A lot of people think that marriage is the epitome of relationship bliss, and for many couples, it definitely is. But a wedding and a ring won’t solve any existing problems in your relationship. If you’re already dealing with serious issues in your relationship, don’t expect them to iron themselves out when you walk down the aisle.
- You’re still the same people, married or not. No relationship is perfect, and it’s totally normal for a couple to clash over certain things once in a while. But there are some fundamental differences that can make or break a relationship (like your politics views and whether or not you want to have kids), and if they’re causing problems now, they aren’t going to stop causing problems when you’re married. Just because you’re his wife doesn’t mean you’re going to change, right? So you can’t expect him to change either.
- Relationships take effort. Getting married doesn’t suddenly mean you no longer have to work on your relationship. In fact, becoming complacent is exactly what will send your relationship into a downward spiral. Getting too comfortable because you’re married and you think you no longer have to try isn’t going to make your problems go away. They’ll be right there under the rug, festering until something happens to bring them out into the open even worse than they were before.
- A wedding is only one day. Some people just want their big day with the flowers, the fancy dress, and the attention all on them. They want a wedding day so badly that they don’t think about what that wedding day means: a lifetime with someone who may or may not be very good for them. The wedding might make you happy, but once it’s over, then what? You go home to all those problems waiting patiently for you to come back down to reality.
- The honeymoon phase will end. Maybe there will be an (unspoken or spoken) agreement between you two right after you get married to put your issues aside and try to make it work. But putting things aside never lasts forever, and eventually everything will slowly go back to how it was before you tied the knot. In reality, it takes a lot more than putting a ring on it to make a relationship work. If you genuinely want things to change, you might want to consider therapy to work out your issues before you walk down the aisle.
- “Tying him down” won’t work. Once you’re married, he has no choice but to settle down and be a good husband, right? Wrong. Giving him an ultimatum or talking him into marrying you isn’t the way you want to start the rest of your lives together. If you aren’t both 100 percent invested in the relationship, it’ll never work anyway. Don’t waste your energy on a guy who isn’t completely devoted to you.
- Rushing it will make things worse. Rushing into marriage could be your way of clinging to a relationship you know is holding on by a thread. Instead of making the hard decision to break things off, you think making the ultimate commitment will turn things around. If it’s not right, though, you’ll only end up breaking up anyway, and it’ll be a lot worse because you’ll have to get divorced.
- Marriage is really just a legal contract. Of course it’s a representation of your love and devotion to one another, but when it really comes down to it, the only thing that changes when you get married is you’re legally tied to each other. You don’t have to get married to prove you love each other. Choosing to be together every day because it’s what you want can actually mean a lot more than sticking it out just because breaking up will involve too much paperwork.
- You wouldn’t tell your friends to marry someone they weren’t happy with. It’s hard to look at your own relationship objectively. But if you saw a friend barreling head-first into marriage even though her relationship was rocky at best, wouldn’t you be concerned? What kind of advice would you give her? Probably not “get married first and worry about your relationship later.”
- Marriage can create a bunch of new headaches. If you think being married is all rainbows and butterflies, you’re in for a rude awakening. There will always be new arguments to get into involving how to manage your money, what to name your first child, where to go on vacation, and whose family to visit on Christmas day. Being a married couple doesn’t mean you agree on everything — it’s often quite the opposite.
- Getting married isn’t the most important thing. A healthy relationship is reliant on a lot of things including mutual respect for each other, the right level of give and take, and the ability to communicate with each other. Oh, and love. Being married doesn’t mean you have all those things, and not being married doesn’t mean you don’t have them. Marriage is what should happen once you have the rest of it covered and confident in you’re relationship, and not a second before.