Why is marriage called work? Opinions...

[just play]

So, I'm reading this article the other day because I was bored, lol. It was something like 5 ways to keep your marriage happy or something like that. Then I go onto reading the comments from the readers. Most of them said marriage was a lot of hard work.

I don't get it?

I ask my husband why do people call marriage "work"? He didn't have an answer either.

So, fellow married people, divorced people, people in relationships....tell me why marriage is work?

 

[just play]

So I'm not crazy then?

 

[skiny]

Yes, marriage is a lot of work which is why the job should come with a punch clock. Nobody should be expected to toil 24 hours a day.

Couples should wake up and roll out of bed and he can walk out of the bedroom with his hand down the back of his boxers, scratching his ass while she wiggles her finger around in her ear and wipes it on her t-shirt. They should be allowed to completely ignore each other while they have their morning coffee and then punch in for the long day ahead of being married.

Then he could offer to make her breakfast or take her out for a late morning brunch. Maybe they could spend the day together shopping for pillow cases or power tools, which ever makes the other happier and then return home to be gracious hosts for the visiting in-laws before retiring in front of the TV letting each other choose what to watch and finally settling in to the bedroom for a romantic evening of passionate love making.

Then they can punch their cards and go back to bed where she can fart while he pulls all the blankets off her and goes to sleep.

 

[dionysus]

I think, for some, daily activities just 'gel' between yourself and your spouse. But being individuals as well as partners, there's a lot of juggling going on, between your own needs, your spouse's, and your combined needs and things often get neglected, and either neither picks up the slack, or the other does leading to resentment or undue burden. There's so many things that wedge themselves between your time together, like children, jobs, finances and responsibilities outside the home, that it's sadly easy to forget (or hard to maintain) what's required at home.

But anything worthwhile having is worth working hard for. And I believe a key element for anyone who has decided to commit to a relationship or marriage, is remembering not to find time, but to make it.

I don't think you're crazy. Marriages do require work (unless you're incredibly lucky to not have to, and that's fantastic). But it can be the best job going.

 

[Dinahnana]

I think their is also an issue of expectations going into a marriage. Women have a tendency to want to change a man and he never does and men don't want women to change but they do
Day to day life can be difficult and it is hard to put time aside for the relationship. Be it a date night or a romantic evening in. It takes work to commit time to ensure a relationship can flourish. If you don't then a few years down the line you might be looking at a stranger.
BTW every single relationship that is good takes work IMHO.

 

[just play]

I think, for some, daily activities just 'gel' between yourself and your spouse. But being individuals as well as partners, there's a lot of juggling going on, between your own needs, your spouse's, and your combined needs and things often get neglected, and either neither picks up the slack, or the other does leading to resentment or undue burden. There's so many things that wedge themselves between your time together, like children, jobs, finances and responsibilities outside the home, that it's sadly easy to forget (or hard to maintain) what's required at home.

But anything worthwhile having is worth working hard for. And I believe a key element for anyone who has decided to commit to a relationship or marriage, is remembering not to find time, but to make it.

I don't think you're crazy. Marriages do require work (unless you're incredibly lucky to not have to, and that's fantastic). But it can be the best job going.

I think that's why I don't understand the "work" part. There's no juggling here, he does his thing, I do mine. We will be married 13 years in May. We both know who does what in and out of the house. We share a daughter and had one each before meeting. I do most of the "parenting" to her, I did as well for my other daughter too, so maybe I am/was just used to it. If I want him to do anything I just ask and he does, and vise-versa.

I asked my best friend yesterday, she's been married 6 years, here's her response...."I don't know why people say marriage is hard work....maybe it's for all those people that cheat and then "work" things out..D and I barely fight (but then again he always finds jobs on the road)...lol....Maybe it's for people with issues like alcohol or drugs....I don't find marriage work...work sucks and I hate having to work ...lol...I like being married and love having D around except when he's being an ass and farting on me or something like that...lol"

 

[mrmark21]

I think that's why I don't understand the "work" part. There's no juggling here, he does his thing, I do mine. We will be married 13 years in May. We both know who does what in and out of the house. We share a daughter and had one each before meeting. I do most of the "parenting" to her, I did as well for my other daughter too, so maybe I am/was just used to it. If I want him to do anything I just ask and he does, and vise-versa.

I asked my best friend yesterday, she's been married 6 years, here's her response...."I don't know why people say marriage is hard work....maybe it's for all those people that cheat and then "work" things out..D and I barely fight (but then again he always finds jobs on the road)...lol....Maybe it's for people with issues like alcohol or drugs....I don't find marriage work...work sucks and I hate having to work ...lol...I like being married and love having D around except when he's being an ass and farting on me or something like that...lol"

I think marriage is similar to a relationship only harder to break off. I mean in a relationship you have to look good all the time, you have to call the person all the time, there are so many things that you have to do that it does indeed become like work.

I'd imagine the same thing can be said for a marriage. I prefer being single. That way you can still get the pros of being in a relationship without the cons because your not actually in one. Some of my friends are married, I listen to them having little tiffs and I'm like sheesh I already have a job I don't need another one lol!

 

[skiny]

I mean in a relationship you have to look good all the time, you have to call the person all the time

Neither of which I'm very good at.

If we're talking about changing our behaviour then I guess that does require a lot of work. Like when she's in the bathroom for an hour getting ready to go out I'm not supposed to return to the door every ten minutes and pester her to finish whatever the hell she's doing in there.

"You're preparing for dinner not preparing for war."
"Was that the blow dryer? How can your hair even still be wet? Is it raining in there?"
"Really? An hour? I can wash my car in 20 minutes."

But the real reason I'm not in a relationship is I suffer from a lesser known disease called wrong answer syndrome. The only cure for it is to keep your mouth shut but I've never been very good at smiling and nodding.

So, what do you want to watch tonight?
"How about you doing the dishes?"

Do these pants make my ass look fat?
"No the plate of lasagna you had for dinner does. The pants change nothing."

I might wear my hair up tonight. What do you think?
"It took you an hour last time to make it look the same. I don't think we have that kind of time."

Are you listening to me?
"Yes but not on purpose."


One time my ex-wife said she wanted an exercise machine so I dragged the old rotary lawn mower up from the garage and said "Knock yourself out."

 

[just play]

I have to admit something....

















I was sooooo hoping Skiny would reply to this thread.

 

[skiny]

I was sooooo hoping Skiny would reply to this thread.

You knew I would.

 

[diva2000]

I personally think that we live in a very stressful world and time is my biggest enemy. I look at marriage as a job therefore i do call it work as it requires attention to detail, effort and proving yourself worthy. On the other hand I sometimes question why this work is so difficult sometimes. My answer is always the same - NEVER ENOUGH TIME for each other. Which drives me crazy most days!

My husband and I will be married for 9 yrs next May and we share a 2 yr old together. Life has become more difficult since as again, we have even less time for each other and domestic duties suffer coz we are both too tired after a long day. i openly say that our only arguments are domestic chores coz like it or not they still need to be done. We have tried to get a helper but ended up costing us more than we can afford. We both try hard to make it work and I guess just like everyone else... we have good days and bad days...

But I have learned that my husband misses my attention and time that I used to have for him before...so now I make an effort to at least dedicate 15 mins every evening to listen to his day or whatever he feels like talking about. i don't have to and most times I wish I am resting my tired body but if I want to achieve a healthy relationship, then i need to work at it. Hence why I call marriage a job.

Thanks,
Rebecca

 

[Mousey]

My first marriage lasted a little over 7 years and was work because I was young and an idiot and married a Neanderthal I had nothing in common with - Looking back, I realize I didn't even like him. I still wonder WTF was I thinking....

My second marriage of 30 years was not work - they were the best, happiest, and most contented years of my life.

 

[Jasminebed]

I think a good marriage is work, but hopefully you are among the lucky that get to say "I love my job".

My man's job took him out of town (way out of town, thousands of miles away) for months at a stretch. This was not easy on either of us needless to say. Most of that work was shift, and there was a time difference, so we had a scheduled time for phone calls weekly. Cards and letters were exchanged. An unexpected gift might arrive by post.

Without effort on both our parts, this relationship would have withered and died. In fact, it did at one point, but we were able to find our way back to each other.

 

[cpdnd31]

My thoughts about marriage being hard work. I've been with hubby for over 20 years married for 16. We have 2 children.

When we started our adventure and yes that's what I call it because life and the world is constantly changing, we were young. We had our dreams we had an idea of what life would bring us and we had our wants and desires. We were gonna travel the world, eat at the best restaurants and live free. LOL

Ok child number one is born, without a manual or instructions.

No one told us about the middle of the night wake ups, the exhaustion the worries and the automatic feeling of love the minute the little guy was born. Now we were both two independent people who had to give up freedoms because we now had a child. It was work. Who was gonna take the night shift, omg the laundry, cooking being so tired and having to get grocery's. Stupid now but we had to learn how to adjust and become the adults we needed to be.

Responsibility took over and we needed to adapt to it.

Our first child was sickly--constant doctors Er visits and worry and STRESS. Second guessing ourselves and not knowing if we were making the right choices.

That;s when family members who in the most loving way would give us advice. We needed to work with each other and listen to each other. Block out when others would say "we wouldn't do that". We had to learn how to trust each other, we now became parents and partners.

Child number 2 is born.

By now we were confident, we survived child number one no problem we got this. Ahhh but life threw us another bone. He got hurt. He got hurt bad. Now over a year in therapy, surgery, and me taking care of a bed bound man. All while I was taking care of a 2 year old and an infant she was less then a month old when he got hurt. So now feelings of being overwhelmed and can I do this, I have to do this take over. I had to learn how to tell him I need a break a small break. We had to work on the strength and courage it was gonna take to get us through the next year.

Now we survived so many things and I can make list after list. We won't even go through my medical emergency's for that's a book in itself.

My point is we worked to adapt to what ever life threw at us, we could have gave up and said screw this, but we didn't. As each of us got older and wanted or thought we wanted different things in life we worked to find a path to follow. Life is hard, we worked to find the humor in all of it. Those of you that know me have heard me make fun of hubby and have a good laugh. That's my way of getting through the hard times. Hell if I didn't make fun of him, he would panic.

We worked on learning how to laugh and how to cry-- so is marriage hard work - NO - marriage is a work in progress -

Marriage is knowing whatever life brings I have someone there to hold my hand and tell me we will make it.

 

[BingoT]

June 1st will be my 29th year...& still going strong with the one I love.
I must be doing something right

 

[just play]

This is so interesting to me, the different thoughts people have about marriage. It is/is not work.

My favorite quote so far has to be from Mousey....

My second marriage of 30 years was not work - they were the best, happiest, and most contented years of my life.

Just beautiful.

 

[MissRuthless]

Life is so full of trial and error ups and downs!

My relationship with so called once fiance, has come to an end. I guess it has been on the threads for a good 2 years and they finally broke.

Difficult as life is at the moment, I have 4 amazing wonderful beautiful children I need to provide for, and the lack of support, being on my own is really challenging, but that is way life is sometimes!

Some people find their other half and live together until the end of time and happy, some other's not so lucky perhaps.

Love and Cherish the one you are with!!!

To the person of 29 and 30+ years of Marriage, that is beautiful and Congratulations