Sometimes there is not a lot of thought put into getting married.
My first wife was my childhood sweetheart. Starting at 13 yrs, all through high school and beyond. Big Catholic wedding, the whole deal. Later she realised that she had never had any other man and started dating, I guess you would call it.
Second wife I should have waited longer to meet, but the same friend of mine who introduced me to the first one brought her over. Horniest woman I ever met. We have 2 fine sons who are grown now. Never did have a single thing in common with her.
Insert 10 years of lonelyness and random girls.
3rd and present wife of 30 years is much smarter, more commited to the idea of making things work.
None of these women hate me. We could all sit and talk in the same room. I am afaid they would like each other too much.
I have never spent even $1 on lawyers. But I sometimes wish I had given up on all this way back in high school.
I’ve read many times, and heard from people who worked in the field, that about half of the couples who divorce, regardless of why or how long they were together, are simply so mismatched, everyone was scratching their heads and thinking, “How did these two ever have a relationship in the first place?” Sexual compatibility can lead to this, in the absence of other common interests, and trauma bonding can as well.
Wedding officiants can and do refuse to marry couples all the time. One pastor told me that a conversation like this is almost as difficult as planning a funeral for a child.
They did not, thankfully; AIUI, they went into the marriage with the agreement that they did not intend to have kids.
On the other hand…
My sister-in-law (my wife’s sister) is, frankly, a difficult personality in many ways. I am quite certain that my SIL did not actually intend on ever marrying; my wife has confided in me that her sister has told her that she (SIL) had always assumed that she and my now-wife would live together as spinster sisters for their entire lives.
When my wife had the temerity to fall in love and get married, SIL felt betrayed (and said as much to my wife). Four months after our wedding, she started dating a guy – I have no doubt that it was because she didn’t want to wind up alone, as she’d not ever dated before we got married – and they married a year-plus later. They do not get along, they never have, and I’m 100% certain that the only reason that they are still married, 28 years later, is that they had kids. Their oldest is 25, their twin girls are 20 and in college, and I know for a fact that my BIL is absolutely miserable in his marriage (and has been for years); once the girls are out of college and independent, I have to believe that he’ll file for divorce.
One thing I enjoy as a romance writer is creating two very unlikely people and trying to figure out how to get them together. For me it is to the utmost extreme - they start as enemies, perhaps trying to kill each other. As my husband said, “Wow, you really take the enemies part of enemies to lovers seriously!”
And the answer to how they get together is, yeah, usually trauma bonding and sexual compatibility. Not that more can’t be built on top of that, not that something enduring can’t be made of that, it’s just funny to me in this case how art imitates life.
My husband and I are not exactly alike. He’s an extremely meticulous person, very data-driven, skeptical. Very mentally rigid. His brain works in a way mine… does not. He once drew me a mental map (you know, a circle with lines that connect to other nodes) and said, “This is what my brain looks like.” I said, “Okay, now take every node on that map and connect it to every other node and that’s what my brain looks like.” I suspect we are just different flavors of neurodiverse. He has the constitution of a mountain, and I’m a turbulent ocean of thoughts and feelings.
But we get along fantastically well. I can talk to him for hours. We just really enjoy being together. I don’t know what the magic is. I don’t know how to distill it. We spend a great deal of time making fun of each other. And a great deal of time dealing with tedious adulthood stuff, but it doesn’t feel tedious when we’re doing it together. We also spend a lot of time talking about news articles and new things we’ve learned. We spend a lot of time talking. No one else I’d rather talk to, about anything.
Not unique at all. I’ve never seen any polls or anything, but it’s a complaint I’ve heard from a fair number men over the years that they gave up on trying to do various household chores because their wife insisted on either micromanaging them, or on doing it again the “right way”.
No, not unique to you. I can certainly do laundry. But I do not, because I cannot do it to the standard my wife sets. I have tried, but the standard seems to change, and I cannot keep up. The latest was hanging up the facecloths in the bathroom. I have just learned after many years that they should always, ALWAYS be hung in a lengthwise position, with the tag on the inside, to the right, facing the door. Never knew that. Didn’t particularly see the need, when it’s in an ensuite that nobody sees. But there you go. I don’t really care, but I do it because she cares, and it’s not a huge deal to do it each time.
There are only certain tasks she micromanages… Thank God. eg. I do all the vacuuming, and I do it the way I want.
I think the gender roles are reversed in my marriage. He’s the neat freak (though I’ve improved with medication.) When it comes to doing anything, he’s micromanagy as hell. Like “you’re not putting the cereal away properly” levels of control issues. (I have a very hard time with this because I spent my childhood constantly criticized and micromanaged.)
In situations where we don’t have a set schedule in place, he’s often the default parent. I’ve literally had the stereotypical “Why can’t you see I’m behind schedule and step in?” conversation in which I was the one saying, “I’m not a fucking mind reader, just tell me what you want me to do.” I need super clear expectations, preferably with categorical rules.
We’re both very nurturing as parents, but he’s more overprotective and fussy. He’s the one putting together Valentine’s Day cards for the classroom and coordinating the birthday parties. I’m the one waxing philosophical with my kid.
I’m a pretty good Mom. But sometimes I feel like yeah, I guess I’m the Dad.
What about when it matters equally to both of you?
When I was a kid, I got yelled at for folding the towels “wrong”, so I took that stack and threw them on the floor. I never got yelled at for doing it “wrong” again, I do remember that.
Anyway, when my nieces were young, my brother proposed hanging laundry outdoors to save money on utilities, and his wife said, “Great! If you believe in it, you do it.” He did, and still does - and immediately saw a $100 a month drop in their utility bill (I don’t remember if it was gas or electric). He puts it in the dryer for a few minutes to de-wrinkle it, and then puts everything away.
I’m sure there are - because I haven’t loaded a dishwasher in over 30 years. Because my husband kept telling me I did it wrong - I didn’t use the space as efficiently as possible and his way would fit two more coffee cups or some such thing.
That’s a good question. Can’t really remember a time that it did. But at that point we would fall back on expertise and experiance, not feelings.
I’m very much a spatial thinker. GIS for 35 years. My wife is more numbers and organization. Property appraiser for 33 years.
I’m very much a tool guy, so when it comes to anything that involves tools, I end up with the final word. “That simply can’t be done”
She does more of the dog care. I love 'em to peices, but she will take them to the grommer and then go shopping. I do not shop. I buy.
For many things I’m very much a ‘whatever’ type of guy. Really doesn’t matter in the long run. Heh, there are a few things I guess that I have put my ‘foot down on’. She likes clocks to be 15 minutes fast. She is welcome to do that with her bedside clock, but all other clocks will be within a minute or so. I was a GIS programmer you see. Inacuracies like that just make me bristle.
I met my first wife in an isolated situation. What I thought was love was loneliness. No sex prior to marriage, which was another big mistake. Turned out that she wasn’t a sexual person and tolerated it in order to reproduce. Between kids, it was maybe a once a month ordeal to endure. She was also addicted to the Catholic Church. I was expected to change to fit her idea of what I should be. It lasted 20 years, but I was glad to end it.
Been married to my second wife for over 30 years and wish I’d met her first.
I’m not sure if “independence” is exactly the right word, but I occasionally wish I could do what I want, when I want without having to consider anyone else. But I don’t think that has anything specifically to do with marriage - it would be the same if we were living together and not married.
Like that I could just decide on Friday morning to go away for a weekend without considering whether my husband will need me to help with some project around the house or that he has some other plans that are incompatible with me taking the car for the weekend or decide when to go on vacation without considering his schedule or that I could just go buy a new car without any discussion at all.
Yeah. As a never-married, I can confirm that this freedom is a very satisfying thing. But there you are, all life situations involve trade-offs. Everybody casts a longing eye at the other side’s greener-looking grass from time to time, but that doesn’t mean their own choices were wrong.
Planning a weekend away by yourself or with your friends or not agreeing on the flavor of meatloaf to me seem like superficial “independence” things that any normal healthy marriage should be able to plan around.
Where “independence” becomes an issue IMHO is when it starts to have real lifestyle, financial, or career impacts. Like if one person has to sacrifice or hold back their career for the other. Or if one partner is forced to move somewhere they don’t want to live.