When we enter into marriage, is it realistic to think that the person we chose to marry will stay the same forever? The reason we want to marry our partners is because they have certain qualities in them that we find attractive, that we admire, appreciate and love. They are the person that we feel is very much well suited for us. Sure, they may not be perfect, but deep down we know that they are perfect for us. So, with these great qualities that our partners have in mind, wouldn't it be a shame if after marriage they somehow changed? And if marriage can change our partners, could it also change us?
A lot of couples after being married for a while sometimes wonder why the person they are married to is different to the person they dated. A boyfriend who used to be very patient, cool, calm and collected, is now a husband that has short tempers and becomes quite violent when angry. A girlfriend who was secure and independent is now a wife that finds it difficult to trust and becomes possessive. Is it possible that marriage simply changes people (some in a negative way) or did we just miss the signs from when we were dating?
Does Marriage Change People?
The simple answer to this question is that in fact yes, marriage does change people. It may sound a bit scary and daunting the idea that you and/or your partner could change after marriage. But, before you worry too much, understand that change in itself does not necessarily have to mean a bad or a good thing. When we move from being someone's boyfriend or girlfriend to being someone's husband or wife, change will occur. When you are dating, you don't take into consideration any financial matters, children or household responsibilities. Most of the time you had was for each other - to simply enjoy each other's company.
Marriage is very different to being in a relationship. Marriage is about sharing a whole lot more with each other than we ever did before and becoming partners in every aspect of life. With the many changes that inevitable comes from being married, for us to not change at all would mean that the marriage will not be able to function. This is why a lot of the times, you will your spouse differently to the man you dated because a marriage requires both parties to think according to their newly acquired roles.
Marriage and Our Unresolved Personal Issues
Sure, marriage will inevitably change us in one way or another, but what marriage also does is it brings out any personal issues we may have never dealt with before. The change you see in your spouse may also be because he has been suppressing certain bad habits or personal issues that he may have not been ready to express during the dating phase.
When we are still dating our partner, we tend to let go of our issues and true feelings just in order to keep being with them and to have fun. For example, if you have trust issues, but in the dating phase you try your best to dismiss it because you wanted to focus on the positives, what ends up happening is that your issues get built up (they don't just go away).
You may not even be aware of some of the things you find difficult to deal with because when you were dating, those issues were simply not being triggered. For instance, if you have money issues or you are a spender, you are going to choose a person who will take care of you financially. So, neither you nor your boyfriend at the time could see that you have a problem with spending, but during the marriage this problem gets triggered because you share financial responsibilities.
The same thing goes if you have an abandonment issues and your husband is working all the time or spending a lot of time with the children, you will feel uneasy and bothered. Any issues that you may have will simply be brought up during marriage.
When these issues get brought up and you don't know how to talk about them or are not even aware of them, then the marriage is going to feel disconnected and communication is going to break down. If you don't know how to take care of your feelings or talk about them directly with your partner then those issues are going to play out in reactive ways through fights and arguments. What may end up happening is that your partner and yourself will shut down and not talk. When these things build up and nothing gets resolved, distance gets created. This is when married couples find themselves surprised at how different their partners can seem to be compared to when they were still dating. It isn't necessarily thamarriage all of a sudden turns someone into a completely different person – it is that those traits and personal difficulties have always existed prior to marriage, but they simply weren't being triggered yet.
Learn How to Deal with These Issues from the Root
One of the ways that you can help your marriage is by being aware of your own issues and being able to talk about it. Intimacy is about more than just romance, great vacations and taking care of the other person. Intimacy is really about knowing yourself. And knowing that the person you have picked is going to help you work on yourself. If you find yourself getting into heated arguments with your spouse over the smallest things, try to stand back and be aware that sometimes what you are both arguing about are not really the issue. Get to the root cause of the problem and try not to get too caught up on the symptoms of the problem instead. The more we focus on the tip of the problem, the more we will simply repeat the same arguments and never get down to what is really the concern. For example, if you have trust issues, instead of demanding your partner to not be friends with or be close to anyone of the opposite sex, it will be far more helpful if you dealt with your fear of being rejected or being abandoned by your partner.
We all have our issues whether that is being ashamed, being abandoned, insecurities, worries of abuse – we all have ways that we have been hurt in our lives but our marriage is supposed to help us pay attention to that. Sometimes we want our partner to simply know what our issues are and automatically be able to handle them or help us with it but it doesn't work like that. We need to be able to talk about things openly. Try to figure out a way to be aware of what your own issues are, be aware of what's going on with you, what you care about and be able to communicate these things. The more we are open and honest with ourselves as well as our partners, the more we will be able to really get through the bumps in our marriage.
Pay Attention to Early Signs of Controlling or Abusive Behaviors
The truth is that we all have issues and difficulties that we have to learn to deal with in order to make our relationship successful. No one comes without any baggage or previous heartaches. However, what happens when your partner's negative traits begin to escalate in ways that is becoming harmful towards you, himself and the marriage? You may be wondering, if it is possible to detect early signs of abuse in order to save yourself the pain and trouble of going through it during marriage? Although we can never fully predict whether someone can turn abusive or controlling after marriage, what we are able to do at the very least is to keep our eyes open. Here are some questions that you could answer yourself to know whether or not your partner is depicting early signs of abusive or controlling behaviors:
1. Does your partner control where you go or what you do?
2. Does he keep you from seeing certain people, friends or family?
3. Does he criticize you or put you down?
4. Does he ignore your opinions or accomplishments?
5. Does he have a bad and unpredictable temper?
6. Does he act excessively jealous and possessive?
7. Does he humiliate or yell at you?
8. Does he treat you so badly that you're embarrassed for your friends or family to see?
9. Does he blame you for them treating you badly?
10. Do you avoid certain topics out of fear of angering your partner?
11. Do you wonder if you're the one who is crazy?
12. Do you feel afraid of your partner much of the time?
These signs may seem subtle but it is important to pay attention to the early warning signs because abusive behaviors always start off from the smallest of incidents and feelings. If we dismiss a lot of these behaviors in the dating phase, we are allowing these behaviors to fester and grow into our marriage. Some people who are married to an abusive partner wonder if their spouse simply changed right after marriage and became volatile but a lot of the times the truth is that the signs and clues were already there – they just may not be that clear or severe.
At the end of the day, when we enter into marriage, expect that some things will change, that you and your partner will most likely be different in some ways. Changes here and there are completely normal and sometimes even necessary to make a marriage work. Some of us try our very best to remain the same person our partners married, but sometimes things get brought up that we may not have been aware of before, and that is okay. Simply remember to get to the root cause of the problem if the changes that either you or your partner are depicting become problematic.
