Women who have been married, what lessons has marriage taught you?

7 comments

1. How to ask for what I want and need without ‘needing’ the other person to provide- allowing the option for them to say no

2. That I am worthy of love.

3. If something is important to you and worth keeping, don’t ever put it on the back burner. Keep that spark alive by keeping love at the forefront of the relationship instead of on the back burner.

4. That marriage itself shouldn’t be hard. It’s life you go through together that’s hard with grief, stress, illness etc that’s hard work, not a marriage if it’s with the right person. I’d never understood that old saying of “marriage is hardwork”. Been with my husband for 14 years now and of course we’ve had our arguments, we drive each other crazy at times and know how to push each others buttons but it’s never been difficult being together or felt like hard work. It has felt natural and automatic. It’s life situations that’s been hard like loved ones dying, money worries etc but even then, we are still the thing that brings each other back to the light and keep each other grounded.

5. How to exist in a perpetual smell of stale toots.

6. When there is a problem, even if the problem is caused by only one of you – you are partners, and it is you two vs. the problem. It is not you vs. your partner.

   (Disclaimer that if this is a recurring one-sided issue you may need to reevaluate this relationship)

7. That tax forms in Germany have taxpayer one (husband) and the optional taxpayer two (wife), even if the wife is the only taxpayer in the marriage.
   Really annoying.

   Other than that, the marriage didn’t teach me anything else than our long-term relationship, marriage didn’t change our relationship.