I heard this too (about both partners in a marriage and both parents). I must say that part of the draw for me with my husband was his parents, who were amazing people and great parents.
On the flip side, I’m really glad that my husband never heard that advice, especially regarding daughters and mothers, because I’m nothing like my mom and I don’t think he would or should have married me if I were. Well, I guess I look a little like her, that’s not a bad thing.
On the other other side, I feel like our kids have a lot in common with a couple of their grandparents, so there’s that to consider, too, if you’re planning to have kids in the marriage. But even though one of my kids does have some traits that remind me of my mom, it turns out that breaking the generational trauma and shoring up mental health actually does help and I am pretty sure kiddo won’t grow up exactly like her.
My mother is insane and it would suck for someone to assume I was destined to be like her. I was never like her, even at my worst, and I’ve only become more sane as I’ve aged.
I think it mostly comes down to two things. You have to share the same values and you have to get along really well. The best way to assess those two things before you marry them is time. Time to see who they are when they aren’t on their best behavior. How they handle crisis, grief, unemployment, disappointment, travel.
I think four years was good for us. It was an eventful four years. We even had a rough time getting along the year of our engagement, and we worked through that. I remember feeling very comfortable and confident on my wedding day because the relationship had already been tested in so many ways I had no doubt about who I was marrying.
It’s not just important for straight women to know the signs. Men do too, and so do people in LGBTQ+ and poly relationships.
Unfortunately, I do wonder how many abusers might sign up for a class, to use it as a how-to guide.
(I have a friend who, back in the 1990s, facilitated court-ordered batterer’s education classes. She asked her 6’7” then-husband, who has since died, if he’d like to do it too, because they had a baby and could use the money. He said he would have been too tempted to do to those men what they did to their wives or girlfriends: “You knocked out her two front teeth? Here, I’ll knock YOUR front teeth out and see how you like it!” No, their divorce was, thankfully, not due to abuse.)
I met my wife New Years Eve 1991-92. We were married in July same year. I still have a schoolboy crush on her, she has tolerated my stupid shit pretty well all these years. Never can tell.
Is it the kind of raised bed where I could just shovel out the top layer and just layer one bag of mulch? She hadn’t planned to cultivate but still thought of digging out all the soil? I’m trying to think of the process you’re talking about here.
@Eric1 That’s what I’m thinking. Just turn the soil with mulch. Don’t empty the thing. From the looks of it, it doesn’t even need mulch. It has plenty. It looks like the previous owners filled it with potting soil and mulch.
I’m originally from Illinois. The glaciers left us great dirt. This stuff looks great.
I’m getting a bit far afield though.
Why NOT to Marry? Well I have seen a number of failed marriages. My parents, aunts, uncles. But I’ve seen more successful ones. Still going strong after decades.
I guess marriage was just sort of symbolic for my wife and I. Well, that’s what it is. Oh, and one hell of a great party. Oh, and it does make property ownership and wills and all of that easier. We never wanted kids, so that wasn’t a factor.
My Aunt got married solely to be on her husband’s health insurance. They’ve been married slightly less time than I have (twenty years.) They’ve had some rough times but overall they are pretty solid. But I do wonder how much that piece of paper motivates some people to push through hard times.
I hated having a wedding. Parties are not my thing. Or event planning. Or being the center of attention in a crowd of people. I really wanted to elope. I’m glad we did it though. It turned out to be a beautiful and very memorable day. It was pretty low-key. Definitely one of the best days of my life.
Our wedding turned out about twice as big as it should have been. Just over 100 people I think. But, whatever.
With that many people involved, Something. Will. Go. Wrong. But there was nothing big. We did it on top of a mountain at a ski resort. Of course the gondola had problems. And the original place we picked decided to remodel the place on the day we where getting married. So the time and place had to be moved. We got a deal though, so that’s ok.
Yeah, mine had twice that many people. No problem except that it was cold and snowed a little - which would have happened if there were only ten people. Of course in my family a fifty year old pantsing his fifty year old cousin would just be entertainment , not something going wrong.
Heh. We had a bus to take the out of town people to the event. The hotel provided it. But since they chose to remodel at the last minute, the location got changed.
Guess where the bus took our guests. Luckily somebody caught it and it was only about a 1/2 hour delay.
Ours was 50 guests, and even though it was one of the best days ever, there was some drama. My biological father’s transportation fell through so my husband had to drive out to pick him up and bring him there… It was at last a two hour round trip. My uncle was supposed to do the video recording but my Mom started some shit so he refused to come at the last minute. The person doing our music didn’t show up at all. And my Mom out of nowhere announced that she wouldn’t sign as a witness to our marriage unless we, two atheists, prayed with her.
It all barely registered, honestly. It was an extremely happy day.
For the record, since marrying into my husband’s family I have attended so many weddings with 450-500 people. They just keep getting bigger. I hate going. I can never hear anything, and it’s total sensory overload.
His Aunt told me she had 2,000 at her wedding reception. She said it was miserable.
Going back to the gravel parking lot, a guest for the next wedding blocked me in. My wife in her gown, me in my tux. There was PLENTY of parking. But this ass block me in.
Luckily my brother was parked in front of me and I could pull though, no jail for me that night, I was pretty mad.
The closest we had to “something going wrong” was the ring bearer being late. His mom took a wrong turn on the highway. The wedding coordinator (which we didn’t really need or want, it was just something the church sort of did) was frantic about it and kept bugging my wife, who just said “there are other kids here, right? Give one of them the pillow and send them down the aisle. Stop bothering me, I’m getting married” (she did not say the last part out loud).
I got dressed into a very formal three piece tailcoat suit & top hat in the single stall mens toilet in a dive bar in a small village more than 20km from the venue.
My best man was with me, and we were looking for a dive bar to boost our confidence with a beer or two, but our chosen one was inexplicably closed. So we chose… I hesitate to use the phrase “next best”, because this place was below even my poor standards.. but a dive bar nonetheless.
I have a lovely photo of me, fully dressed, including a top hat, looking very nervous. Drinking a beer.
