Was married life what you expected......

At 16 I had no preconceptions of marriage. I was an only child, had just started college and my parents were quite old fashioned in their views so when I announced I was pregnant to my 16 year old boyfriend it was more or less accepted that we would get married which we did the day after my 17th birthday - he was 17 and a month. Both our parents had happy long marriages and I think we've followed that. After 47 years we've been through some tough times, some fun times and some very sad times but we're still here. I've no idea what I thought all those years ago - we loved each other, we got engaged at 15 but we were just children and life probably would have been very different if we'd not married when we did. Would it have been for the best no one can say - we were dealt the cards and have played the game to the best of our ability

Phew, I though I was the only wanton woman, Petra!

Most people I knew were having sex too. I only knew one person get pregnant and she was by no means promiscuous!

I was 22 in 1968, not married or engaged and didn't have plans to be so.
I shared a house with 3 other women. I'm sure that we were all perceived as being 'nice girls' but we were all having a healthy sex life. I don't think that I knew anyone who wasn't having sex.

So I understand - I read about it ! But it did not apply to me or most people I knew, where living together was a definite no-no! This was the mid 60s. Even when I went to family planning clinic before getting married I was referred to as Mrs and had to assure them I was engaged and the wedding was soon before they would advise me!!!! Yes of course some did sleep together and even get pregnant but it was thought to be shameful.

That's not scenario I recognise! Surely the 60s were part of the free love era. I married in 1970 and, while we wouldn't have thought of living together, neither of us felt the need to wait for marriage. Nor did any one I knew!

Similar to David. If, like me, you didn't go to Uni, after you started work, the next thing was to get engaged as quickly as you could, feeling very superior and making sure your ring could be seen by everyone on the bus. The next thing was to start saving, getting a bottom drawer together, and then, in our case, buy an affordable house and get married. Then people were waiting, and indeed asking, when were you going to start a family. Then after your first child they were asking when you were going to give him a sibling.
I am of my time and my class, and I was very happy to follow this path. However, I did think we were going to live happily ever after. We did, but not without both minor and major hiccups. We grew up together. So we have changed and our marriage has changed. We have rolled with the punches and celebrated our Golden Wedding last year. It's been a roller-coaster and I have no regrets

Ha ha David that's very honest! I know another man who said just that - and it was probably true in those days. Certainly sex before marriage was frowned on and it was drummed into us that nice girls didn't!! I think that's why we were all so eager to rush off on honeymoon ,with all the accompanying innuendo! Nowasays of course they are usually already living together so a wedding is an excuse for a huge party with all your friends and the happy couple often dance till midnight and reappear the next ssy. And of course the honeymoon is just like another holiday so they have to make it extra special by going to the Bahamas for 3 weeks instead of spending a week in a Welsh boarding house as we did!
But we did think of it as marriage for life so we had to make it work out if we possibly could!!

I'm sure I had no preconceptions about marriage, the only way to get sex with a nice girl was to marry her. So I was 21 she was 18, we grew together and raised 3 lovely daughters.
50 yrs on I still see her as that coy 16 yr old I started dating in 1968, most of our friends did the same and are still together.
I do remember there was a lot of competition dating the girls, they were very choosy who they would go out with.
All that sounds old fashioned now but it worked at the time.

My parents had a protracted and disastrous divorce and I vowed never to marry so I was reluctant when the very nice chap I was living with at college suggested we do just that. He wore me down and we are coming up for 40years together.

It hasn’t been a bed of roses and we are both difficult people with issues and neuroses. Working as hard as we have in demanding, stressful roles and the added responsibility of two children put us under a great deal of pressure.

Still, we have goodwill and do not let resentments fester. However, our talents are both for language and we have horrible, drawn out squabbles because we are so good at arguing. Neither of us likes to give in either. How childish!

Marriage has not been what I expected but has been a million times better than my parents’ relationship. In fact, I don’t know what I expected as I was living with my DH when he proposed (constantly until I gave in) and marriage was no different from what we were enjoying by being under the same roof already.

I guess it has been a longstanding friendship with benefits.

We were 18 when we met, engaged at 19 and married at 20. My first daughter was born when we were 24 and the second at 30. He was very handsome and I considered myself very lucky. I still do. We've been married now for 53 years, can't really believe it was so long ago, seems like yesterday.

I bet few of us knew quite what we were signing up to when they said “ in sickness or in health” but looking back I would say we had a good marriage, some bits better, some bits worse ,more often poorer than richer, but stayed the course until death did indeed us part.

For myself, and others on Gransnet, marriage changes due to health reasons. Having PD and dementia, DH isn't the same person now, so the relationship is very different to what it might have been. Sometimes it's hard to watch our friends enjoying doing things together, going on holiday etc, but that's life, and there are always others worse off - I tell myself!

I have no regrets about the man I chose and married when I was 19 (still together 52 years later) but I did resent the changes in status I encountered. I did not expect that when I returned from honeymoon my staff account at the Bank where I worked had been changed to a joint account with his name first, nor that I would be deemed to be 'temporary staff' and removed from the pension scheme. Nor that our rent book would be in his name only. Later, when we got a mortgage and bought a run down cottage, which was all we could afford as my, higher than his, income was not taken into account, the mortgage, Insurance etc. correspondence was addressed to 'His Name & another. I also Hated the Cards that came addressed to Mr and Mrs his name. as if I had been reduced to a mere appendage.

I also resented the expectation that we would go every Sunday, our only day off, to visit his parents or Aunties or invite them to us for Sunday Lunch and go on holiday with them. My own parents seemed to understand that a young couple would want to spend their limited free time alone together, but the in-laws expected me to be subsumed into their family, leave work and start a family immediately.

I had not expected that I was supposed to be happy to become a mere appendage and fought for the equal partnership that I believed was the essence of a marriage.

Married at 22, we were taking a Tenancy of a Pub but he was keeping his job, I knew before the wedding it wasn't going to work but my DM kept saying it's just wedding nerves. He became more controlling after we married & 6 months later I left him to be with a married man who left his wife & 4 children, we had a lovely time, lived together for 9 years before we got married, DD born after we'd been together 5 years. Sadly we hit financial problems & he walked out on us after 15 months of marriage.

I went back to College for 3 years, just as I was finishing my College Courses I met DH (no 3) through an old College friend, after 3 months DD & I moved 250 miles south & moved in with him, we lived together for 2 years & then married. DH was a wonderful man & we were (mostly) very happy. Sadly I was widowed at 57 after almost 21 years married, that was 5 years ago, no I wouldn't marry again (he was the "love of my life" as DD remarked at his Funeral). I do miss having some-one to go out with but could never live with some-one full time.

My 3rd marriage was what I'd expected marriage to be, with no 1 I had no expectations.

Made a bit of a mess of that post the bottom line should have been deleted!

Worst day of my life when I was a teenage bride in the early 1960s. Only married because I was pregnant knew nothing about love and didn’t even like OH. My Mother didn’t like me and I didn’t like her so even though she didn’t force me to wed I thought it would be for the best as of course in our early teens we know the answer to everything! I endured a life of living hell for over twenty years and the day I got shut of OH because I found out he was having a carry on with another woman was the best a most exciting day of my life. I did go onto meet a very nice chap who is just the opposite of OH but I’ve sadly never had the courage to remarry because I have too many emotional scars from the first time round.

for over twenty years and the day I got shut of OH was the happiest day and most exciting

I married at 19 to the love of my life.I had no intention of getting married.He wouldn't live with me,too shocking for our parents so it had to be marriage.
The first 3 years were like being on permanent honeymoon,until our first child came along and I had serious PND. I couldn't risk any more children.
We've had our ups and downs and he did try to be controlling in the early years and often threatened to leave.(I was besotted with him remember)
The last time he said he was leaving I asked him which suitcase he wanted and since then, no more controlling behaviour!
We've been together over 40 years now but in all honesty I never thought it would last more than a couple of years!

Yes and more.The best decision I have ever made.Lots of ups and downs but we did it all together. After 40 years together I am still married to my best friend. we two have now become 10 with 2 sons 4 grandchildren and two dil.Am sure there is plenty more to come. Not bad for 2 kids who started out at 21 with nothing.

Thankfully it has worked out as I always hoped it would, I know I am lucky and never take it for granted

I would do it all again in an instant only change I would make would be to have had my children closer together rather than the 6/7 yrs difference between them but it never worked out that way for some reason.
We did not see much of each other when the children where growing up as I worked full time and OH worked shifts but we worked well as a team and now we are reaping the rewards with a comfortable lifestyle and still only have eyes for each other it sounds soppy but he is and always has been my best friend.

Some very sad stories on this thread. Makes me count my blessings.

homefarm that’s really have there been any good times at all? I hope so, or I hope you’ve managed to carve out something that’s made you happy.

I regretted it almost instantly. Out 'honeymoon' was a complete wet blanket and I cried to go home on the second day. That said, we have been together for 42 years and have three AC and four GC. I never knew how to get out if it, I still don't, we never had any money and have rented apart from a brief time when I tried to 'move up' and that came crashing down around us and left us virtually homeless. I went into further education and even got a degree but never had the confidence to use it. Some days I hate him, most days he irritates me and I live in hope that he'll fall under a bus. Harsh? Yes probably but I'm so miserable it hurts. Oh and its been 18 years since we last had sex

Married at 19, divorced at 23 after being used as a punchbag for 4 years. No children thank goodness. Second marriage resulted in 2 lovely children and 6 Dgc and lasted until dh died. I wouldn’t marry again but it would be nice to have a companion to go out with sometimes.

I met my DH-to-be at 16, and my parents never thought he was 'good enough' for me. They thought when I went away to university it would fizzle out but he came up to see me nearly every weekend and after a year we got engaged.
I saved all the money from my holiday jobs and he worked lots of overtime to save for the deposit on a house and we had lots of fun collecting bits (mostly donated) for it, as well as planning our wedding.
But after a fortnight's honeymoon (the second week decorating our bedroom) I started my first career job AND my first week of 'normal' married life at the same time and I was exhausted! I just remember feeling tired all the time those first few months and my DH's idea of an 'early night' and mine were totally different!
Also my husband didn't want to start a family as soon as I did but when my first pregnancy ended in an early miscarriage he changed completely and couldn't wait to be a father.
When my DM was terminally ill, my DH dealt with her housing, finances etc and she told me she was beginning to see why I married him. She said "You could see something in him none of the rest of us could see".
So all-in-all we've had our ups and downs but we've been married over 42 years and we still make each other happy.