In the States, marriages are still primarily motivated by love. How could it be otherwise? Are you marrying because your families are mutually compatible, or because of finance, or to get a green card? Absolutely there are other reasons involved, but the drive to marry is to find someone you love and want to spend your life with.
The culture I come from still heavily leans towards arranged marriage. I can’t speak for the whole, but I know many of my cousins are running up against this full-tilt. They have little romances in college, some of which are even overlooked by parental units (no sex) but they are expected to leave behind those romances and marry where their parents desire. To my surprise, most if not all of them agree to do so, believing their parents really do know best. Very different mindset.
Canadian, and I think respect is the most important thing. I have that Rihanna and Eminem duet in my head - they looooove each other but can’t live without each other and beat the crap out of each other.
Someone will probably come along and say if you hit someone, you don’t really love them, but that’s a debate outside the scope of this thread.
You can love someone who isn’t stable - someone not having a job, or choosing to do something illegal, etc. doesn’t mean that no one loves them, or they that don’t love the person they’re with… Love is independent of these things. I love my parents, I love my sister, I love my friends…because of what they mean to me, not because of how they are as a person. I do think that love is why we choose to work on things like communication, but I don’t think that love magically makes these things fall into place.
I disagree completely. If someone has a long term goal of staying close to their family and the community they were raised in while their partner wants to travel and move half way across the country, then I would say that’s a huge incompatibility unless one person is willing to change their goals. I would say the same is true for someone who wants to have kids very badly and is with someone who never wants kids. Assuming both people are very firm about this goal, then either one person has to change and bend, or the relationship will ultimately fail.
I think a lot of the time people feel like love is some sort of band-aid to fix all relationship issues that crop up, but the truth is that you can love someone and still not be compatible. Both people in a relationship need to love each other to keep the relationship going, but it still takes hard work on both accounts to keep the relationship healthy. Fighting, while it’s not a good sign to do it all the time, is a healthy part of a relationship, so long as the issues get addressed and worked on.
Who said a marriage could last solely on love? Saying it’s the MOST important factor is not the same as saying it’s the ONLY factor. Let’s see how long a marriage lasts WITHOUT love.
Exactly! I am about 90% compatible with my fiancé, and because we love each other, we compromise on the other 10% and make it work. If I found someone I was 100% compatible with but didn’t love, well, we’d be bestest buddies, but I’m not going to marry them.