pre marriage questions for you

[guest]

to those of you happily or unhappily married, did you have doubts about getting married? would you consider them strong doubts? do you feel like what you were worried about happening happened? did you go into your marriage with total confidence and now have problems? did you go into your marriage with doubts and are now happy?

[befuddled11]

Scroll through the forums, this question was asked last week and received numerous responses.

[meanon]

to those of you happily or unhappily married, did you have doubts about getting married? (No doubts) would you consider them strong doubts? do you feel like what you were worried about happening happened? did you go into your marriage with total confidence and now have problems? (No problems now) did you go into your marriage with doubts and are now happy?

 

But then we lived together for 11 years before we married

 

It's unwise to go into marriage with strong doubts. If they are minor worries and you are the worrying type then ignore them.

[Benedict]

Yes.

 

No.

 

Yes.

 

Yes, but we are mostly past that.

 

Also yes, as contradictory as that sounds...

[Angela549]

Oh my gosh did I have doubts before marrying my husband two months ago - I cried the night before we got married - knowing I was letting him rush me into it too quickly!!!!

 

Now two months later I'm still having doubts and haven't been able to pack up and move in to his house.

 

I wish I had never let him talk me into getting married and we were still dating and having fun. Now I feel like I'm walking thru mud with blocks of cement tied to my ankles.

 

I'm not happy and can't bring myself to move out of my beautiful townhome into his house. Everything he does now seems to irritate me.

 

If you're having doubts - DON'T GET MARRIED!!! Don't let the romance of marriage blur reality.

 

I think if you marry someone either you know it's right or it's not. Your gut feeling tells you. In my case I ingnored the red flags and am now paying the price.

[guest]

thanks for the replies. it's actually helpful if only to see that it's different for everyone. from reading tons of messages on this site it seems a lot of people have some doubts when getting married but strong doubts should be taken into serious consideration. you can never tell what is going to happen in a relationship, and as much as i hate to hear it sometimes you "just know". angela, sorry you are going through this right now, it sounds really tough. why did you go through with the marriage with all the doubts you had? just a romance factor? do you love him?

as for myself i've decided to not put so much pressure on myself to want to get married. i just dont want to right now and that is ok. with valentines day and our 3 year anniversary just passing i was thinking about marriage waaayyy too much. someone else posted a reply to me in a previous message that the best advice they can give is just to make sure i can take care of myself because you never really know what's going to happen and i thought that was helpful. i mean, what else can i do? i can't predict the future although if i could that would be incredibally helpful. angela, i know you didnt ask for advice but something i'm trying to do and is helping me is to look at the big picture. yes, you're married, but if you are that unhappy and doubtful then you dont have to stay married. life will go on and in a while it will be like it never happened. i'm not trying to say it's not worth it to try to work out a marriage but it sounds like you should have never done it in the first place. i've posted several marriage questions here and i always get replies that some doubts are normal but crying the night before the wedding and not even wanting to live with your husband seem like way more then normal doubts to me.

[jenny]

i think for me, i can have 20% doubts - i think having doubts is a normal human response. one measure of sanity is how we react to uncertainty, and i like the frank realism of not totally knowing what another human could do in the future.

 

i do have some doubts for myself as well. i've got a brilliant ex clanging around somewhere in my brain, an excellent job offer elsewhere, and i liked being single - loved it, in fact. it suits me. but when i hold those things up to the sort of calm bliss i feel when i'm with him, they mean nothing. one is about lingerie, the other is about being a woman, if that makes sense to you. it's about choosing flesh over fetish.

 

80% certianty is easily a high enough margin for an investment, and i see it as a realistic and healthy assessment of potential success.

[moimeme]

I don't know. Seems to me anything less than 100% is iffy. Yes, my marriage ended; but the reasons were pretty unusual. I didn't have a single qualm; nor did he. I can't imagine approaching one's wedding with anything less than joyful enthusiasm and the unquestionable certainty that this is what you want more than anything else.

[jenny]

i know what you are saying, but he and both take a certain amount of joy in preferring gritty realism in general. the odds are stacked against marriage working, they really are, and if our marriage is going to last, it will be through hard work rather than perfect assurance in the future.

 

i don't know what's going to happen in the next ten years. it would seem strange to me to pretend i did. maybe he'll have an affair, maybe i will. i hope not, and i know i can control my own behaviour, but i like knowing it could fail as a way to keep myself strong, invested, and working hard.

[EnigmaXOXO]

i don't know what's going to happen in the next ten years. it would seem strange to me to pretend i did. maybe he'll have an affair, maybe i will. i hope not, and i know i can control my own behaviour, but i like knowing it could fail as a way to keep myself strong, invested, and working hard.

 

Jenny, my thinking is along the same lines as yours!

 

I'm not completely cynical when it comes to long-term relationships, like everyone else I float on hope. But having experienced the changes that occur between two people over the years, I think I already know what to expect. I’m HOPING, that this time, I'll be better prepared to recognize the warning signs of relationship pitfalls early enough to recover before things completely go off track.

 

It doesn't mean I won't be blindsided somewhere down the road or won’t trip up. I already know that things won't be the same in ten years as they are now. But knowing that prevents me from taking our relationship and my partner for granted. It keeps me vigilant and forces me to pay attention; not only to my partner and his needs, but moreso to *myself* and how my own actions and behavior impact or influence our relationship.

 

I don't know what the future holds for the two of us, either. But if the odds aren't in our favor, at least this time it won't be for lack of my trying. I refuse to allow myself to get lazy. And as long as I've given it the best that I've got, he won’t walk away leaving me to wonder what I “should of” and “could of” done different.

 

Here’s to your first time around…and my second. Let’s hope with a little luck we’ll both figure out how to get it right THIS TIME around!

[moimeme]

Understanding cognitively that life is uncertain is not the same as having doubts about the viability of one's relationship, IMHO. Perhaps this is only an issue of semantics; but to me, having actual 'doubts' tips the balance towards pessimism about the potential longevity of the relationship. I'd be a moron if I suggested that people go into marriage believing nothing bad will ever happen; I'd thought people might have figured that out about me. However a crucial component in my agreeing to marry someone would be implicit trust in that person; that he would be as committed to working on the relationship as am I. At some point, we have to be able to trust fully. It's a risk, yes, but it is possible to find trustworthy people. Really, really hard to do, but possible.