So when I was dating, egnaged to and living with my husband I laughed at my psychology professors rules for a successful marriage...there is a long list of them and I don't recall them all but there are several that stick out and now after 5 years of marriage being hard I maybe should have listened to some of those rules...
1) never marry someone whom has been married before...oops!
2) never marry someone whom has kids...double oops and twins at that!
3) never marry someone whom has been in or a victom of an affair...Well it was not my husband who cheated in his his first marriage but he is defiietle still scarred by the affair and has major trust issues...
4) never marry someone whom is a child of a divorce...well I thought that seeing his father abuse then abaondon his mother would have made him a better man whom wouldnt want to do that to his spouse or kids but I gather my DH's father was around long enough to teach him how to be an asshole, and left early enough in life to give him a strong sence of abandonment that has taught my husband nothig but to run and hide from his problems...
5) never marry outside your race or ethnicity...i thought this rule was ignorant considering I spent half my dating life dating black men, so I figured when I finalyl met and married a white guy that the ethnicity rule would not apply especially since we both have irish and german in him...but apparantly his being part italian makes for everything to be intense and loud...
6) never marry outside your socioeconimic class...I thought this rule was really stuck up at the time but can now see how it can impact a marriage...he grew up poor with a single mother rasing 5 kids on her income, while attending college and recieving a whopping 18$ a month child support for 5 kids...I grew up in a middle class home, not rich enough to have everything we want, not well off enough to avoid finacial hardship at times, but well off enough to experience some finer things in life , like travel, and fine cuisine, and having enough to nevre have gone without anything we needed. This makes a HUGE difference on how we view life. You would think I would be the one to buy frivulous things, but I am not, he is because he grew up without it and now wants to give his kids what we never had...I on the other hand want to be sensible, but want to travel and do not get to because possessions are more important to him than travel...This rule is one that I may seriously reconsider not breaking if i were to marry again...My husbad would be concetn living in a rund down house driving expensive cars, where I am content with driving a piece of shit vehicle, living in a nice home and having money to travel outside of disney resorts.
7) never marry someone with less education than you. I thought this rule was ridiculous at the time but now completely understand it because I am more worldly, more educated and I get treated like I am a know it all for possessing knowledge about a vast array of subjects but I'm just educated and he is not. This makes a huge difference in our outlook on life, our goals, our priorities, our converstations...there are days where I just crave intellectual converstaion and I get more of that from my 5 year old than I do my husband/ I would not say he is stupid, he just hasn't been taught and right now has no interest in learning anything and it drives me nuts!!!I 'm not using my degrees in my career and not using my academic experience even in conversations, until I get together with my family then we sound like a room full of experts in comparison to my inlaws who saound like a room full of homer simpsons...
Never marry somoene who does not have the same interests than you. I thought that we could learn to like each others interests but somehow there has been little room in our life for my interests and I feel like I am losng myself along the way while our life is consumed with his interests and his kids' interests.