Does Marriage Ruin Many Relationships?

I have heard so many people say that their relationship was near perfect until they got married.

What is it about that piece of paper that gives people enough sense of security that they let the important things go?

I’ve always believed “What it takes to get me is what it takes to keep me.”  I believe deep down, everyone feels much the same. However, when you get married, it seems the little things start to go first – and we all know that it’s those “little things” that mean the most.

The little things like a note left on the bathroom mirror that appears when the bathroom steams up.

The little things like taking out the trash, doing a load of laundry or dishes, running the vacuum – all for no reason at all and entirely out of the blue.

When those little things begin to go, the bigger things begin to spin out of control and disappear as if they never existed in the first place.

The bigger things like a Jay. Oh. Bee. – I’ve seen SO many relationships fail because one person becomes lazy.  My brother went through that recently and to be honest, it pissed me off!

I watched closely as a woman who had been single for a few years got my brother to agree to take in her EX’s son – along with she and her daughter and then her entire mental health took a nose dive.  Suddenly she would go camping with my brother and the kids, have a panic attack and have to leave him and the kids to go home to her own bed where she felt safe.

If you have a mental problem or are prone to mental illness, don’t you kind of know that before going into a relationship?  Isn’t it only fair to warn the other person?

In my current marriage, I married a man who was a workaholic – a man who had two jobs – a man who was pleasant to be around.  After going through an intense custody battle to get his children, he began to suffer from mental illness, quit his job and has relied on me to provide for he and his children for nearly 3 years.

Once responsibility and self pride go out the window, it’s hard to maintain the attraction that was there to begin with – it’s difficult to be attracted to a stranger who is nothing like the person you married!

While I am married and my marriage is on extreme shaky ground, I do have to say if this marriage fails, I will never again agree to enter into the sacred union that allows people to change in such a drastic way. 

The more I think about it, the more I have to wonder just who the twisted eff was who came up with marriage vows.  In hindsight it seems like it’s been a conspiracy from the beginning – to allow the “smarter” person in the couple the right of passage to become a lazy ass and let the sucker take care of them.