What did you do to "prepare" for your marriage?
Hiya folks!
My partner (M36) and I (F30) have been in a relationship for 2 years (living together for 1) and have started talking about marriage lately. Neither of us has popped the question yet (we both want to be proposed to), but we're starting to do "Marriage Mondays" and work through The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John M. Gottman and Nan Silver. (I was also thinking of reading The ADHD Effect on Marriage by Melissa Orlov since my partner has ADHD.)
We're both big into communication, studying relationship books, and making sure we iron things out before we take the next step. Before we moved in, we talked about divvying up household chores and made a spreadsheet detailing who does what. We also made sure that the spreadsheet was not a holy text, and if one of us was feeling bad (whether because of sickness, mental health, or work stress), the other would temporarily pick up the slack (or at least cut the other person some slack!) It's been great so far and I really do feel like we're in an equitable partnership. (As much as it can be, at least!)
But of course, marriage is a whole other story. We both live in a different country from where we're from and if we ever have kids, we won't be able to rely on either one of our families for much. I know the major topics of finance, kids, and careers, but is there anything else (besides the wedding) you all may have done or questions you asked to "prepare" for marriage?
Not officially married, but been living with my partner for long enough that we might as well be.
On that note, I'll point out that nothing actually has to change. This is your relationship and your lives. Never feel like you have to do something just because it's what normal married couples seem to do. If any aspect of your unmarried living-together situation now is perfect for you two, don't change it. If any aspect isn't working for one or both of you, there's no reason you have to wait until marriage to change it.
One major source of problems that I see other couples having that categorically doesn't apply to us is financial stuff. We don't have joint accounts, and have agreed that we wouldn't change that if we got legally married. We each consider our money to be our own, and we've split the bills up between us in an arrangement we both agree is fair. This means we never have to ask each other for permission to buy things, and have literally never gotten mad at each other for making what we might feel are frivolous purchases (which we both do all the time!). I highly recommend it.
In terms of joint accounts I've never understood why it has to be either/or.
We have a joint account and our personal accounts. We put in an amount that will cover the expenses and some savings, and the rest is just our own money. Whatever remains in our personal accounts is our own and to spend as we wish.
Always seemed to be best of both to me.
My spouse and I both converted our main savings account to "joint accounts" a few years ago, after ~6 years of marriage at the time. We did it to make it easier to transfer money between us to handle paying the mortgage and other bills.
Either way, separate accounts seem to work best for couples who both have adequate income on their own. In a family model where there is a primary earner, and another person who handle a lot of the financial side and/or raise the kids, then a single joint account may make the most sense.
My wife and I are about to have a baby, and while we've had separate finances until now, I've been wondering whether or not we should figure out a better setup than "sometimes she sends me money" (she makes over 1.5 times what I do, but I pay the larger portion of the bills currently).
In particular, we're on a bit of a "prep spending" splurge before the baby comes, and considering a number of larger purchases that would have been nice bonuses beforehand but are looking a lot more like necessities with a baby in the picture. Things like getting AC for the house before our inevitably hot (and likely very smoky, so open windows aren't ideal) summer, and a second vehicle so that I'm not trapped and slowed by the bus schedule.
The thing is, we both like having separate accounts to spend on whatever, so I'm considering proposing kind of the opposite of your setup: We each keep a matching allowance of sorts every month that will let us buy/save up for whatever personal things we want or need, and the rest goes into a "family money" pot which will pay for all the bills, the kid stuff, and be used to fuel our savings & investments.
I have to think on whether that will turn out to be equitable/feasible though, and the math may well change once the baby comes since maternity leave will dramatically reduce her income for a year, and then her work schedule may change depending on our childcare arrangements. In theory, though, if things were tight for the family, all we'd have to do is reduce our individual allowances so that more is saved for the family and we don't have as much splurge money.
If anyone has any thoughts on that plan though, I'd really appreciate hearing them, because I'm no financial planner and I could really use a sounding board or two.
Your proposed way is the best way, IMO. When it comes to kids, they (and the shared house you live in) should come out of a joint fund.
Both earners should direct deposit to a shared checking or savings account, full paychecks.
Both siphon off an agreed-upon, equal, fixed amount for each adult's 'personal spending/savings funds' (arbitrary say 500 for each grownup).
Then siphon off a dedicated 'kid saving fund.' No matter how small, even $10 a month set aside would be $2,160 by the time they're 18.
Use everything else for household and kid operational costs, including house savings.
This is exactly what we do. We have a predetermined fixed amount we keep for ourselves, there's no way to keep it "fair" as there will always be one of the two giving up more money than the other, but that shouldn't be an issue when you look at it as if that money is for your family instead of your own.
We ended up with a number that works for our personal expenses plus some additional frivolous spending, and the rest is family pot.
No need to verify any personal spending, no need to calculate whether or not our shared budget allows for a bar/restaurant/event with friends, and clear boundaries on maximum expenditure.
My spouse and I do this sort of thing with separate credit cards backed by a joint bank account. At the end of the day, everything goes into and comes out of the same pot of money. But it's easier to watch what we're individually spending from credit card statements. (We're fortunate enough not to live paycheck-to-paycheck, so rather than saving up for personal goodies, it tends to be post-hoc: "That was a more expensive month than usual with that big purchase, so I'll lay off for the next few months.")
For the kid savings, we opened co-signed bank accounts in their names and set up recurring weekly transfers for their allowances. That solved the "Oops, when did we last give you your allowance?", plus the "My money is gone from my piggy bank! Someone took it!" squabbles we'd had, even if it's not as much fun as a pile of cash in a piggy bank. For the younger kids, bigger purchases they want to make go on our credit card and then we transfer the funds out of their accounts later. Meanwhile, the teens have debit cards for their accounts.
Apart from that, we also have set up automatic recurring contributions to a 529 account for each of the kids.
This question might deserve its own post. Not everyone who understands financial planning will read this thread
Absolutely splitting bills was a huge pain for us. Was very happy to get a shared account we contribute the same amount to each month to cover our bills and a little more. And then keep the rest in our own accounts for investing or spending how we like.
My wife and I have been together for 10 years (not married the whole time) and we do our financials the same way - separate accounts, no joint account. I make a lot more than her so I pay proportionally more of the bills, but we each have our own accounts and spending money. Thankfully, we're both financially disciplined enough that it's never a problem. Nothing really changed for us after we got married except for putting together a will and trust.
Another vouch here for the separate accounts, but slightly different reasons.
We don't consider any money "mine" or "theirs" but we don't like the idea of both people dumping into and taking out of a single pot. It is very possible that one day we both go to pay bills at the same time and end up grabbing more than the account holds because things can sit in a pending state, and we don't really communicate that we are paying bills on a given day. Keeping the accounts separate means that the number on the account going to my bills is going to be accurate for my bills, and the same for her. If there is a weird influx of bills then we just let the other person know ahead of time that there will need to be some movement between accounts.
We’re in the same boat. Been with my partner for 10+ years and we call each other husband and wife but don’t actually have a certificate. We aren’t religious and never felt the need to have a wedding, it also felt like it would be stressful and more for others’ benefit than ours. My view on it is that it’s more special that we are together because we want to and not because we feel like we have to. In that spirit, I echo what you said about separate finances. Money can be the source of so much stress in a relationship; but by keeping things separate it just isn’t a source of conflict for us. We both work, make our money and spend as we see fit. We have joint expenses that we divide based on what we can afford to contribute. My partner had higher income while I was finishing school and paid a larger share, now my income is higher so I pay the larger share and I’m happy to do it. If we have a large purchase (like a car) we both contribute.
Make sure that you have considered all the legal protections that marriage offers. You can absolutely be married without having a wedding if the party doesn't appeal to you. I am also non-religious and didn't want a wedding, but got married for many boring legal reasons.
I’ll admit that I don’t know everything on the issue, but when we looked into it, it sounded like the big ones are:
Am I missing anything significant? Would you mind sharing your experience?
The first one is the real big one. Filling out one marriage certificate saves a lot of other legal headaches that can crop up at a moments notice.
There's definitely been scenarios at the hospital like 'immediate family only,' where only a spouse or kids are permitted. A 'glorified roommate' (in the eyes of the beurarcracy) didn't get the same access.
You've covered the giant ones, but there are others too.
You're lucky that your health insurances allow non-married partners. That's uncommon since same-sex marriage was legalized. Health insurance and joint taxes are huge benefits that most people need to be married for.
There are a zillion smaller issues that are covered in innumerable laws that carve out protections for marriage that don't apply to long-term-committed-partnerships. Examples:
Something like court testimony or bereavement leave is usually not the reason most people decide to get married. Many laws aren't needed as long as everything is going well. It's the protections that kick in when shit hits the fan that are the important ones.
Again, this is not to say that anybody should get married if they're not really into the idea. Just to say that it's more than a piece of paper. I also want to explicitly state that I am describing an is and not an ought - certainly, as our society marries less and relies on long-term partnerships more, we should redraw the line of who counts as "an important person in someone's life", or even take romantic-partnership-with-a-single-other-person out of it and allow anyone to designate anyone else as a "co-householder". But while we have the laws that we currently have, marriage is important for legal reasons.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply!
Thanks for waiting for ~2 weeks for it! I need to check Tildes more regularly.
For taxes, there’s an option for “married, filing separately”
Yeah, I’ve heard of that, but we ran the numbers by our accountant and there was still a marriage penalty somehow. Maybe it’s the head of household status?
Yeah, my partner and I got married principally for the legal benefits -- we were in a committed long-term relationship and living together already. When that's the case, I think the principle concerns to discuss are inevitably also legal and financial. Marriage is a lot smaller a step for everything else when you already live together.
Interesting! Thanks for your insight! I really love that concept that we don't have to change what already works for us!
We haven't talked too much yet about finances but the country we live in "joint" bank accounts aren't really a thing so it kind of takes that out of the conversation for us anyways.
I'm not too worried about dividing up expenses for the time being. We have an arrangement where he pays the rent and I pay the utilities + groceries and I believe it balances out. I currently make a little more than him so I'm fine if it's a little over. However I feel like if we have kids that may make it harder to "balance" things out of who pays for what.
The financial aspect needs to be what works for each person as they each will have a certain level of financial... What would be the best word, education/practice/skills.
My partner and I had a joint bank account from very early into our relationship and while it has its cons and we had our moments, it has worked out amazingly.
Just because we have a joint account does not mean we squabble over spending. It takes time for anyone to become financially responsible. Being mentally prepared for unintended spending will help mitigate any contention.
We started using YNAB a few years ago for the purposes of tracking our spending and we have categories that account for personal spending. It works out well.
Like another commenter mentioned it does not have to be a mutually exclusive choice, mix and match financial solutions that suit your needs. You won't get it right straight away and that's okay.
I dunno about shallow, the list seems mostly solid to me. (though admittedly I didn't read the full article)
#2 and #4 in particular are things that are more or less dealbreakers for any long term relationship if there is a disagreement. I've seen two decade+ relationships go poof once one side or the other finally realized their partner wouldn't ever budge on them.
Likewise with #9 and #10. Those are pretty important factors for a monogomous sexual relationship, and have also seen multiple 5+ year relationships dissipate almost immediately when those subjects came up for the first time in frank discussion.
Heck, the kids thing is so important because nobody should ever be pressured to have kids. If on person wants them and the other doesn't, the relationship will end one way or the other, it's only a matter of time.
I’ve also seen #2 blow up a relationship even when it appeared to be a point of agreement at the start. One person changes their mind while the other doesn’t and there is a new foundational incompatibility.
Worse, I see and hear a lot of people who view marriage counseling as "the end." Like "Oh their marriage is doomed, didn't you hear, they are in counseling."
Relationship counseling is the best and, kind of in alignment with Boojum below, I think that being able to go to an outside source, yes, even a religious based one (should they broadly align with your worldview) is amazingly helpful. I know so many couples who probably could have worked things out if they had ever actually talked to each other and a therapist is very helpful for that. All the most successful couples I know have utilized some form of counseling.
I'm editing to add in: I like the list of questions but, man, y'all should really talk about these things LOOOONG before marriage, there's so many fundamental things in those questions that can help define relationships.
Oh yea, a lot of that stuff should be covered right around the time its established that the relationahip isn't just a casual fling.
Even now, being together with my wife for over 20 years and married for almost 15, I find this list eye opening. I wish we had this explicit list instead of bumping into the topics over time. Luckily we are mostly on the same page, but I can definitely see how a relationship can break down over these things.
What I find interesting is that these talks come up when people start talking about marriage. Around here, marriage isn’t as important and it’s pretty common not to marry. This list could come in useful for any long term relationship.
I also worked through a John Gottman book before marriage. We also did premarital counseling.
My biggest takeaway from Gottman was the advice to pay attention to whether your affection and respect grows or shrinks with familiarity and passing years.
I would be ready for surprises and challenges.
My marriage nearly died about three years in, but we did counseling and found a mutual choice that worked for us. Today after nearly twenty years I am happy with the relationship.
It sounds like you're off to a good start already (especially with viewing it as a partnership)!
I (non-Catholic) married into a Catholic family and my spouse and I had a Church wedding. A prerequisite for that was their PreCana marriage preparation course that we signed up for after an initial consultation with the family priest. For the one that we went to, it was basically an intensive all-day course on a Saturday. It largely consisted of being given a ton of questions to honestly discuss between the two of us and make sure that we're in agreement. Many were things we'd already discussed, but there were definitely some curve balls that we hadn't considered. (Sadly, I don't remember them now.) It was a good experience.
I know many on this site have an atheist / anti-church world view. I completely get that! But many religious groups have hundreds or even thousands of years of experience officiating weddings and seeing their members marry. They've seen just about everything. Moreover, it's in their interest to help marriages to succeed, while helping steer couples away from entering marriages likely to fail. Even from a secular point of view, there's usually a good alignment there.
So if you have any association with a church of some kind (of whatever major religion), I'd suggest checking to see if they have some kind of marriage prep.
I second this. We're both catholic and the church mandates a "marriage preparation" (at least in France). Of course there was a some religious information, but like Boojum said, we were invited to think about some hard topics. I do remember some of them:
The idea behind these unpleasant question is that sometimes disaster strikes unexpectedly. And it's good to discuss this together.
I also find the 4 pillars of christian marriage a good way to think about the marriage (even if not religious):
And thats really the nitpick that causes a lot of tension and political strife in the USA.
Living in France, I can't really speak for the US. But in France divorce, even amongst Christian people, is largely accepted. My parents' generation (in their 60s-70s) may not divorce but live separately because of possible shame, but my generation (30s-40s) will not hesitate to divorce. Even recently, during a church meeting, someone mentioned being separated from their spouse and no one batted an eye.
Thanks, yes! That jogs my memory a bit (especially the disability question), but the marriage prep in Chicago definitely had those kinds of questions. Other big questions from it that are coming back to me:
I also second this. Not from a Catholic background but our congregation also required pre-marital counseling with a pastor before marrying us. Ironically, with my first wife, we did this counseling and the pastor expressed some doubts about our compatibility that as a young (naive) couple we mostly ignored. Ultimately he was correct, and we did end up divorcing years later.
Having said that, there are retreats like Marriage Encounter that we went on that SHOULD have been able to help us figure out our issues, and I would still recommend them. Google says there is Engaged Encounter or Ready to Wed that is similar for engaged couples. If none of those is near you, I would even suggest hiring a couples therapist for a few hours just to make sure there are no outstanding issues that haven't been covered in your planning.
Kudos for being smart and doing your best to establish a solid foundation for your marriage.
Did you find the course to have a strong gendered component? My evangelical family has shared a lot of "healthy marriage" resources with me, and the gendered aspects of it tend to be almost comical from an outside perspective.
If you're talking about "wives, submit to your husbands" aspect, no, I can't say I really remember anything like that. It's been a long time though. The bulk of it was just asking us each the same non-gendered questions to jot down an answer to in a workbook and then talk over.
I found a page that gives the gist of the kinds of questions asked. There are definitely questions of faith in there, but I think it's still a pretty good list of things to consider even if you took all of those out.
I find it insightful to listen to what people married 30+ years have to say.
I just got married about 3 weeks ago, so I can’t really give any advice for long-term…
We’d been living together for about a year, together for 4 but 2 of those were long-distance due to COVID. But we got engaged while still long-distance (she was visiting me for a week) before moving in together, and then moved in together right out of Long distance. Which was maybe a bold jump, but we had basically lived together during undergrad in college (we spent a lot of time at each others’ places).
About a week after we moved in together, we had the conversations about money - we knew generally we were going to split rent evenly, but needed to figure out the rest of it. After getting married, we are planning on combining finances a bit more, just because we have fairly different incomes right now, so it makes the most sense.
After getting married…nothing has really changed (since the moving in together part). The wedding itself was great, but afterwards my partner has described it as “it’s like a birthday party - a big life event happened, but nothing really feels different.”
I will say, the wedding was probably more expensive than we wanted it to be, but we could afford it which was the important thing, and I don’t regret what we spent on it at all.
We did a lot of the things mentioned in this thread (asking hard questions, discussing finances, etc.) but not so much as preparation for marriage, just as maintenance for our long-term relationship. Being married didn't really change much for us. Having the experience of planning and going through with the wedding, and our honeymoon, changed us mostly in that it gave us a some incredible memories to draw on an enjoy together. Our honeymoon was the first time leaving the country for both of us, and I think that changed our relationship more than actually getting married did.
It's been 5 years, we've moved to another country, and we're doing everything that I could hope for as a couple.
It seems like this is taboo in a lot of places but I think it is really important to mention so going to add it here: have a prenup discussed, ready, and signed well in advance of your marriage. I was originally against it, but my best man is a lawyer and once he talked to me about it for a bit, it really changed my view. Having a prenup isn’t “going into your marriage” expecting it to fail like I see people describe it online a lot. It is preemptively trying to care about yourself and your spouse in the event you want a divorce. Prenups involve having a lot of potentially long, difficult, emotionally charged conversations. Would you rather have those conversations now, when you and your partner deeply care about what is best for one another, are more likely to approach things in good-faith, and have the time and willingness to let those conversations breathe and to step away if they get too charged and come back later? Or would you like to have them when you both are in emotional turmoil, stressed out, paying a bunch of lawyer bills, potentially resentful towards one-another, and more likely to interpret statements and actions in bad faith? Prenups can absolutely be scummy and bad and an indicator that someone is not fully committed to your relationship, but they don’t HAVE to be that. They can be a way to try and navigate an extremely painful and stressful situation with more empathy for yourself and your partner than you have later down the line.
To voice the other side, I strongly disagree. I WAS married for 22 years and for almost the entirety we didnt even say the word 'divorce' let alone have a pre nup, even though things were rocky for many of those years. Our divorce was deeply painful and divisive, but I believe thats the way it has to be, so painful that you would do anything in your power to avoid it and it only happens if there is absolutely no other option. I certainly will never do it again. Divorces happen far too easily in many cases and a pre nup greases the wheel.
But the main reason that I disagree is that the fundamental basis of a strong marriage (which I now have the second time around) is trust. I dont need or want a pre nup because I trust my wife that if things get rocky we are not going to be looking for a pre-planned out, we are going to work together to find a solution and get our marriage back on track. We are in it for life, and part of the proof of that is we have no plans 'if it doesnt work out.' That's not an option and allowing for that option weakens the strength of one's commitment.
I appreciate the response and hearing a diverging view. From reading your comment, I think the two of us have almost polar opposite views on this. I don't think there is really a single sentence or idea in your response that I don't strongly disagree with. While I disagree, I think it is perfectly fine for us to have opposite views on this. I am a big believer in "if it works for your relationship and isn't abusive, then it isn't any of my business."
I am also stretched way too thin mentally and emotionally to commit to a conversation about this. I just wanted to leave a quick comment here saying that while I disagree with you and probably will not be replying after this, I appreciate you taking the time to respond and put your thoughts and reasons out there and my future lack of response is from my exhaustion and is not a result of anything you said.
I disagree fully. "Fully committed with no escape hatch" is only one way to see marriage, and if that's the way you prefer your relationships, that's fine. It's exactly the opposite for me: one of the things that helped me decide to get married was knowing that there was an escape route if the relationship no longer worked out. I don't know that I would ever get married in a state where divorce wasn't available.
For the same reason, I have no tattoos. There is nothing that I love so much that I'm absolutely certain I would still want it on my skin when I'm 90. If there were a machine that easily and totally got rid of tattoos, then I would get a tattoo.
Even with a prenup, divorce isn't easy. I've had friends who have gone through amicable divorces where they worked everything out as quickly as possible, and the process still sucks. There's no reason to intentionally make it suck more.
For me, the fact that my husband and I can leave each other whenever we want is a huge positive in my marriage. Not because we want to, but because the fact that we haven't means we don't want to. It's so important to me that he be with me because I make him happy and improve his life, not because he doesn't feel he has another choice.
We value each other's happiness and the joy of our relationship over the idea of commitment for the sake of commitment.
I think it just depends on what you value about relationships and marriage.
Counterpoint, I've been married 14 (together for 17), and basically from day 1 we would just roleplay our divorce out, for much the reasons @Micycle_the_Bichael mentioned.
But then, we're also both weirdos.
Aside from the preparations for the wedding, we didn't do anything. Why would we need to do anything?
Marriage is just a legal arrangement. If your relationship is good now, it won't be any different when you're married (and if it's not, marriage won't fix it). There's a bunch of paperwork to do I guess, but it's not very hard. My life as a married person is basically identical as my life before marriage. There's a few legal affairs which are a little easier now but that's it.
The idea you'd read a book or ask a bunch of strangers on the internet about how to be married is incomprehensible to me, but if it makes you feel better, go for it.
My parents eloped in college. They had been writing letters back and forth to each other for years, but hadn't lived in the same town since middle school. My dad's one request when I got engaged was that we have premarital counseling, which we did, and I was glad for it.
We used this book and met weekly with the person who was marrying us and his wife for something like 12 weeks.
The book is centered around a Christian concept of marriage, so it may or may not be for you. I think the major virtue was that by bringing up a whole array of topics that are important to making a life together. It was good that we discussed them because we found and worked through some major differences that I was not expecting.
One thing I wish we had done more of was learn more about each others' family of origin. There can be a lot of differences that it never occurs to you to ask about because you each assume everyone does it the way your family does it, and it doesn't even occur to you that there could be a different way. One thing that gets in the way of this is how much getting married can be a change in family patterns, so that may mask some things that show up later.
One of the most important things is not to assume that once your married, it's all settled and done. You will each continue to grow and change. You will find out new things about yourselves and each other. One or both of you may uncover trauma in your past. It's a lifelong work to stay married.
Of course, big things can happen that fundamentally make your relationship untenable. But the harder thing to guard against IMO is the slow growing apart. It takes active effort and commitment to grow together.
What this growing together looks like is different for every couple, but doing some kind of a marriage retreat or activity every year or so is a good thing. I don't just mean going away together, but some kind of program designed to help you interrogate your feelings and your spouses, not unlike premarital counseling. Every time we have done this, it has helped us work through issues that I at least wasn't aware of.
If you're thinking about kids, it gets exponentially harder. Disagreements about parenting are much worse than any disagreements we had before we had kids. I think it's harder because feeling responsible for the kid is an external factor that adds weight to disagreements. In the worst case, you think things should go one way and they think they should to the other, and both of you see the other's choice as harmful to the child. So you cant just agree to disagree.
I will also say, my ideas about parenting have evolved over time, so just having agreed on everything at the beginning is not a guarantee.
Do read Orlov. My partner and I, together 10 years, both have ADHD. ADHD can be hard enough. ADHD compounded with a lifetime of trauma, either contributed by or contributing to the ADHD, is even harder.
Understand that it will be a weird ride but also that there's a good chance that you'll have it harder than your neurotypical friends and family.
Hurt will happen. It's harder for us ADHDers to course correct for it. My chief frustration is that we have a hard time learning from our mistakes, even with an excellent counselor. Like most with ADHD, we have difficulty internalizing any sort of non-dopamine-heavy habit including these lessons. And, so, we repeat similar mistakes time and again, hurting one another despite trying to do better.
Sort of off-topic, and I don't mean to distract from your post, but...
Thank you for namedropping The ADHD Effect on Marriage! I currently cohabitate with my partner who has ADHD, and I've found it really tricky to adjust and work around my partner's quirks, especially since I myself am on the (lovingly termed) AuDHD spectrum. Her and I have talked about marriage in recent months, so I'm looking forward to giving this one a spin. :)
Yeah, I'd never heard of this but it definitely needs added to my ADHD book collection. My partner is autistic and I've got ADHD so I'm curious if it has useful insights for us.