a part of marriage. Successful couples learn to maturely deal with disagreements and settle them before they get out of hand.

8. Apologies and forgiveness

"I'm only human" is a well-known phrase for a reason. People make mistakes and sometimes they're real whoppers. Devoting your life to someone doesn't guarantee that there aren't going to be some pretty serious cracks in the pavement somewhere down the line. Whether it's something small or something life-changing, if you are truly committed to one another you will both learn to apologize and to practice forgiveness.

If you are committed to making your marriage work, you need to learn to respect, forgive, and appreciate one another on a daily basis. Remember that much of your happiness depends on your shared, realistic views of marriage. Practicing open communication and trust is going to be an excellent stepping stone for a healthy, balanced married life.

Malini Bhatia is the founder and CEO of marriage.com, a website dedicated to providing value in every marriage, including resources, information and a community that supports healthy, happy marriages. Bhatia has global experience in international management and communications. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband of 11 years and two daughters.

Follow Malini Bhatia on Twitter: www.twitter.com/marriagedotcom

Founder & CEO, Marriage.com

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25 Great Expectations for Your Marriage

Go Back To All Newlyweds Articles

Newlyweds

Dennis and Barbara Rainey

·2 min read

As you begin marriage, it’s common to have some expectations of what you will experience. But you probably have never made a list. Well, we did it for you! Here are some things you can expect during your first 3-5 years of marriage:

Challenges with finances
Difficulties in relating to the opposite sex
Loneliness
In-law strains.
Romance and affection!
Spiritual growth together.
Struggles in defining roles of husband and wife
Communication challenges.
Decisions about values and lifestyle choices.
Trials and suffering.
Choice of where to attend church
Dealing with differences (including male/female, backgrounds, religious training, regional)
Travel.
Debt.
Children.
Entertainment choices.
Decisions about what to do on weekends.
Decisions about traditions (how to handle holidays, birthdays, and other celebrations)
Resolving conflict.
Work and career struggles.
Vacation decisions.
Determining priorities (schedule).
Sexual intimacy (hopefully lots of it!).
Assuming new roles of mother and father.
Selfishness.

Most couples face common challenges in marriage. If you don’t discuss and resolve the differences between you and your spouse, you’re headed for rough marital waters.

Here are four ways to resolve “great expectations.”

First,

remember your wedding-day commitment to a lifetime of love and forgiveness.

Remain committed. Love always. Remember, “love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

Second,

your marriage won’t grow without communication and understanding.

Communication means talking and active listening. You’ll know you understand your spouse when you can verbally express your mate’s actual needs and desires and he or she agrees with that expression. Communication is vital to clarifying your needs. The Bible urges husbands to “live with their wives in an understanding way.”(1 Peter 3:7) Guys, that means you have to seek to understand. Ladies, that means you have to help him understand you.

Third,

work to develop God’s perspective of your spouse.

Remember, God selected your spouse for you. Accept His provision, knowing that He has an agenda for your life through unmet expectations.

Finally,

don’t give up on your dreams.

All of the things you imagined your marriage to be may not come true. God may have a new dream for you to live together. Talk about your dreams. Then dream together.

For more information on the subject, check out Starting Your Marriage Right by Dennis and Barbara Rainey.

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3 things to discuss before marriage to keep it for a long time

April 5 Relationships

You will have to look at your relationship through the prism of divorce.

You can listen to a short version of the article. If it's more convenient for you, turn on the podcast.

Jeannie Suk Gersen

Professor of Law at Harvard University, professional mediator. Specialist in family and marriage law.

My mentor once told me that you should marry your second husband right away. This does not mean that Mister Perfect is magically waiting for you behind door number two. Just to understand how marriage works, you need to understand how and why it ends.

Divorce clearly demonstrates the unspoken rules of marriage. You need to know them in order to build strong relationships from the very beginning. It doesn't sound very romantic, but sometimes what we do out of love puts that very love in jeopardy.

I am a professor of family law. She taught students, worked as a lawyer and mediator ^{She is a specialist who helps the parties to come to an agreement, and also she survived a divorce. I am now happily married to my second husband. And I think that everyone needs to talk in advance on painful topics that have to be discussed by those who get divorced. If you do this in advance, you will have a better chance of a strong marriage.}

There are three questions I would like to discuss.

1. What are we willing to sacrifice for each other

Marriage is an exchange of sacrifices, and it should be fair. Otherwise, problems begin.

Consider the example of Lisa and Andy. Early in their marriage, Lisa decides to go to medical school and Andy to provide for their family. And so he works the night shift and refuses a good offer in another city. He does it out of love, but also realizes that Lisa's degree will benefit both of them in the future.

After a few years, Andy begins to feel neglected and dissatisfied, and starts drinking heavily. Lisa looks at her life and him and doubts she signed up for this. A few years later, she graduates and files for divorce.

Now they are reading 🔥

How I realized it was time to get a divorce: personal experience

In an ideal world, they should have talked to a relationship counselor or mediator before Lisa started studying. He would ask:

How fair is your exchange?
What are you willing to give and what are you willing to owe to each other?

After the divorce, Lisa will most likely have to support Andy financially for several years. But no amount of financial support will help him feel that he has been compensated for what he has given up.

If they had thought in advance about what they were willing to sacrifice and what they were not, the marriage might have turned out differently. Perhaps Lisa would decide to take out a student loan or work part-time so that Andy would not have to fully provide for them. And he would probably agree to a job in another city so as not to abandon his career, and he would feel better.

2. What do we think about childcare

Let's look at another couple, Emily and Deb. They live and work in a big city and have two children. Then Emily gets a job in a small town and the couple decides to move. Deb quits to take care of the kids, leaves family, friends, and what she loves. In a new place, she faces isolation and loneliness, and 10 years later she starts an affair on the side - and the marriage falls apart.

If the couple had spoken to a mediator prior to moving, he would have asked them:

How will your childcare decisions affect your commitment to each other?
How will they affect your relationships?
Do you understand that childcare is not free?

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If they had thought about these things then, perhaps they would have looked for other solutions so that Deb would not have to remain in isolation. And Emily would think about what it takes to care for children and what is due to a loved one for taking care of them around the clock.

3. What do we have in common and what is personal?

Let's go back to Lisa and Andy. Before marriage, Lisa received an inheritance from her grandmother. After the wedding, they bought a house, and this inheritance went to the down payment. Since Andy was working, he took over the mortgage payments. As a result, their property was combined, and Lisa's inheritance became joint matrimonial property. When they divorce, they will have to sell the house and share the amount received, or one will need to buy out the share of the other.

The mediator would ask them:

What property do you want to keep private and what property do you want to share?
How will your choice affect the safety of the marriage?

Because what was “mine” will become “ours” after marriage, unless we consciously take some steps to prevent it.

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If they had thought about marriage in terms of divorce beforehand, they might have made other decisions. Perhaps Lisa would have left her legacy for a rainy day. Perhaps they would have bought a smaller house and Andy wouldn't have to work so hard to pay off the mortgage. Perhaps he wouldn't feel so miserable in the end.

In marriage, we often make sacrifices and demand them from a partner, without considering their "cost". Be wiser, calculate the cost of your decisions. This is what divorce law teaches us, and it will help keep a marriage strong.

Marriage of convenience - Psychologos

January 01, 2010, 12:43

Author: N.I. Kozlov, Doctor of Psychology, Professor
Rector of the University of Practical Psychology

Film "Zigzag of Fortune"

Marriage of convenience - a marriage created under the guidance of the head.

As a rule, marriage of convenience is opposed to marriage for love, although this is inaccurate: marriage of convenience does not exclude love. A prudent marriage can be concluded on the basis that the person is suitable, my type, we both want love and we will definitely have love! Quite reasonable considerations of people who value love in a relationship.

There can be a variety of considerations when entering into a marriage: the desire to raise one’s status, increase one’s well-being, the opportunity to register oneself, the conveniences of life, not to be left alone, to have legal sex, a child needs a father, and many other everyday circumstances, all the more confusing, especially since many people have a head only justifies what their heart tells them, while in others the heart is drawn to that or that where some benefit is felt. See →

What can you expect from arranged marriages? There is no single answer - precisely because all the calculations, we repeat, are very different. In general, marriages of convenience are statistically more durable than love marriages: the head is really a useful thing.

At the same time, as regards marriages with interest in living space and other people's money - there are lasting marriages, there are practically no happy ones.

Another thing is marriages for reasons of mutual convenience: I earn money and go to the market, you cook and wash, and in the evening both have more fun. .. Such families, created for purely rational reasons, turn out to be a really convenient form of life for many, and so far the relationship is beneficial to both partners, the relationship is strong and stable. For years and decades. In addition, if these are decent people who know how to be grateful, then over time their relationship may gradually include elements of romanticism. And as a result, well-established relationships can develop into true love, it happens!

If you are not just in love, but love, you will definitely think and count.

If you are a man, then before proposing, you will definitely think about money (is it enough to support a family?), about your character (can you be allowed to decent people?), about your readiness to become a father (this does not come right away).

If you are a woman, then before agreeing to the proposal of a loved one, you must honestly answer yourself: do you have the strength to love this person? Can you make him happy? Do you know how to cook, are you great at building relationships, are you not touchy and know how to negotiate? Have you calculated your strengths?

A truly loving person does not allow himself to live without a head without thinking about the future.

What is the most correct calculation? - The most correct calculation is the one that takes into account the interests of the other side.

If this is a family, then also the interests of children, including future children.

It is normal to take care of your own interests, but if this is a relationship of two, then something strong and real comes to you only when you think not only about what you will get, but also about what the other will get with your help sides. Marriage of convenience is always a bit of a deal, and this deal should be beneficial to both.

If a man is looking for a woman who will take care of him, and in return offers her normal earnings, pleasant leisure and fidelity, his calculation is at least not bad.

If you care about your appearance and health so that your loved one can admire you for a long time - this is the right calculation.

And if you love, learn to love and don't be lazy to love - in the expectation that your loved one will appreciate it and reciprocate decades of happy life together, then this is the most correct calculation!

Count and be happy!

Marriage of convenience
Author N. I. Kozlov
+
Relationships, love, family
Family and relationships
Video

Comments (8):

Guest, April 09, 2014, 13:46

Everything is correct. My husband and I married without love, by calculation, although a certain sympathy was present. I wanted to get married, he needed a woman who would take care of him, well, for sex. As a result, we take care of each other, we cook both - whoever is at home is the one on duty in the kitchen, we clean together, we repair the apartment together, we raised our daughter, soon 25 years of marriage. And at some point I realized that I loved and love.

Alfinur, June 23, 2015, 08:40

Thank you, Nikolay Ivanovich)

Guest, May 19, 2017, 13:45

Quite an unusual position, it's good to see that there are people who understand that marriage calculated not to be evil. But the author also does not forget to point out the importance of showing love in such a marriage. Just today I watched a video that says that most marriages end in divorce after 6 years, and all because people are not ready to love, but are simply looking for benefits, and this position, in my opinion, is no longer correct.

Guest, March 02, 2018, 04:49 PM

Sale can be wholesale, small wholesale and retail. Retail is prostitution, small wholesale is sexual services in exchange for career growth, and wholesale is marriage of convenience or cohabitation for the same reason.

Guest May 05, 2019 03:03 PM

Everything is bought and sold, everything is based on interest and money.

Guest, September 14, 2019, 6:20 pm

Disagree! They also die for their country. Think, from personal interests and because of money?! March 15, 2020 banal fear of falling into a concentration camp and the potential impossibility of providing a greater part of basic needs.

And, as for everything related to the partner industry (including the title of the topic of this article), it will be irrelevant for the next 45 years, since from 2015 it is necessary to self-establish an absolute industry ban (boycott) , which should be valid until 2065.

For any sessions of this nature (marriage will be a thing of the past as an obsolete element of partnerships), there must be a healthy society that will have a sane character, which, in general, will not be possible before 2065. Therefore, the overall assessment of this marriage (as well as any other) is very short-sighted.

In addition: such things, like many others, risk giving rise to an inadequate partnership, that is, a meat-cutting gateway, which will then turn into a world war. In fact, this applies to any toolkit or opportunity that a narrow-minded majority can take advantage of.

Guest, November 02, 2019, 09:56 PM

When you are afraid to be alone.

What to expect from a marriage

What To Expect From Your Marriage?

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25 Great Expectations for Your Marriage

Here are four ways to resolve “great expectations.”

First,

Second,

Third,

Finally,

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3 things to discuss before marriage to keep it for a long time

1. What are we willing to sacrifice for each other

2. What do we think about childcare

3. What do we have in common and what is personal?

Marriage of convenience - Psychologos

Film "Zigzag of Fortune"

Comments (8):

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