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What makes for a good marriage?
poshniallo
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Registered User regular
I thought I'd start a thread that wasn't one of the usual D&D topics.
I've been married for five years myself, but I don't want to give more info than that as this is not a H&A thread. I don't think the answers (beyond platitudes) are simple, and I'm no more in need than anyone else, I guess.
One thing I will say is that, having been raised mostly by books*, I never had much idea of what a good marriage might be. I think our society is too romantic about marriage and always talks about how to get there, assuming that afterwards love will conquer all. After I got married, I found myself thinking 'ok... now what do I do?'
So simply, what do you think makes for a good marriage? Those who aren't married/in long-term relationships, what do you think should work? And those who have experience, what has worked for you?
*apparently my table manners indicate wolves may also have been involved.
I've been married for five years myself, but I don't want to give more info than that as this is not a H&A thread. I don't think the answers (beyond platitudes) are simple, and I'm no more in need than anyone else, I guess.
One thing I will say is that, having been raised mostly by books*, I never had much idea of what a good marriage might be. I think our society is too romantic about marriage and always talks about how to get there, assuming that afterwards love will conquer all. After I got married, I found myself thinking 'ok... now what do I do?'
So simply, what do you think makes for a good marriage? Those who aren't married/in long-term relationships, what do you think should work? And those who have experience, what has worked for you?
*apparently my table manners indicate wolves may also have been involved.
I figure I could take a bear.
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That said, patience and understanding. No matter how much you love someone, they're going to spend some of the huge amount of time you are around them being a huge douche (as are you), and you need to be able to deal with that. This is why I'm a big proponent of living together first. You generally don't see the worst/most obnoxious parts of someone when you're just dating.
Also, learn to apologize. I was always terrible at it prior to meeting my wife, but I've found that as long as both people are willing to admit when they fuck up, or say something mean, it's a lot easier to get along and work things out.
And when all else fails, fuck. Seriously. We have yet to get into an argument or fight that can't be solved by having sex and getting all that stress and tension out.
edit: Also, wait a little while to have kids. As much as I love mine, I do kinda wish my wife and I had more than a few months of marriage before she got pregnant.
What makes a good marrage? If you think about it, its pretty simple. A lot of people mistake lust for love. And a lot of those people with lust get married. After a while they realise they have nothing in common, dont get along and the marrage falls apart. Love encompases more than just lust. Its a true passion for everything about the other person. And the feeling of intense pain when you cant be with that person. Loveless marriges can work, but im not so sure they're good. You have to have a passion for your spouse that will drive you to do anything for them, and the other person must feel the same. Without that simple foundation, everyhting in your relationship will collapse eventually.
But back here in reality, you really need to have at least a few things in common. My wife and I are complete opposites and have very few things in common. It gets hard sometimes. I games of all kinds. Video games, parlor games, board games... you name it. I was also big into sports when i was younger and played baseball, football and soccer. But the computer killed that when i wa in my late teens. Id much rather do something that stimulates my mind than watch tv, or if i do watch tv its a cartoon or something educational/intersting. Getting me to watch a movie is like pulling teeth.
She, on the other hand, never played sports, love her some drama shows and is a movie fiend. She thinks parlor games (such as pool, cards, darts, bowling) are trashy and will not play them.
But we compromise and end up having a good time with eachother. I'll drag her off to watch a baseball game downtown at the local A clubs park and we both have a blast. Or she'll drag me to the open air market to get fresh bread, which i dont mind because of samples galore. We'll watch the occasional movie and shes got me watching some network television shows now. We both have taken an interest in gardening and have made a nice butterfly garden in our back yard as well as growing some veggies.
But we'll have our fights over stupid little things that we will work out in the end. Kids do add more stress, so you'll have even less time with eachother. An even then some of that time will want to be spend doing something that only you are interested in.
I'll stay up till 2am some mornings playing a game, and as long as i dont complain about being tired, she doesnt have a problem with it (unless i stay up late an excessive amount and dont cuddle with her in bed). It becomes a balaning act. All things in moderation.
Because if you hold onto anger, it builds until you hate the other person. On the other hand, if you're always attempting to resolve conflicts, and you find yourself constantly in conflict resolution, then you probably aren't compatible to begin with.
While you don't have to be the same or agree on everything, you must make sure that you are always in some sort of mitigated agreement on the big family things. Career stuff, kids stuff, living situation, etc. You've got to find a way to be in near full agreement on those things at all times, or you don't really have a marriage.
In short, a good marriage allows each person be who they want to be and do what they want to do, and that happens to include the other person a lot and coincide a lot with what that other person wants to be and do.
And butsecks.
You should be doing that anyway. Marriage is *NOT* about romance. It is a practical decision, a choice, and not one to be made lightly. It takes effort and dedication to a relationship that will likely not always be awesome. People fight, people change, bad shit happens, and if you want to be married through it all, you need to look at it from a practical standpoint, and be able to dedicate yourself to working hard at it regardless of how much fun it may or may not be at any given time.
Granted, there are certainly people who are just totally fucking wrong for each other, but largely, even a "good" marriage is going to involve a lot of fighting, compromising, and working your ass off.
So yeah, ditch the idea of marriage being about romance right now, because it's not. It is very much about love on a deeper level than that, and it goes far beyond whether or not you want to be around someone every day and ache when they are not there.
edit: Also, I agree with Yar. Resolving conflicts is very important, and I'm very much of the mindset that going to bed angry is a fucking terrible idea. When something is wrong, talk it out, resolve it, deal with it, whatever. But do *not* let it simmer and wait to deal with it later.
I really feel no need to go out with "the guys" or do anything without her--I detest strip clubs and have about zero interest in going to sporting events or "watching the game at Bob's house." Our best friends are another married couple and, again, they share just about all of our interests, so that's a huge help--we get to hang out with them and it doesn't feel like it's a male vs. female/husband vs. wife thing. We're all just good friends, but my wife still gets to do some female bonding and I still get to do some male bonding.
You must comprimise in order to have a happy and successful marriage. I learned this early on as the fist couple of years of our relationship involved some serious fights and screaming matches. Today, we rarely fight. I've learned that our house and its appearance are very important to my wife, so I've had to put aside my lazy bastard personality and get busy with the housework--something that I absolutely loath. On top of that, her work schedule is far more hectic than mine, so I've essentially become the housewife and do the bulk of cleaning and chores during the work week. I don't mind, because my wife is very cool and she knows that I really enjoy gaming, so she doesn't pester me when I want to sit down for a few hours to play some games. She is also more outgoing and I tend to lean towards being an anti-social bastard (hell is other people), but we try to split our free time activities about 50/50: one weekend we'll stay in and I get to game or we'll watch movies, another weekend I'll do the art galleries or neighborhood outings with her. It works well for us.
And, oh yeah, awesome sex is always a good thing, too.
Just my personal opinion, but I think it's extremely important to wait with marriage. I think your 20s and even your early 30s are a time where you're really finding out who you are, what you want out of life, and you're focusing on what kind of career you want and where you want to be. I'm not so sure if that's the best time to get hitched, although another couple we're friends with are high school sweethearts and have been married for over 10 years now, so there are exceptions.
Marriage is not something to be taken lightly--love does not conquer all, money problems and disagreements smash romance like a bug, this shit takes a lot of work, and you will get sick of each other sometimes (or a lot, possibly). The only advice I'd give to folks on marriage is: don't do it until you're absolutely fucking sure you're ready, do it for the right reasons, make sure you can be close friends with the person and that you'll both respect and love each other, and use birth control in the meantime until you are ready. But if you are ready and you've found that right person and can deal with the true realities of marriage, it can be pretty fucking awesome.
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Yeah, the don't go to bed angry rule is important, as well as agreement on large life arc issues like children, where to live and careers.
Just being friends is extremely important. In a lot of ways, my marriage is like living with my best friend + sex.
Things can destroy your marriage. Worry about it. Think about it. Talk about it. It is fragile.
So far Yar and NexusSix have really hit it on the head.
it helped that my wife and I were not very social to begin with. I could live as a hermit for all i care.
But she has a decent sized family that all live in the same town as us (most are within a half mile radius) so we have plenty of people to talk to. Even more so now that our small group of friends and her cousins all have children around the same age. 2.5 years old and younger.
You need to be really, really in love. And also in lust.
Things you should be able to do around /with your spouse: have a comfortable silence, rant about things that are really important to you, fart, apologize to each other.
Have some common interests and some common friends ... but not 100% of either.
1) Know what you want. If you don't want to get married, it won't work. You can't just agree to get married, or do it because you love the person and that's what they want, both people have to want it, not just accept it. Lot's of time people get married because "it's the next logical thing to do." No. Just plain no.
2) Resolve conflict. Have it out if you have to. Don't go to bed angry. Speak your mind. If you (or the other person) ignore how you feel or let your anger stew, you are fucked. It WILL come back up. If it doesn't boil over next week, it will do it ten years later, and it's that much harder to get past. Bottom line: fight about it, have make-up sex, then bury the hatchet.
3) Do you have a photographic memory? Take your head and bash it into a wall until you can't remember shit older than a month ago. The worst thing you can do in a marriage is bring shit back up years after it's over.
4) Laugh. If your life is all depression and angst and stress, the marriage won't last. Set aside time to do stupid shit with each other.
5) Blowjobs. Don't ever reach a point where they aren't happening.
6) Both people need to know how to explain how they feel. Nothing's worse than not understanding what the other person is feeling. This may sound stupid, but if you aren't good at expressing yourself, practice identifying your feelings, at least to yourself, until you know yourself well.
I don't know if I agree with the "don't go to bed angry" rule. Sometimes it's much more productive to talk things out the next day when you've both calmed down.
Learning to compromise is key.
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
If there are major, irksome things now, they'll be there 5, 10, 15, 20 years later, and will seem a thousand times worse.
Right now, my girlfriend and I are hitting our 4th year together soon, been living together (when we're both taking classes at college) for most of that time (we met being on the same dorm floor, then started sleeping over, then moved to an on-campus apartment a few months later with friends).
Another big point I think is communication. You have to be able to talk to each other about anything, ESPECIALLY PROBLEMS. Problems don't fix themselves, and you have to let your signicante what's up so things can get fixed. Keeping shit to yourself just does not work.
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Fuck is that true?
Can anyone stay mad during or after a blowjob?
I can't. I'll agree to anything after that. And the best part is, I won't care what it is I agree to, and if I ever start to question whether it was the right thing to give in on, I just remember the BJ.
I agree that not having specific things you want them to change is good...but you also have to be willing to accept that some things *ARE* bound to change, and be willing to roll with it when it happens.
1. Age difference. I was 7 years older though she was very mature for her age. People change in their 20s it seems...
2. Lack of communication. Stubbornness and keeping things in does not help, especially when concerning sex.
3. Money. Most couples argue because there is not enough of it. Create a budget that both can compromise on and stick with it.
I interpreted "blowjobs" as a catch-all term, but yes. Cunnilingus is divine.
Age differences can be tricky, but my wife and I worked that out early in our relationship. I'm 11 years older than her, but mentally, we're probably about the same (she's always been mature for her age, as I've always been... immature).
We do have some differences, and there are things we find annoying about each other- but the key there is to get over it. Learn to live with the little things, and eventually, they won't bother you as much, or you'll find them somewhat amusing.
I think I'll ask for a BJ tonight. I think I'm overdo. :winky:
My wife doesn't like me to go downtown. Makes her feel... less than fresh.
Yeah. I think it's a pretty solid rule that if both of you are consistently sexually satisfied, things are bound to go well.
Most certainly. Go down early, go down often. That's my motto.
Waiting to talk it out in the morning means in the morning you'll have packed it away into the smoldering and stewing parts of your brain and moved on to other things until one day you fucking hate the other person and aren't even sure why.
Also "open marriages" may sound all enlightened and modern, but old-fashioned jealousy and fidelity actually work a lot better.
Money is one of the single biggest problems in all relationships. And not just in the thin times. My wife and I recently came into some money unexpectedly, and the happiness disappeared almost instantly as we began to feud over what the priorities were for its use. I WANT MY GOD-DAMNED EPSON PROJECTOR!!!
As for blowjobs, whatever. Yeah, I still get them, but I don't know how important that really is. You just both need to be getting enough of whatever gets you buy.
I disagree, jealousy is a bad fucking idea. When you're married, you should both be comfortable enough with each other to know where boundaries lie, and that's that. Agreed on the open thing though, they few people I know that've tried any degree of openness have had serious problems resulting from it.
And shit, I can't go to bed angry, as I really can't sleep until shit is resolved. Problem is, my wife can, and wants to, but I always manage to bug her until we talk shit out, and she always feels better afterwards.
We started out at a summer camp for Canadian Army Cadets. I needed a date for the big end of summer Dinner and Dance and he sat down beside me and I asked him. By the end of the 7 weeks he was crying when I had to go home. For the next 6 months I was on a buss everyweekend to go up to where he lived to see him. Even though he is 2 years younger than me and was still in High school He managed to come up and visit me a few times. I eventually moved to the town he lived in and got work. He graduated and moved to university, I stayed here for another year. I moved to be with him at university. Our daughter came along, I went to nursing school, My mother died in our apartment, we moved back to where he grew up.
The reason I told the whole story is to give you an idea what we have been through together. I just cannot fathom being with another man or woman. Brian has been with me when my mother died, was there when our daughter was born, helped me survive post partum and major depression. We are not so much alike. When we first started dating he was into computers and D&D. I knew almost nothing about either. I learned to play Starcraft since it took up so much time when he and our friends were together.I found I really enjoyed it and tried Heroes of Might and Magic 3. I still can't play FPS. We now have2 computers and 2 WoW accounts.
I think really what makes a great marriage and even though we are not legally married untill this August after 9 years I consider us married (and in Canada this is somwhat easier to do since we Have what is called Common law) as does he, but relaly teh being there through teh awfull and thegreat, the lean times and the fat times is what does it for us. I cannot imagine my life without him in it even after 9 years. We talk, we laugh, we cry and we yell. We spend time together but also apart. If this kind of thing is not there you will fail at marriage. It takes work but should not be hard.
With the divorce rate being where it is, I hardly think that infidelity needs any help from the open-marriage crowd. People are doing a fantastic job of having extramarital affairs as it is, and at least open marriages attempt to honestly address the difficulty of maintaining monogamy in our culture.
I'm not married either, but I can speak from experience that this advice holds true in non-married relationships. People who come equipped with their own social lives and interests are to me 1) more interesting and 2) more stable, as they have a broader support mechanism. Anecdotally, my dad and my stepmom have been together twenty years, and my grandparents for fifty, and this - each partner spending a certain amount of time each day with their own pursuits - seems to be one of the very few common factors between the two unions.
Well, LB is a terrible example for any kind of relationship question. It's like using that once-a-decade freak storm for an example of what every-day weather is like in a place. But I mostly agree with this.
I think the important deal-breaking stuff to have very clear before marriage (but this is not first-date materiel here) has to do with kids. Do you want em. How are they going to be raised. Couples with differing religion very often get along fine but when it comes to one's children compromise goes out the window. I know I would never, ever allow my boy into a church until he is old enough to know the score.
Also, it is unfortunate but true that if you are married to a female who is physicially capable of child bearing you need to be ready for her to change her mind on the subject. No matter how strongly or loudly a girl in her early 20s may rail 'gainst the "breeders" you better be ready a decade later when it turns out she just must have em'. Not something I had to go through personally but I know more than a few people. And for most it turned out ok. By then the guy was ready too. But you should not expect consistancy on the subject.
No, they don't address it. That's like saying rubbing shit in my face helps address the problem that something smells like shit in here.
Always, always, someone ends up being not as cool with it as they thought and it get disastrous very quickly.
Also, this business about having individual activities away from your spouse is overrated. It sounds good to the unmarried, but in reality it is give or take. Sure, if you've got you thing you do that s/he doesn't do, fine, but all-in-all I think that's more a liability than a quality. Often having a lot of separate activity just allows one to prolong their relationship with someone they aren't compatible with, giving the illusion that this is actually good for them.
I hope you don't really mean "always." It may be rare, but it happens that some people just don't have the problems with extramarital sex that most of the rest of us do.
I think both of our points are more about being honest with your partner, because anything other than honesty exacerbates problems.
Agreed,
Every now and then I will get a reminder of exactly how much I love my wife. One of which is that every time I am out doing something 'individual' I think to myself "Man I wish she was here".
Not all the time mind you, but I'd say about 80-90%.
I think it's important to have time away from your spouse, but if you don't work together, you've already got 8 hours a day away from her that should fit the bill. Outside of that, the only reason I like to have time to do my own thing is because I have several hobbies that she doesn't share in. And generally when I'm doing them, I much prefer that she be nearby. Playing a video game is more enjoyable for me if I can look over and see her, even if she's doing her own thing. Moreover, when I can actually get her to play with me, it's awesome.
So yeah, it's really not so much that time away from her is important as that time to do the things I enjoy is important.
Oh hell yes. We set up our living room such that nearly all liesure time activities occur there. So even when I'm brainburned from work and just need to veg on a game for a while I'm still right there with the family. At least physicially
same her there has been many a day when my daughter is playing Dora on teh playstation, Husband is playing hie Horde char with friends and I am logged into my alliance char. Or I will be reading with katheryn on teh couch and he just reaches over and touches each of our heads. Even teh small things that while they will sound silly to other people that are important. He is like a child. From him a term of enderament is to say, " Guess what?...Your poopy." I would miss it if he never said that to me again.