33 “Harsh Truths” About Marriage That Older People Learned The Hard Way

21.

“Your spouse will change. You will change. Physical changes, emotional changes, changes in interests. If one or both of you can’t love each other through these changes, your marriage is doomed. You will not like everything about your partner. They won’t like everything about you. This doesn’t mean either of you has to change, just that you have to find ways to deal with it.”

“Love is not enough. You need certain compatibilities in lifestyle choices and financial management. Will you have kids? If so, how many? City, suburb, or rural? Vacations: cruises and resorts, or camping and backpacking? How will you manage what each of you sees as a frivolous expense? These little compromises add up over time and breed resentments. My husband and I had a ‘yours, mine, and ours’ system. We contributed to a shared account proportionate to our incomes to pay for shared expenses. Whatever we each had left was our own personal play money, and nothing bought with personal funds could be criticized.

How will you deal with in-laws? You have to be a united team on this one. My husband and I agreed that weddings and funerals were mandatory. Everything else was optional.

That ‘in sickness and in health’ thing is REAL. If a car accident leaves one of you disabled or if one of you gets cancer, will one of you bail because you were only in it for the person as they were when you met them? The longer you’re married, the more likely this becomes. At the end of his life, my husband was losing his mind, and his medication was giving him diarrhea. I waited on him, I helped him to the bathroom, I wiped his butt and changed his Depends. This isn’t an unusual outcome in late middle or old age. If you’re not rich enough to have paid caretakers, do you love this person enough that you’ll do it with patience and kindness?

The good about decades-long relationships is fantastic, but the bad can be heartbreaking. If you only want the good, stick to watching rom-coms.”

—nakedonmygoat