A very honest look at marriage

I just celebrated nine years of marriage. Not 15, or 50, but you know, nine years is a robust effort so far. I went in with high hopes (don’t we all?) but it’s not like I had my head in the clouds, nor was I young and naïve – I was 31, my husband 30. We were/are financially savvy, independent, smart adults. But that didn’t shield us from the shit-storm that was to come.

We’re talking divorcing parents (his), a sick and elderly mother (mine), twins (a blessing, but as first-time parents and with no help to speak of, it was beyond intense), an autism diagnosis (my son’s), a mother in law moving abroad when I needed her most. It was just… not what I expected. It was, as I say to my husband in the midst of heated discussions, “not what I signed up for, dammit!”

Here’s the thing: marriage is never what you signed up for. It can morph into this thing with extraneous elements you can’t always control [unemployment, working too much, infertility, financial issues, in-laws you don’t like, cheating, illness, and the list goes on). Mere years after your wedding day, this thing called ‘real life’ can make a mockery of that expensive wedding you took a loan to pay for [don’t ever do that!].

I don’t want to be a killjoy to newly affianced couples, but I reckon most of us – heck all of us if we’re really, truly honest - have doubts before we head down the aisle. You know that niggling feeling in your gut. Yeah, that.

So, does doubt equal doom? Is the marriage inevitably headed for divorce? Not necessarily. But a new study suggests that women who experience doubts before marriage are twice as likely to get divorced within the first four years of marriage.

According to a new study by Justin Lavner and colleagues, reported in the Journal of Family Psychology:

"The researchers found that at least one partner in two-thirds of the couples reported having premarital doubts; 47 percent of the husbands and 38 percent of the wives reported being uncertain about getting married. This finding alone suggests that premarital doubts are common among couples and that men are more likely than women to have doubts.

So what do these doubts predict about the likelihood of divorce in the early stages of marriage? About 12 percent of couples in th is sample divorced in the first four years. For husbands, premarital doubts did not seem to predict divorce, but for wives, doubts did predict divorce. Among wives who did not report doubts, only 8 percent divorce, while for those wives who did report doubts, almost one out of five ended up divorced. Of course, perhaps doubts about marriage simply reflect a fragile relationship or other factors that predispose divorce. The scientists also examined whether growing up with divorced parents, living together, or having a difficult personality explained the findings rather than "doubts about the marriage." They found that premarital doubts still predicted divorce above and beyond these factors.”

Okay, so essentially: the stuff you were worried about before you got married will continue to exist after. Fair call. But men are more likely than women to have doubts? Oh.

Jezebel also has its own take on the topic, in an article titled ‘‘Cold Feet’ Is Totally a Thing, and It’s Not Good’

“I mean, maybe it's common sense. A lot of neuroses are self-fulfilling. Maybe if things were bad enough for you to say, "Yes, I definitely had doubts about my relationship," then those are significant doubts that go beyond dumb nitpickery about farts and bathroom spiders. Maybe people who expect fairy-tale perfection are more quickly disillusioned, less likely to diligently grapple with problems, and more likely to cut and run. And maybe if things are going south in your marriage you're more prone to fixating on and acknowledging pre-marital issues.”

But then, there’s the other stuff: you know, the shit-storm you never knew you’d be hit with, and therefore never had a chance to even contemplate as a pre-marital doubt. In my humble opinion, if you can survive those curve balls, you can survive ANYTHING. Whatever the stats say.

Josie Gagliano has written for Marie Claire Australia, Madison, Jetstar, Mamamia, Studio magazines, Practical Parenting, Cream magazine, Cosmopolitan Middle East and Australia, and more, and is also a passionate blogger. She tries to juggle all of the above with being a mum to young twins. Sometimes she excels and is prone to a brag… and sometimes she “fails miserably and falls in a heap”, freely admitting that also.

Josie blogs here and you can follow her on Twitter at: @josiegags