10 Divorced Women Share the One Piece of Advice They Wish They’d Known Pre-Marriage

Depending on the context of the situation, divorce can either be the saddest day in a person’s life or perhaps the start of something new for them. However, what caused a person to take such a step in their lives can become the question a lot of people wonder, because every marriage looks perfect from the outside, but unless you are actually seeing things from an up, close, and personal way you can’t see all the cracks.

Marriage is like a snowflake; no two are alike –which is why finding spot on marriage advice can be difficult. Rather than going through books and magazines, it is always better to simply ask them who have lived and breathed it.

In this post, we will be sharing with you the one thing that women who have gotten a divorce wished they had known before they had gotten married. This list has been created with the help of 10 real women who have given these advice based on their real life experience. We hope that you can learn something from this and in the future, hope to not make the same mistakes as they did.

Marriage Needs More Than Just Love

If you are thinking that all you need for a marriage to work is love, then I’m sorry but you need to get out of that dreamland. Marriage can be hard and some days it needs a lot more effort than you would normally give. If you think that you can just sit back and be married without putting in that effort, you’re going to be divorced.

In-Laws Matter More Than You Think

Unless you missed this bit of information, but when you get married, you marry a whole family and not just one man. When you are married to someone, their family becomes a part of yours and your family to them; whether you like it or not. So, it is always better to start getting along with them because if there is some tension or some kind of friction before marriage, it is kind of childish to imagine that it will just magically disappear after the marriage, because more often than not, problems which are not tended to have a tendency to get out of control.

Nobody Really “Wins” and Argument

Living under the same roof with the same person will cause arguments to occur, no matter how much in love you are with them. But remember this, just to prove yourself right and “winning” the argument, you forget that you are putting the rest of your relationship in jeopardy. It is just normal human behaviour to resent a person with whom you lose, therefore whenever you get into an argument, it is always better to keep aside your ego and not worry so much about winning the argument as you should about keeping the relationship alive for the long run.

It Is Truly the Little Things That Matter

Whenever you see a marriage that has lasted for decades, always know that it is because the couple has cared more about the little things than the big grand ones. Instead of focusing on things like getting diamond necklaces for birthdays, they have focused on the little things like being the one that gets up with the kid so that she can get an extra half hour of sleep, doing the dishes even though it may be his turn, just because you know he has had a hard day –that is what love really looks like.

Don’t Give Your Self-Esteem to Someone Else to Watch Over

When a person cannot love themselves, how can they love someone else? Insecurity has always been a cause of broken relationships. If a person feels the need to be validated all the time, and if he believes that when someone looks at them with love, they can help with his insecurity and make him finally feel secure, then it becomes a relationship where one party is outsourcing their self-esteem and making the other person have to carry their own and their partner’s self-esteem. This kind of dynamic never ends well for either person.

Comparing Your Marriage with Another’s Is the Beginning Of The End

You can never tell what is going on in someone’s marriage by looking from the outside. Unless you get up close and personal with them, everything seems perfect because that is what people tend to do. Even if someone’s marriage is in deep, deep shit, from the outside they wouldn’t behave in that way so as for other people to find out. Therefore, to see someone’s “perfect” marriage from the outside and compare your marriage with theirs is the beginning of the end. You think that your marriage has troubles and that your friend’s or co-worker’s marriage is in perfect shape and that that is how you want your marriage to be as well. But this thought brings in with it unreal hopes and expectations which ultimately push the relationship over the edge.

Compromise Doesn’t Really Work

In a marriage, if one person needs to constantly have to let go of things they love just to make the other person happy, then that won’t increase the love they have for them, but rather would make them resent their partner. Instead, if you can feel that you don’t have to let go of what you love for your partner but rather you want to or you just can, then it will make you happy as well.

Running Away from Conflict Is Never Good

Having your first fight after getting married can be scary for some, but just because you want to maintain the status quo of things doesn’t mean that you should just run away from conflict. Take it as a sign, the more you talk with your spouse and maintain conversation with them, the less will be your chances of getting into misunderstandings. And always remember, even if you do have a disagreement or a fight, talk through it, tell your spouse what you’re thinking, keep communication open even if it is difficult, because handling conflicts when they come up is better than keep them buried or ignoring them.

Losing Sight from Who You Are

Just because you are now married doesn’t mean that you can’t have a life outside of your marriage. People get into marriage thinking that now they are a “we” rather than two “me” and that is the quickest way of ending up hating each other, because now if your husband isn’t spending every moment of his with you, you feel neglected. People who get into a marriage thinking that their spouse is now meant to spend every bit of their free time with them and not have any kind of social life which doesn’t include their wife, usually end up in divorce.

Marriage Doesn’t Necessarily Change Anyone

Never forget to pay attention to the “habits” of your partner because more often than not, these habits turn into addictions. People don’t really change, unless they actually make an effort to do so or unless they want to do it because they have something at stake. Before you get married to someone, don’t just date them casually but spend real time with them and do mundane things like running errands. And trust me, if he has a habit now that annoys you, it is only going to get magnified once you get married. Therefore, to spare yourself the grief of divorce, open your eyes and start observing.