How has your marriage...

[flopsy]

... differed from the expectations you had on your wedding day?

Brought to you by a family member's wedding this weekend. It was the second wedding H and I have attended as a married couple, and I think every wedding from here on out will make me think about this subject.

Our almost-1.5-year marriage has been just as happy as I thought/hoped it would be, so far. Nothing changed about our relationship, really, since we were already living together. We just got to change my name and officially pool our money.

But our lives are quite different outside of our relationship, the biggest change being that I was laid off three weeks after our wedding. My career is obviously nowhere close to where I expected it would be.

It hasn't affected our happiness level as a couple, though. Sure, we have our ups and downs, but I wouldn't change much. A job would obviously be wonderful, but everything else is great, and I like to think that everything happens for a reason.

But I think that having experienced an unexpected change like this always makes me wonder what's in store for the couples we know.

You?

[hannamaren]

Even though we had a rough patch recently, I am not surprised by our overall marriage.
We lived together for 3 yrs pre marriage and dated 12 yrs total before marriage. We knew each other.

[flopsy]

Nov 11, 2012 21:16:44 GMT -5 hannamaren said:

Even though we had a rough patch recently, I am not surprised by our overall marriage.
We lived together for 3 yrs pre marriage and dated 12 yrs total before marriage. We knew each other.

I remember reading the posts about your rough patch. I hope things are going well!

12 years is incredible! I was itching to get married after 6 months. Going on 5 total years together.

[flamingeaux]

We weren't living together before. Honestly, it's a little easier than I thought it would be. My parents relationship is much more tempestuous, despite the fact that they do love each other. I married H because there was no one else that I would have been willing to work that hard to stay with.

[housegeek]

We were together for 4 years before we tied the knot, marriage was just the icing on the cake.

[greekypie]

We've been married 8.5 years. Starting at about year 7 we hit a rough patch. Things that I never thought would "happen to us" (in quotes bc they didn't exactly happen to us, we did things to cause them to happen) absolutely happened. Struggles I never thought we'd go through, we've gone through.

We're in a good place now, but I do feel disillusioned, because I was so perfectly certain on my wedding day that we'd be so so happy 95% of the time. And that did last for about 5 years, I think.

[chessie]

We dated for a while and we were friends most of our lives so really "marriage" never changed anything, same relationship as before the wedding date. We go through rough patches just like any other couple. We both change, scenario changes, money, etc. Really its about how we communicate among all of the craziness. Married 6 years together for 9 years, and friends for over 20 years.

[flopsy]

Nov 11, 2012 21:24:35 GMT -5 greekypie said:

We've been married 8.5 years. Starting at about year 7 we hit a rough patch. Things that I never thought would "happen to us" (in quotes bc they didn't exactly happen to us, we did things to cause them to happen) absolutely happened. Struggles I never thought we'd go through, we've gone through.

We're in a good place now, but I do feel disillusioned, because I was so perfectly certain on my wedding day that we'd be so so happy 95% of the time. And that did last for about 5 years, I think.

Glad to hear that you are in a good place now.

I also think about this subject every time I think about the fact that, in the past few years, H and I have both had family members suddenly and unexpectedly divorce their very long-term spouses. It definitely hit us hard and, while we know a few little details here and there, it makes us wonder what happened. We can only have trust in each other and hope that, like you, we can overcome any obstacles that get thrown at us.

[pitterwoo]

At first it was harder than I thought it would be and we fought a lot at the beginning. Now it's easier than I expected because we really worked things out and established a foundation.

[biogirl21]

It's mostly the same as what I thought it would be. We dated for 4 years and lived together a year and a half before getting married so not much changed.
We're going though a hard time right now with Infertility and my husband not being able to find a job in his field, but I'm hoping we'll come out stronger in the end.

[Deleted]

I thought we'd be more settled by now (2.5 years in), i.e. kid, house, jobs but overall it's gone the way I had hoped.

[Deleted]

Having a kid has changed things more than I expected. I did not realize how much it would change our relationship. I think if we did not have a child our marriage would be more like I expected.

[glendi]

We've been married 9 years, and the parenting thing is the part that was most unexpected for me. Both my daughters have extenuating needs (one's gifted, the other's autistic) that consume a lot of our energy. Thankfully, most everything else is really good.

[phunluvin82]

We've been married about a year and a half, and it has been harder than I thought it would be...specifically with money issues, which is basically how I ended up on here in the first place.

I feel like we're starting to come out the other side of it now, but I definitely never expected that we'd have so much discord in year #1, AT ALL.

We lived together before, but we didn't have our finances combined and we were really not planning for the future beyond the wedding. Once the wedding was over, that had to change, and it was not a smooth transition for us...there was a lot of disagreement there, and still is sometimes, but we are dealing with it better now.

[ellipses84]

We had to face some very stressful situations due to things that were out of our control when we were engaged. It was so bad that DH told me it was ok if I never wanted to deal with it again and could leave him. I stayed, thinking we had been through the worst of it, but we hadn't. If I knew what was ahead, I may not have married him. I'm a perfectionist and it was hard for me to deal with life not being "happily ever after." We did eventually make it through the worst of it and we have a great life. Now I feel like our marriage is stronger and we can survive anything together.

On a MM note, I never expected to be the primary breadwinner, but I have worked very hard and been lucky in my career. DH switched careers right before we married and the bad economy hit his industry hard, so the pay hasn't been what was expected, but it is getting better.

[Norticprincess]

While I never expected puppies and rainbows. We'd been together almost 7 years when we got married. We weren't living together prior due to grad school in two different states. We had started combine finances shortly after graduating from undergrad and were fully combined by our engagement. I also never expected that we'd be tossed in the deep end without knowing how to swim five months to the day into marriage. Nor did I expect to learn to tread water just to stay together throu way more downs than ups. If you do the life stress quizzes hit most of those minus death of a spouse or child (never got the kid thing to work). Never expected the thing that drove initial wedge in our relationship to start to swap positions on us and bring us so much closer. It was way beyond either of our control.

[RoxMonster]

We dated for 5 years before getting engaged and lived together 2 years before marrying, so marriage didn't change much. I was surprised we could afford to buy a house so soon (one year into our marriage). Besides that, our relationship is pretty much exactly the same as it was when we were living together but not married.

[Deleted]

I did not live prior & we've been married 9.5yrs. We've gone through incredibly stressful times including a death of a parent, moves, remodels, job changes, loss of half our income (I became a SAHM), pregnancy loss, 3 children + 1 on its way, colic, special needs child, etc. We've had some rough times for sure & it's not been all puppies & rainbows. It's not as "romantic" as I thought it'd be in some ways but in other ways its exceeded my expectations. Our first year was not rough at all--in fact our first rough patch was after DHs Dad died & he "rebelled" quietly. I've had to fight for the marriage I want on a few occassions. My biggest plus was having a husband that does care & does want us to live happily ever after--so he works on himself to give me what I need. Same for me as well. I have everything I ever wanted materially & most other ways. I am surprised how much my DH turned out to be like my Dad...so I think I know him extremely well & am able to address things early. My parents have had a rough time but my Dad was nothing like my Moms father do she did not "get" him. I learned a lot of what not to do through my parents 43 yr marriage, 30yrs of which have been rocky.

[isabel]

Actually, it's been pretty awesome. I suppose we've yet to be truly tested though (just one really rough patch while we were dating. I remember that in vivid detail.). Here's hoping we've done the hard work to make it through anything that lies ahead.

[Deleted]

Our marriage was way better than I imagined and seemed to get better ever year. I felt it was so perfect until we had DD. Ha! Then a couple months after DD was born, we started looking into moving which ended up to building a custom home (yeah, the most stressful way to have a house). DD is almost 3 and there's still some things we need to work on in our marriage. We plan to start marriage counseling again after we move to our new house. Yep, the house we started to work on to build almost 3yrs ago is not done.

[Deleted]

No surprises. We are fortunate and probably an anomaly.

[Deleted]

We were friends for 10 years, dated for 8 years, and lived together for 2 years before we got married, so there were no surprises.

But to be honest, I don't know that I really *had* expectations on my wedding day. Or at least, I certainly didn't think things would change at all just because we were now married. I figured things would be kind of like if we were still just dating (and after 8 years of that, I was very familiar with how that went). We've now been married for 5 years and it hasn't been any different from when we were dating really.

[Deleted]

We were together for five years and lived together for two before we got married. I think our expectations were pretty realistic. Not much changed. The wedding/marriage certificate felt like a formality more than anything else.

[kitkat]

No major changes. We lived together for three years before we got married so it would have been surprising to me if something had changed.

[bleubook]

Honestly. I know this sounds cheesy. But it's just better than I thought it would be. Our love has deepened. As has our friendship. There is a deeper level of trust than I've ever experienced. We've both matured a lot over the past year. My husband impresses me so much with his drive and goals and accomplishments.

[Deleted]

We've been together for about nine years ( joined finances and living together for most of that time) and we've been married for three years. Nothing really changed between us after we got married.

We've been through a lot together, some stuff I don't even care to name. I wouldn't say any of it has been a surprise because I have a very "shit happens" kind of attitude about life. We used to argue a lot more about things that were beyond our control, but I think I've taught DH my "shit happens" attitude and now we just talk it out.

[holly116]

My husband and I were a bit of a whirl wind.. I was living in Denver and home for Christmas, visiting family, when we met. Several months later when I was home for a wedding, we got together and started the long distance thing. Less than three months later, he proposed, I transferred with work and moved back, all within 5 months of getting together. We lived together for about 7 months while we planned our wedding and got married almost exactly one year after our first date. That was just over 3 years ago and we have two babies

And it's been a wild ride. You wouldn't think it, but we are both incredibly left brained, rational people except when it comes to all the super huge decisions in life. With those, we just go for it. We haven't had moment to really think about it, but we've each never been happier. We are so blessed.

We see the world very similarly: our faith, our politics, our careers had similar travel and expectations, the importance of our relationships with our family and friends and how we are raising our kids. We had both dated plenty before we met one another, we completely clicked.

I will say that the first 6 months after each baby was difficult. It's been said over and over on the MM Moms board, but thanks to so many others sharing their stories, I really think I struggled a bit with some anxiety more after my son and if we are blessed with more children, I will take better care of myself.

[adlove]

It's been so different to what I imagined. We were together 8 years before marriage. Since we married 2.5 yrs ago, we've moved several times, somewhat unexpectedly. It's been an incredible experience ans being away from friends and family has done great things to strengthen our relationship.

It's not been without challenges, especially since I've essentially not worked since we married, but it's a sacrifice I took for us that I don't regret at all.

I'm sure on our wedding day I thought we'd be settled down at this point, but I wouldn't trade our time abroad for anything.

Now that I'm pregnant, and we face our impending repatriation, I'm really excited about the next step. Lots of life changes coming for us.

[w2w]

I thought my husband was a good guy when we were dating, but it has become abundantly clear that he is a really really good guy who really cares about my happiness and our family. I got really lucky.

[littlemermaid]

We are going on 14 years of marriage. Dated 5 years prior to marriage, never lived together. We have 2 children. Overall we have had a wonderful marriage, normal ups and downs but nothing major. I think we are very fortunate. We are each other's biggest supporter. We truly enjoy each other's company.