Stuff No One Tells You Before You Get Married

10 Things That Happen After Marriage That No One Talks About

10 things you should know before you tie the knot

10 things I wish I'd known before marriage

1) Compatibility doesn't actually exist

There are just higher or lower levels of incompatibility. After all, you are different genders with different interests, and different upbringings. In strong marriages partners work with and work through the incompatibility by balancing give and take.

2) Everyone thinks about divorce at some point

After a disagreement or difficult time, you will likely think about ending the marriage. The fantasy of ending the marriage when you're going through rough patches is normal. It's not the end of the world. Just don't say it to your spouse every time you think it.

3) You will still find other people attractive

Too often when a spouse unexpectedly find someone, other than their partner, attractive they justify those feelings for another person by deciding that they made the wrong choice of marrying their spouse in the first place.

4) Your relationship problems are not all your spouse's fault

Eventually, you'll see your spouse's flaws, weaknesses, and shortcomings more clearly and you will conclude that any problems in the marriage are obviously your spouse's fault. My two favorite phrases are "emotional equals attract", so whatever you see in your spouse, you have a different but equally difficult contribution.

5) Once you have a kid you'll have to work a lot harder to love your husband

Call it nature's way of making sure your offspring survive. Call it hormones. It's motherhood. Once you have a child, you might find your husband's need for affection to be a nuisance.

6) Stuff you love now will eventually bug you

His laid-back attitude will become "lazy". Her attention to her appearance may morph into vanity or spending too much money.

7) Marriage is so much better and so much worse than you can imagine now

Whatever you imagine marriage will be, it will be so much more. More of everything. More tears. More laughs. More pain.

8- No matter how hard you try you will become your mother (or father) at some point.

You will say things to your kids that you promised you'd never say.

9) It's OK to grieve or feel sad after your wedding

Although it's a wonderful celebration of love, it's also a time of loss - loss of singlehood, loss of close friends of the opposite gender, loss of youth...

10) Marriage is more about growth than about bliss

No other relationship will trigger your pain, your unresolved wounds, your insecurities, like your spouse will.