Are you the same person you were 5 years ago? 10? 20? Do you think you’ll be the same in the future? Will your partner also be? The correct answer is no. Marriage takes work to keep working as life takes you through its ups and downs and we evolve and grow as people. Best of luck to you all!
Enjoy it for me, friends. I’m just an NPC.
Can’t wait for these comments to be depressing
They’re not wrong, but you’re not either. Nothing is perfect all the time and the OP statement really leaves a lot out. Been married for 20 years. Would do it all again. That’s what matters.
We decided to finally play Jumanji. She had to crawl across to living room and almost broke her knee. Now she is pouting with a cool pack while I boil water to make her tea.
Being single is cool and all. But I never want to go back. I decided this to be my life.
Maybe someday…
Well, one more reason to be sad about being unlovable :/
I bet it’d take one DnD session, night of drinking, or playing games over discord to find a hundred reasons you’re loveable. Lemme know if you ever want to game!
I don’t drink alcohol :/
That leaves two other suggestions in their comment!
I’m still not sure how that’s supposed to help in terms of being lovable.
Surprised this isn’t the first comment. That’s lot of us here.
Just love each other. Problem solved
Love is an action, and it takes two. If you haven’t found someone to love you, keep looking.
Same.
I only really ever had two goals in life and I managed to fail them stupendously:
1)Not be the guy who’s miserable every day and doesn’t want to wake up to go to work.
2)To be in a loving relationship.
1 is making 2 even more difficult. On second thought it’s like an ouroboros, 1 makes 2 more difficult which compounds the misery of 1 lol
So this blew my mind, but once I got beyond the whole “my ex doesn’t love me, she ruined my life” the whole thing of single 4eva disappeared. It turns out, you, as an individual, need to love yourself first, before anyone else can.
Know why? Cause only you can advocate for all of your qualities and issues.
I’m discovering a lot about me. I don’t have the time or energy for a significant other right now, so I should be single. Sure I have physical desires, but with creativity you can get through that.
same here. I should probably start blocking those types of posts. All they do is make my depression worse.
This is exactly the relationship my wife and I share. We’re each other’s best friends, so it’s easy to hang out every day. Which is important because we’re both not working, so we’re around each other 24/7.
So many couples struggled throughout the pandemic because they were actually forced to spend a lot of time together and realized they just didn’t care for each others’ company as much as they thought. But it had no effect on my relationship with my wife because we already spent almost every moment of our free time together.
And it’s not like we do absolutely everything together. There are plenty of days when we’re indulging in our own separate hobbies or interests. But we’re always close by, so we can chat or share our geeky hobbies with one another.
If you marry someone for looks, status, money, etc., you may find yourself in more of a business relationship than a romantic one, which will struggle as you get older. But finding someone who completely gets you is refreshing. You don’t need to put on a mask around them; you can be yourself and be confident that they love you for YOU. And if you truly respect them, you’ll also love and appreciate them for being themselves too.
As a counter example my wife and I have separate rooms and some hobbies that we don’t share…and it’s amazing. She’s still my best friend, we still hang out every day, we still do the dirty, we’re still very much in love…we just realized that we both love some degree of personal space, personal time when necessary, and sleep 10x better in separate rooms. I think we still fit the idea of “best friends doing life together” despite not wanting that 24/7 always together lifestyle.
I can get behind that. My wife and I share a bed, but she’s talked about having her own separate bed. She’s an extremely light sleeper and even shifting a little bit in bed wakes her up. Suffice to say, she almost never gets good sleep and ends up napping half of the day after I’ve gotten up. She still prefers to fall asleep cuddled up to me, though, which is why we haven’t gotten her a separate bed yet.
We also have plenty of separate hobbies that the other doesn’t care for. I collect comic books that my wife isn’t interested in, and she loves true crime shows, which get very boring and repetitive for me. But we each indulge in our separate hobbies in nearby rooms, so we can excitedly share details with the other.
She loves telling me all about the horrifying ways someone was murdered on one of her shows, and whereas I don’t care for the show myself, I enjoy how excited she is about sharing all the gory details. I love her passion for her interests. 🥰
This is me and my husband. I find the part about going through the pandemic together especially true. “After” the pandemic I never went back to the office and the number of coworkers I had who seemed to be flabbergasted that I wanted to stay at home was through the roof. They seemed genuinely confused that husband and I weren’t dying to get away from each other.
I have to admit though, it may have become somewhat of a hostile work environment as my husband has been threatening to tell my boss about all the times I make fish for lunch.
Ideally yes. This is me and Mrs. Warp Core and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
However…
Well, let me put it this way. Ever have a best friend that, after spending a lot of time around, you find out that you actually can’t stand more than a few hours at time? That is absolutely a possibility here. Only now their stuff is in your house (or vice-versa), and/or they’re on the same lease.
$0.02: It may not always be advisable, but absolutely benchmark the practical aspects of your romance long before tying the knot. Long-term co-habitation is not the only route here. Consider other ways to rack up large blocks of time: getaway vacations, long weekends, or even just “play house” for a few days at a time. You’d be amazed at what horrible, terrible, filthy, obnoxious habits your partner has when “at home.” The reality is that everyone is a bit (more) of a mess in private, and the only real question you have to answer is: “what am I willing to put up with?”
Exactly … and a good way to do that is international budget travelling while you are still young (20-30 years of age).
It doesn’t matter what you got right now in your 20s, borrow, scrape and ask for money wherever you both can and go travel to some foreign country on the most minimal budget you guys can afford.
Stay within safety margins of course … don’t stay in deep dark corners that cost a dollar and risk your lives.
Stay on the trip for about two or three months and you will both cement your relationship if not for the long term than for life. You will go through terrible situations, unsavoury situations, disgusting events … but also see unbelievable things, beautiful images and people and cultures … and best of all you will learn to trust one another completely with money, with time, with space, with your lives. You’ll see the ugly sides of one another and you will learn what you like and dislike about one another and you will find out if you can accept all that or not.
The first five years of being with my wife, we went overseas as often as we could on the skin of our teeth … and it was scary, terrible and absolutely fun and exhilarating for both of us. We saw Asia, India, North Africa and a dozen major European cities … in the summers we got in the car and explored the Canadian west coast … then the Canadian east coast.
Part of the inspiration was an older couple that we made friends with years ago. Before they got married in 1970, they took a motorcycle to Alaska, then down to Patagonia for a year … they went through absolute hell and back and they are still together.
I’m a full blown mess in private or public, they know what they’re getting into before seeing me at home. I have no shame
My sister did this with her then boyfriend by canoeing down the Mississippi River.
I took a getaway vacation with a woman I had been dating for 3 months. We got back and haven’t corresponded since then. That was a few years ago.
I still cannot fathom how anyone thinks it is a good idea not to do these things with another person before marrying them. My wife and I were both adamant that we live together and go on trips together and do “married” things long before we made that decision. I like to think we ironed out many of the early kinks without the pressure of “we’re married so this absolutely has to work” lingering over us.
It’s damn nice, ngl. And I didn’t get married until 2013 at almost 40.
It’s one of those things worth waiting for, rather than jumping into at first opportunity. Not saying I wouldn’t have preferred to have had what I have now sooner, but younger me wouldn’t have been ready anyway. I’m just saying that it isn’t something to rush for the sake of being married, it’s about being good partners, matching well, and that’s not something that’s guaranteed to happen at any given age.
Know more than a few people who lived together for years before tying the knot primarily for the economic benefit (plus throwing a big party is fun). By the time you’re really vibing with someone, marriage is almost an afterthought.
This is my situation. Dated/lived together for 3 years before going to the courthouse. Reception was at a spaghetti place nothing fancy since there are a lot of kids in my family lol it was such a blast, so low key. We’ve been together for a decade now. Wouldn’t change it for the world. We’re best friends. When we got married, everything and nothing changed all at once. Best decision I’ve ever made.
At the same time, it really, really sucks thinking you found this and then slowly realizing years into it that it’s not going to work because it’s just crushing your soul and there are some fundamental incompatibilities that are just not going to change and you have to get out for the sake of your own sanity and long term happiness, despite how much you want to make it work.
Source: I’m in the terminal phases of that process right now.
Apologies for being a Debbie downer. Just having some pretty rough times right now, and the next couple of weeks are going to absolutely suck, and there’s definitely no way around it but through.
Hey, I just did that a year ago this November 1st!
Man, am I glad I did. And man, was it so worth it.
So glad to hear it gets better. Thank you!
I’m sorry to hear that. I hope you manage to navigate this uncomfortable (and temporary) period of your life and can get back to building happiness again.
I appreciate your sentiments. Your posts often give me spikes of amusement, for what that’s worth. <3
I’m glad! Hang in there, bud. <3
Always so positive. I aspire to that but often fail. It’s difficult when you are depressed.
Yo, I’m turning in the divorce papers in a few weeks. After months of detangling finances and finding new places 🎉 Only took like 5 years of me giving it my all and my former spouse constantly telling me I wasn’t doing enough for them. The years before all that were pretty great though
As a generally lazy person, I would suggest other lazy people look for similar minded matches. Don’t look for a type A hyper organized person that’ll pick up after you. My wife and I are lazy in different ways and make that work for us. Sorry you are going through this OP, I hope you find your match!
That’s… actually part of what did us in. She helped me improve myself, and I became a lot happier for it. I tried to return the favor… she was largely unreceptive, and several years of that led to immense frustration, followed by despair. It turned my trajectory right around. And one I had tasted the positive direction, I wanted it back, and I couldn’t settle for just trying to pull her through life.
Dude I’m in the detangling finance stage now.
I made like 3x what she did before we separated so quite literally everything has my name on it. Her lawyer gave an absurd number for the budget she would need me to cover for maintenance for the next 5 years and my lawyer said “ok prove the need.” I don’t think she’ll be able to, but yikes, the thought of this having to go through court is frustrating
I’m fortunate enough that mine is very amicable. No lawyers, we’re splitting everything 50/50, there are a few big things that would make it more complicated in a court but we’re like “no you’re the only one who uses that you get it” kind of stuff. We would have turned in the divorce papers a few weeks ago actually but they’re on my insurance and I didn’t want to kick them until their new job’s insurance takes affect. Even with all this going for us the finances thing took so much work. Can’t imagine what a contested detangling would be like. You’ve got this!
At the same time, it really, really sucks thinking you found this and then slowly realizing years into it that it’s not going to work
Its not going to work with that particular person, but that doesn’t mean your life is over nor that the one you’re looking for still isn’t out there looking for you. I’m really sorry to hear about the situation you’re in right now, and its not going to be easy to get through this and its certainly not going to be quick, but you can get through this. You can heal. You are so much more than just that relationship even though it may not feel like that right now.
You must navigate these choppy waters with an aim to come out the other side whole in time. You owe it to yourself. If you want to try again in the future, should you want to try again, you owe it to the other person thats still out there looking for you.
Oh, I know that. I am actually very confident I’m going to feel way better in the long term. I’m just struggling a lot with guilt and stuff right now because a big part of me feels like a complete psychopath for basically spurning someone I love a lot, and who I know loves me a lot too.
That said, I do appreciate your well-wishes. <3
I am in exactly the same place right now. It’s really shit. I know it will be better eventually, but to hear someone else say it is very helpful. Best of everything to you. Stay strong.
You too, friend.
It is absolutely soul crushing. Here, have some flowers to cheer you up. 💐
May take a while, but you’ll be ok eventually.
Been there my friend. 30 years together, and she ended it without warning with a weak excuse. Took me a year to realize she was a drain on my mental wellbeing and I’m now better off. But, for the first 10 years I can say life was good.
Today, life is way better.
Far and away, the best aspect of my life.
Famous last words
This entirely unironically. Life is better when you can share it with other people.
My wife is the best thing to ever happen to me, plain and simple. My life would be a whole lot worse, and a whole lot more boring, without her in it.
As a recent divorcee: fuck this hurts.
Yeah, man. This isn’t what most marriages are and later on in life we realize this. People have this false idea marriage is some happy co-op mode and it’s mostly shit.
