Adapting to Marital Transitions

 Today I want to talk about why people get married and the transitions that have to take place for marriages to work. So why do people get married? A lot of people would answer that question by saying that people marry because they are in love, but there are different reasons that people marry for other than love. One big reason that people decide to get married is because of social expectations. There is an expectation that everyone should marry sometime in their life. This is seen through the negative attitudes when people remain single. Marriage is a social institution and there are ways to govern it. It serves the basic functions like preventing relationships from turning into chaos by perhaps making someone "off limits" to others. Marriage provides a way to preserve a group by specifying the context of where sexual relations happen and where children are born into. Other people marry for self fulfillment. This occurs when one develops the sense that marriage is the perfect way to satisfy all of your needs and to become the most happy. Some people will marry in order to fulfill their sexual, emotional, and physical needs. Another reason that people marry is because of the desire to have children. It's been studied that the best way to have children is inside of a marriage, so many people marry in order to have children. One that I think is really true that I have seen is that some people will marry because it is a practical solution. Some examples of this are marrying to escape a home situation, marrying to have a reliable sex life, and because some find it too lonely to be single. When I first read that a lot of people marry for different reasons other than love I was very surprised. After learning a bit more about it though, it has definitely opened my eyes and it makes a lot of sense now. 

Most people usually enter marriage with a huge set of expectations. For example, as I discussed before that some people marry for self fulfillment, they enter marriage expecting all of these different things to happen; for them to become happier and to have a better satisfaction of life. When we enter marriage with a set of expectations, we can come to the harsh reality, that marriages are in fact far from perfect, and that they will not constantly be fulfilling. Because our expectations might not always be reality, there are a lot of transitions that individuals and the couple as a whole will have to make in order to help their marriages succeed. Even within the first month of marriage, there are many things that individuals will need to make adjustments for. Some examples of this include living arrangements, like where things will be kept in the house or chores, individual habits and preferences, and finances. These can all happen within the first month of marriage, and going into a marriage with expectations that it will not be perfect, and that there will be adjustments that need to be made, will help the transitions to be smoother. All of these examples can give the perfect opportunity in the early stages of marriage to learn to be able to resolve conflict together. If you both have different views of budgeting and finance, there could be a lot of conflict that arises. If you are both able to come together and adjust and transition together, this can predict future success in the long run. Being able to learn to adjust together will be key when any other problem occurs in the future. I want to end on something that I learned in my class. All marriages will come with problems and adjustments, but it is important to remember that incompatibilities aren't the problem; it's how we love the person through them and deal with the conflicts. It's how we come together as a couple to make choices, resolve conflict, and to love each other that will be the ultimate guide in making marriages last.