I know a thing or two about marriage. My first was finished before I was 35 and we were married almost seven years, even by today’s standard that’s fast out of the gate. I’ve now been divorced as long as that entire marriage lasted and in that time I’ve had plenty to ponder about why it went sideways. Of course an affair will put the quash on pretty much any marriage but as they say hindsight is always 20/20 and I’ve come to recognize some warning signs I should have paid attention to long before I said “I do”.
Many of those flags started waving early on, long before the engagement ever took place. Flags so bright they apparently blinded me from reality and the eventual impact they’d soon have like our differences on faith, money, children, and the future in general. Several of those chasms were so wide it’s a wonder we lasted as long as we did.
But being a young buck in my mid 20’s I thought I knew everything and approached our dating relationship like I was playing the stock market. I even told a friend once “it’s like an investment that I need to get a return on” - we’d been dating all of 18 months at the time.
Courting, or dating as we more informally call it, is that period before the engagement and marriage where both people are getting to really know one other. And much like the root of that word ‘court’, it’s a time to put each other under an informal cross-examination. It’s like a drawn-out courtroom trail to learn what’s the truth and what isn’t.
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The divorce rate in America is almost 60%, we’re obviously ‘dating’ the wrong way.
Why is that? Why do so many mature sane people date, marry, ultimately divorce and then complain their ex-spouse had the issue all along that helped cause the breakup? “He was always a big time flirt when we were dating”.
We believe that getting married will make the relationship better.
Somehow we have misled ourselves be into believing that a bad relationship will become better after vows are said and rings are exchanged. Where we’ve learned this idea is a mystery to me. But if I were to speculate I’d say we think that once we’re married our spouse will take this most sacred act of commitment as the sign that it ‘s now time to get the act together. That somehow a marriage certificate is all it takes for somebody to finally ‘shape-up’. That’s like deciding to buy a car with a flat time and hoping it’ll inflate after the paperwork is done.
That way of thinking also implies that marriage is easy. That once we are in matrimonial bliss we’ll be so preoccupied by the rainbows and butterflies there won’t be any time for slamming doors and nights on the couch. All that’s needed is to talk with any married couple and ask them if their relationship got easier after marriage. Did his porn addiction or her drinking problem suddenly vanish after the cutting of the cake?
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A relationships doesn’t get easier after marriage, it gets harder.
You knew she had a spending problem. It seemed to often her money ran out before the month did and she’d pull out one of those credit cards to make up the difference. Unwisely however, you were sure she’d fix that once it became both of your money so you disregard the signs and walk down the isle. Now instead of it being her spending problem – it’s your spending problem.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is people will change only when the pain of staying the same becomes more than the pain of changing. They might say they will and may even show signs for a while, but unless they’re doing it for themselves, change never lasts. And the very best thing you can do for yourself and that person is to talk with them about the problems in the relationship. If those talks lead to a permanent change in behavior then great, you’ve taken a big step in strengthening your relationship. But if the desired change doesn’t happen then the only thing left is to get out of that relationship altogether. Maybe the pain of loseswill drive him to stop drinking and if so maybe there’ll be a chance to rekindle the romance, but if he doesn’t then you will have saved yourself from much more painful heartache later down the road.
Originally published in 2011