If you’ve found the one that you think you’re going to marry or if you’re in a long-term relationship and thinking about tying the knot, then you no doubt will wonder about what life will actually be like when you get married. For lots of couples, marriage can change their lives completely, whether that’s for the better or worse.
You’re probably wondering about how you will deal with arguments. You’re wondering how children will affect the relationship between the two of you. You’re wondering whether people will treat you differently now that you’re married. The list goes on…
We have the answers to your questions about life after marriage from Reddit users who have had the experience. Is it bliss? In some cases, yes, it’s the best decision they ever made. In some cases, no, things haven’t worked out and married life is not for them.
The truth is that married life consists of good times and hard times. You have to live and learn together through the ups and downs. Here are the positive and negative changes marriage brought about for these people:
15“We both had to settle our differences”
“Let me just say that I’m a lucky man! Married for 16 years to the most beautiful, smart, thoughtful, caring wife and mother to my children. I’m an artist so I also know she didn’t marry me for the money. I think every relationship has its ups and downs. Our hardest year of marriage was our first year that we had a child. We had some differences in parenting that were learned from our own parents. At that time I questioned myself if my wife had changed for the worse. We both had to settle our differences. Marriage can be tough but if you find a keeper you will learn how to keep her. She is my better half for sure and I don’t know what I would do without her. Marriage is being unselfish. Sad to read a lot of the comments that didn’t work out. My comment is a more positive one. It is possible to work out your differences as long as both parties are willing to give it a try.”
14“We grew apart”
“We grew apart. The night I was going to tell her I wanted a divorce she told me she was pregnant. I love my daughter to pieces, and want the best for her. I have made things work so far, but the reasons I wanted a divorce have not gone away.”
“[…] I don’t even know if she knows that she has changed. She runs so hot and cold that I sometimes have to carefully plan out everything I am going to say so she doesn’t get angry. I just feel that I am walking on egg shells most of the time and it is just tiring. Its not that I don’t love her, it is more about my sanity and health.”
13“When’s the baby coming!?”
“Now that we’re married, everyone nosily asks us when the first child is on the way. “When’s the baby coming!?” and “Oh wow! Your life is going to change in a year or so when that first kid arrives!” and “You’re about to find out what life is really about!” This is super frustrating because we don’t want to have kids (DINC household ftw!) and now we get perpetually judged for that. It’s awkward, and I still don’t understand where people get off asking about personal things like that in such an unsolicited way. People need to understand that, although for us it’s just a little awkward, this is an extremely rude and potentially hurtful line of questioning. My whole life isn’t about procreating. Drop it.
Everything else about our relationship has basically stayed the same except she changed her last name and we merged our bank accounts/insurance/bills fully.”
12“My wife and I married after one year of dating”
“My wife and I married after one year of dating when she accidentally got pregnant, while we were both still in Uni. We’re together now for 6 years, and I wouldn’t give it up for the world.
I don’t really have a good reference point because we never were together for a long time without a child. But our relation was pretty serious and committed from the start, and that’s why when she got pregnant we settled in this mindset of ‘we’ll do this together’.
Basically, everything has become better. We both wanted kids (just didn’t plan on this soon), so watching our two daughters grow is beautiful. We communicated pretty well from the get go and that hasn’t changed. We don’t avoid uncomfortable topics but we also always try to understand the other. We are still the same person as when we got together, in a lot of ways, but we have grown and changed together in other ways. ”
11“Things that didn’t bother you before, suddenly become bigger problems”
“This is entirely opinionated but I believe it puts an added stressor on the relationship to want to make it work. Things that didn’t bother you before (basically things you were able to deal with) suddenly become bigger problems cause you fight for that “perfect” relationship that isn’t possible. On top of that, those issues make you feel trapped cause society tries to pressure marriage as a forever-commitment (not so much nowdays, but it’s still there).
This is just my take on it. I’m going through a divorce right now though so I could just be an unstable douche. Thing is, if I could not get married but still be with someone I love, that’d be the best course of action in my opinion. Sadly, I’d have a shitty time finding a girl that would hold that same viewpoint without thinking I just don’t want to commit to her.”
10“It was a massive adjustment at first”
“It was a massive adjustment at first. To go from my own living space to sharing and compromising the way I do things. The biggest challenge has been recognizing that I will have to change some things. Im a neat freak. He is… not. The compromise being both of us meeting in the middle. I let small messes go and he makes the effort to pick up more. That type of thing.
But the positives far outweigh the negative. It is amazing to be so in tune and intimate with someone. To have someone who knows me inside out. Who always has my back. Im never alone and neither is he. Seeing him be such an amazing father to our daughter only strengthened what love I had for him.
It sounds weird, but I feel like we are one entity made up of two parts. If I didnt have him, my whole life would be ripped to shreds. A part of me would be permanently missing.”
9“Somebody needs me.”
“For almost 20 years now, I’ve woken up every morning, knowing someone believes in me. Somebody needs me. One, then two, then three, people depended on me.
I was 25 and completely irresponsible. As long as I had my motorcycle, a guitar, a place to crash, and enough money for cigarettes and beer, I was fine. Couldn’t hold onto a steady job. Never applied myself to anything. Never put any effort into anything. Underneath a facade of casual indifference, I was just afraid to fail, so I always found reasons not to try.
Then suddenly there’s this person who believes I’m smart, strong, steady, capable, and reliable. Someone who was willing to commit to me for life.
Sometimes I think I’ve spent the last 20 years trying to be the man she thinks I am, and I am so much happier, and so much better because of it.”
8“The decisions you make effect you both now.”
“Married my best friend of 10+ years in 2011. The biggest change for me was not having the freedom to just walk out the door and do what I please. Don’t get me wrong, if I want to go out – I can, but now I consider what he wants to do, do we both want to go out? Should we part ways for a few hours or is this a stay-at-home netflix kind of night? These type of thoughts are now a part of your every day life, you’re thinking for two, not just yourself anymore. The decisions you make effect you both now. That in itself can take some major adjusting.
The next biggest change would be the amount of cleaning I do. Don’t get me wrong – I’m no Martha Stewart, but I like to keep a clean home and a clean vehicle. My husband on the other hand…. not so much. My time at the laundromat has doubled, my daily cleaning tasks have doubled, trash goes out twice as often, dishes done twice as often… We’ve been friends for so long, but I honestly had no idea he was this messy and disorganized. At first it was overwhelming but now I’m adapting to the idea that this is now my life, I deal with these ‘minor inconveniences’. Sigh.”
7How People Treat You
“the wife and i lived together for 5 years before we got married, so our day-to-day relationship didn’t really change at all.
the only real changes are how the two of you interface with society, it’s very subtle, but very real how people treat the two of you differently when you’re actually Mr. & Mrs.
- when you introduce a girl as your girlfriend, no one really gives a shit, when you introduce same girl as your wife, there is a bit of respect
- people who say “i’ll never get married” always want to impress you with how committed they are to not getting married, it’s as if they’re still selling themselves on the idea.
- as a dude, you join the fraternity of married guys, it’s weird how real that is.
- banks treat you very differently
- insurance is cheaper
- you no longer have to hear tired jokes like “living in holy bedlock” (heh)”
6“For better or worse”
“For better or worse you get married to the other person’s family as well, this is the biggest downside that I feel that I got, her family is pretty disfunctional, unstable, dependant of her… this has caused a lot of fights between us.
I’m way more stressed now than I used to be before, since I’m no longer earning just to buy stupid shit, but to actually have enough to get afloat with our things and what our daughter needs, I’m not working just to “pass by” anymore. On the positive side, this is also a great source of strength, my resolve and effort at work have doubled since I got married.
I do feel that when it comes to problems or financial distress I’m not alone and I feel relieved that I no longer have to go around looking for girls or anything, I always hated the dating scene and honestly speaking, I think I landed a pretty smart woman despite a couple of short comings (but then again we all have our share of them right?)
We’ve been married for almost 2 years. I feel that the beginning is the hardest part, finances and her family are my constant source of stress, I’m just hoping we can make this work. Everyday I work harder and try to develop myself a bit more hoping that I can land a job somewhere far away from them.”
5Helping Each Other
“You come to help each other through all the f*cked up shit an individual person can experience. You learn them inside and out; good parts and bad (everyone has bad parts). Some days you see them cry, and other days you rejoice in their success. You don’t turn your back on the other for anything, no matter how hard you may want to scream or be a withdrawn bitch. It’s about knowing this person SO well. You eat, sleep, live, breathe and shit in the same place every single day. It’s about acceptance, it’s about working through any problem that arises. You develop a team mentality, and you realize the first year of marriage is a lot harder than you could have ever thought. At the end of the day, it’s worth it. Some days are harder than others, and some days are complete bliss. You adapt to having another part of yourself. I have been married for a little over a year now, and it is the most rewarding and challenging experience I have ever had.”
4“You will soon grow out of that!”
“People assume as soon as you are married, you revert back to being a ‘new couple’ and they treat you as if you know nothing about relationships or life.
Whenever I referred to my now husband as my partner, nobody even batted an eye lid and we were treated like a couple that was stable and secure.
As soon as we get married, I cant talk about our relationship and habits without being told ‘you will soon grow out of that!’ and ‘wait until the honeymoon ends!’… bitches please, we were together for 7 years when we got married. People have dated, gotten married, had kids and gotten divorced in the same time we have been together! The honeymoon period is well and truly over!
How do I adjust? I have to mention how long we have been together in the same breath that I say we were recently married. Kinda annoying :/
Other than that, nothing much has changed. I get to call him my husband which feels really, really nice :)”
3“You talk about money. A lot.”
“You talk about money. A lot. I realized that my sense of self-worth is actually very much connected to how much money I have in the bank. She didn’t have a job when we go married because she chose to move to where I was and start her career over (and she is an angel for that), so early on our finances were pretty tight. Things would always be tight at the end of the month and I would feel emasculated – not because of anything she said or did but because I felt embarrassed about my salary. This was never something that even occurred to me when we were dating. I realized pretty quickly that I was going to have to let her help me manage the money and I couldn’t do I all myself. That was extremely difficult for me, having been single for a long time. I never would have imagined that just sharing your monthly budget with someone could require so much trust and humility but for me it did.”
2Barely getting it on
“Been married 5 years (6 in July assuming we make it).
My wife and I have both absolutely changed since we got married. We got older and more mature and we had a child. If those things don’t force you to change, you’re probably a f*cking robot.
We have less sex than when we were dating, and I think it’s fair to say that most people do. We enjoy each other’s company with our clothes on far more than we did when we were dating (or maybe it’s because we didn’t really try). However, we certainly have enough sex to keep us both satisfied in that regard. When we were dating, neither of us had the same responsibilities as we do now, and frankly we just don’t have enough time or energy to f*ck like we used to. That’s not a bad thing. Being a good husband and parent is far more rewarding than 5 hot minutes in the bed.”
1What Really Matters
“My level of give a damn when I get into an argument/fight with my wife. Before marriage, when I would get into it with a girlfriend, I would fight to the death to prove my point or be “right”. Now that I am married, I realize that most of the stuff I argue about doesn’t matter that much. If it makes her happy fine, I’ll put my clothes in the dresser. As a bonus, when I do bring something up, it seems that much more important.
A lot of people will tell you that when you’re married, you should never go to bed angry. This advice is bullshit. You will solve nothing at 3:00 a.m., while angry and exhausted. When arguing before bed, I tell my wife I am tired, we need sleep and we will discuss in the morning. Its amazing how much attitudes will change with a night’s sleep. In the morning over coffee, you’ll both be calm and rational.”
