General Relationship DiscussionAlthough anyone can post anywhere on Talk About Marriage, this section is for people interested in general relationship and marriage advice.
I wish I knew how to fight better in the beginning. I wish we both knew how to do that. We didn't fight fairly and it took us a long time to figure that out. I also wish I'd really known how hard marriage is. My dad tried to tell me, but at 23, I thought I knew and that "we'd be different." We're still happily married over 9 years later, but we've certainly had some pretty big challenges to overcome.
This is shallow, but I also wish I knew how much the sex would dry up. When we dated, we were 2 or 3 times a week. As soon as we started trying for a child (which took 7 years to happen, eventually with IVF), all sex went away except for baby sex. Even 19 months post baby, we still don't have sex more than once a month. The sex is great when we have it, but very infrequent.
I wouldn't change anything knowing these things, but I would have been better prepared mentally!
I wish I understood more that the efforts needed to work and sacrifice to make the marriage work are a lot more than one might think when starting out. Equally important, the internal efforts required to keep up respect and reasonable boundaries so the marriage works for me as an individual should never be lost.
Early in your marriage things are great so you take them for granted. It's easy. I would have opened the lines of communication early and kept them open so it's not so hard later. Never just let problems slide, expecting them to change or get better. They won't until you communicate and make changes.
It's easier to let something go than to talk to her about it. But it's easy for something to become habitual too. Next thing you know you have dozens of things going on that each bother you a little bit but you've let them go so long that if you start bringing them up she's going to feel like you think she doesn't do anything right, which really isn't the case.
Tell her your feelings about things as they occur.
For me, I think the biggy would be the ‘approach’ to marriage. I believe my wife and I entered marriage with a lot of expectations without a lot of ‘instruction’ on how to reach that expectation. Both of our parents have been married 50+ years now and never divorced.
Just sort of took for granted that YOU had to work at it instead of expecting your spouse to live up to your expectation. So, the outlook was always measured by how far below the line the marriage is. The complaints and nagging are based on ‘how you believe the marriage SHOULD be’. It was never looked at how much more the marriage was than when we were dating and how far we’ve come. Always seen in the terms of failures versus the progress.
By not living up to the expectation, resentment grew as did conflict when the marriage matured. So, if I could go back, it would be to tell myself to drop expectations (turning them into goals) and just deal with how it is.
I also wish I would have known how crazy/damaged her mother is and what a complete an utter waste of humanity her father is. I assumed things would get better with him over time but in fact they've gotten worse. We've probably said 10 words to each other in the last 6 years. When I asked for her hand in marriage and he said, "no...it's too early...go ask her mother," I should have been on high alert.
Again, I wouldn't do anything different, but my expectations for a relationship with these people would have been much lower.
Early in your marriage things are great so you take them for granted. It's easy. I would have opened the lines of communication early and kept them open so it's not so hard later. Never just let problems slide, expecting them to change or get better. They won't until you communicate and make changes.
It's easier to let something go than to talk to her about it. But it's easy for something to become habitual too. Next thing you know you have dozens of things going on that each bother you a little bit but you've let them go so long that if you start bringing them up she's going to feel like you think she doesn't do anything right, which really isn't the case.
Tell her your feelings about things as they occur.
So true. And this is FANTASTIC advice for newlyweds.
I wish I understood then the "intensity" of the male sex drive....and how this plays out in the emotional..... how a man feels fully loved & wanted -with ALOT of sex, like every day or every other..... I was rather clueless- for all I knew he only needed it once a week like me.... I was uneducated, a little repressed and we didn't talk about these things.
This is really our only & biggest regret (we are both guilty)....that I wish we could go back in time & make up for.
Also I tended to be too much of a Planner....my mind was always on the next project, or what we needed to acheive....for our family....We should have taken more time .... "for ourselves", getting way from the kids... still dated, flirted and kept re-discovering each other along the way. We didn't stop & smell the roses of "just US" enough.....we fell into the whole ....FAMILY.....FAMILY....FAMILY... always about the kids.... but we've always been very close, best friends, we never faught too much, never longer than a day, stupid things.
Now we have everything we ever hoped & prayed for ...but still I feel we missed some things along the way.
But we have the here & now, doing our best to make up for it all.
I wish I understood then the "intensity" of the male sex drive....and how this plays out in the emotional..... how a man feels fully loved & wanted -with ALOT of sex, like every day or every other..... I was rather clueless- for all I knew he only needed it once a week like me.... I was uneducated, a little repressed and we didn't talk about these things.
This is really our only & biggest regret (we are both guilty)....that I wish we could go back in time & make up for.
Also I tended to be too much of a Planner....my mind was always on the next project, or what we needed to acheive....for our family....We should have taken more time .... "for ourselves", getting way from the kids... still dated, flirted and kept re-discovering each other along the way. We didn't stop & smell the roses of "just US" enough.....we fell into the whole ....FAMILY.....FAMILY....FAMILY... always about the kids.... but we've always been very close, best friends, we never faught too much, never longer than a day, stupid things.
Now we have everything we ever hoped & prayed for ...but still I feel we missed some things along the way.
But we have the here & now, doing our best to make up for it all.
make up for it now by having as much sex as you can i mean loads!
i like your post i dont see many women on here saying what you just said. Maybe i just do not pay attention
I wish I had understood how useless verbal communication can be. You can tawk too much.
I wish I had understood how much men like helping vulnerable (appearing, in any case) women and trying to relate to your husband as an equal partner just doesn't work.
This is shallow, but I also wish I knew how much the sex would dry up.
Wait until you see what happens when you get about 20 years more into your marriage!
Toffer, excellent answer. I bet we all wish that! Complacency breeds boredom, resentment, and sometimes affairs.
And Toffer, it is NOT shallow to wish you had known what would happen to your sex life. Sex is an important part of marriage, and you ain't doing it regular, and it isn't hot as hell like in the beginning. I think if people could see the future with their intended spouse and their sex life, most would head for zee hillz! Feets don't fail me now!!!
I wish I had understood how useless verbal communication can be. You can tawk too much.
Completely true and I feel your pain. Whenever I want to talk about our relationship, feelings, etc. my H just rolls his eyes and shuts down. GREAT COMMUNICATION HERE!
I swear, he rolls his eyes at me one more time, I am going to rip out his eyes and shove them down his throat!
There is more than I could ever say that I wish we had done differently.
However, we were just discussing this recently & I decided that since we can't go back & change the past, we have to move forward with what we have learnt & TRY not to repeat the mistakes we have made.
The mistakes we have made, the heartache & dramas caused by them have made us into the stronger people we are today. I do wish there was some way of preventing a couple of my stubborn kids from making the mistakes I can see them doing. But... they may also learn in time from their mistakes.
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Things You Wish You Knew Back Then 
