Married people only... Glad you did? Regret it?

1st at 28,
2nd at 39... did meet when I was single the first time. Would have made a world of difference, but we still get to spend a good long time together going forward!

We had our 25th anniversary at the end of August last year.

I don't get to answer the poll since I am not married now.
I married late, at 37 after living together three years.

I was happy, we both were happy, for quite a while, although there are always periods of difficulty. Later on things broke down. My regret is that I didn't punt some years earlier. I don't care about marriage one way or the other now. I would enjoy loving someone again.

very glad!
we've been together for almost 16 years, married for over 12.
our parents are good role models -- both sets got married in 1955...

Married 1st time at 19.
(Waaaaay too young. Awful relationship.)
No children. Divorced at 24.

Married 2nd time at 28.
(MUCH better!)
One child (son) born after our 10th anniversary.
Celebrated 21st anniversary on July 15.

Would I do it again? NOT the first one! The second? Definitely. He is a good man, and I am a lucky woman.

plainoldme is surprised that many marriages last so long, I'm amazed that so many people get married at all.

I'm not married, but I wanted to drop in anyway. The whole thing kind of fascinates me.

I got a kick out of plainoldme's post - I have had that thought too, at least sometimes. I do, though, understand how people make it, at least I have a glimmer. I understand much better how people don't make it.

Osso, I have those thoughts on why people get married and why people have kids. I honestly do not understand what all the drive to do these things is about. I mean, I understand the biology of it, but I got zero drive to have children and I end up feeling like marriage is almost a non-issue if one doesn't want kids.

I notice the totals for the percentages on this thread only equal 98%. What happened to the remaining 2%?

I remember early 1972, when I thought I might die of being left by the fellow I knew was the one. I went into a tailspin.
I knew he was my mate and he didn't.

This is sort of apropo since I saw him just this last week, some thirty years later, though this last week wasn't sudden, we're all pals now, with a lot of continuing regard, which can happen when the person was also a mindsharing friend to start with. Some people on a2k know the story, I'll just leave it at that here.

So, I remember the drive.

In reality, when I did marry another fellow about six years later, having met him in three, it was romantic and we were also friends, but we each changed over years. We accommodated to those changes and then one day we stopped and loosened our shouders and grew apart. (This paragraph covers a lot of years.)

But daily life of developing yourself and getting along with someone else who is doing that and being tied together in it,
I say, isolating this from having children together and parenting, but just by itself, getting along with another person over decades as your mate.... surely can be done, but takes a peck of pineapples.

Harder if both partners want to be equal as - let me not say professional achievers, but respected thinkers and doers. Or maybe easier, if that is a given in the first place. Harder if it seems a given and isn't.

I guess all that was a tangent as I am not a qualified pollrespondent, but ya know I can't help it...

Carry on..

No, don't stop, osso. It made me think. I thought about couples I have known who have been married 50 years and longer. It becomes a true partnership. I think some people are made for partnership (myself included...I always function best this way...work/love/housemates, etc.) and others aren't.

I thought I would be good at partnership. But partnership takes two attuned to it at least most of the time. One can be ready for the partnership ride and the other less so. The other might not even know he or she is less inclined, at the start.

And people like me, who knew they wanted partnership, albeit with a wellchosen person, didn't know they might, over decades, get less enthused on that idea, given certain skewing of results.

marriage
bookmark

There's a grain of truth in that.

Marriage can make people complacent in the relationship. They feel they can "slack off" because, "hey, we're married".

I got married for a really stupid reason. My girlfriend was always insecure in our relationship, no matter how much I tried to make it secure. So I proposed to her thinking that after we were married she could relax. She relaxed all right and basically stopped her therapy, stopped trying to better our relationship, etc.

I was in a 15 year relationship without being married - and never believed in getting married anyway...

We broke up, I enjoyed the single life for a short time, met Stefan, got married nine months later. I was 35 at that time. We have been married for seven years now. I never ever regretted it!

Debra
You sound just like me. I did a 6 year sentence with the father of my son and then another 5 years with another that stressed my life. The things we do for love (sigh). After the last one, I decided I needed a very long break and over 6 years later, I'm not finished with my break yet, lol. Life is good ;-)
I'm glad you found a good man that makes you happy and I hope that some day I will too. Not yet though, I'm still on break :-D
When I was younger, I dreamed of getting married, but now the thought makes my hair stand on end, haha!
I envy people who are happily married and wish I hadn't made such lousy choices in men.

I took a 6 year self-imposed break from men also. Well, I took a break. Had no idea it would last for six years. I was lonely without male companionship but during that time, I learned to respect myself and not accept being taken for granted or played for a fool.

This is a good, interesting point. My grandparents were married for 50+ years -- until my grandfather died -- and they had a "good" relationship, but not one I would want to be in. My grandpa was the boss. Period. My grandma was a rather passive personality, and fine with that.

My husband and I on the other hand are both very strong personalities; separately, we each tend towards positons of leadership in our own spheres. It is definitely a lot of work to keep things on a partnership level. That's especially true when we have a joint project, as with getting our house together these last couple of weeks. We both tend to stride into a room and say, "OK, here's what's going to happen," and so we both have had to consciously bite our lips, smile, nod, say "that's a good idea," and "I think that would be great, really, but..." It's not what comes naturally. ;-)

On the other hand, while the take-charge impulse has to be handled, we are lucky in that we DO think in very parallel ways -- often once the lip is bit, the other says just what the lip-biter was thinking. We have very, very similar taste and ultimately trust each others' judgement. So that helps.

All of this is easier for me when I do have my separate sphere of influence and authority; when I'm just stay-at-home mom and he's Mr. Professor, it's harder. But the change in my circumstances is not his fault -- and I'll get into more professional stuff soon -- so I just write rants in my journal and take a deep breath.

Hmmm....let's see.....before I was married I used to sleep with a LOT of women sometimes two or three at a time....I didn't even have an address just either crashed with a woman or stayed at a hotel where I was responsible for nothing but keeping myself happy and getting to the gig on time......no grass to cut , no trash to take out, no bathroom to clean......if I saw something I wanted I bought it without worrying about whether I could afford it....on my time off I did exactly as I pleased no more no less....I could act like a self centered dick and still get laid....no matter what I put on it was suitable for the occasion...and I never was bothered with any thoughts about how my actions effected anyone else so self restraint was completely unnecessary........man what a shitty life!!!!!!!! I'm so glad I got married.