Married People Confess The Brutally Honest Things That Shocked Them About Marriage (2024)

Typically, when married couples openly talk about the reasons why marriage is tough, we hear the same few responses: keeping the spark alive, stress with kids or work, etc. But I wanted to get to the nitty gritty and dig deeper into the challenges that married people face that surprise them.

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So I asked the BuzzFeed Community: "Married people, what are the everyday realities of marriage that were much harder than you thought they'd be?" Here's what they said:

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1. "Ensure that both of you have hobbies that are done without the other. You married the individual that you met so long ago. You want to protect their sense of self because changing that core feature can be catastrophic."

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—trentd2

2. "How much we will change. We have been together since high school. We are now in our 30s. How we were then is definitely not how we are now...we've had a lot of arguments in regards to LGBTQ issues, gun control, abortion rights, a lot of things. He wants to move to a red state due to cheap housing and I won't step foot. We both know that if we did have a child who turned out to be gay, we would divorce because he would not approve, and I'd be all for letting them be them."

"We've learned to just let bygones be bygones...but sometimes I think it would be so much easier if we were both on the same side."

—Mindy, 33, Maryland

3. "It took some time to realize I had to consider him when making plans. My social life is more active than his, and I would say yes to drinks and dinners and weekends without asking him first — not as a permission, but as a courtesy. He would always say yes, but then I’d come home and realize I wish I had been with him instead."

"We make it a habit to discuss our weeks and slow our RSVPs before talking about it. Most of the time it’s a yes, but there are times when we need to connect or spend time with the family, or honestly get stuff done."

—farrenmay

4. "That infidelity is not always enough reason to divorce. For some yes, but we worked it out. There was infidelity on both sides, and we didn’t feel we should walk away or hand our spouse over to other people."

5. "Aging apart in physical health. When my health started to decline due to Type 2 diabetes, I went to the extreme to change my life. My husband has not. We are not aging the same. He has no energy for anything and would rather me forego the activity also. We are both feeling resentful."

—Kris, 42

6. "Handling blame for one thing or another is a challenge. No one wants to be wrong or caught in a screw-up, right? If I’m wrong or caught in a screw-up and can’t deny it, my go-to diffuser is straight up saying I was wrong and apologizing. If my wife is caught in a screw-up and can’t deny it, she simply deflects her wrong or error by reminding me how many wrongs I’ve made and how many times I've screwed up over the years."

—Anonymous

7. "Parenting. It’s a lot harder on a relationship than you realize. There is no way to prepare for the sleep deprivation, so how can you and your person plan to communicate in a healthy way after three days of no sleep and two straight hours of crying day in and day out?"

8. "My husband likes to wake me up and then proceed to take a sh*t with the bathroom door open! I hear all the plunks and grunts. I hate waking up this way but I guess having three bathrooms doesn’t give us enough privacy. When you gotta go you gotta go, especially right next to my bed. Love him!"

—beccaw4794ea400

9. "Picking something or somewhere to eat for dinner! Specifically, if we are going out or ordering takeout, my husband will ask what I want to eat, and my mind goes completely blank. I can find something to eat at pretty much any restaurant but he wants to make sure I am happy with what I get."

"Engaged couples, I encourage you to come up with a system for picking meals to avoid a lot of useless quarreling!"

—Anonymous

10. "On some days, the way your partner chews or clears their throat will bug the sh*t out of you. Also, there is such a thing as too much togetherness no matter how much you love one another."

11. "Even if you know the person really well you can never anticipate how they are going to respond to life's big events, and how it’s going to affect, and maybe change, the dynamics of your relationship."

"Losing a job, having a child, losing a loved one...these things may deeply change a person’s perspective on life and parts of their personality."

—laurajulie

12. "How easy it is to say that you need to keep things 'spicy' in the bedroom to keep a healthy married life, but how difficult that truly is... This is a difficult reality because who wants to admit that they would rather watch TV and cuddle than have a guaranteed sex-fest, since you’re married."

—Anonymous, 42

13. "Even with separate bank accounts, certain financial decisions have to be made together. We own two homes together, two rescue dogs, and a car, so it’s tough when one person wants to splurge and the other likes to save..."

14. "Communication is haaaaaard. Snapping, speaking before thinking, using blaming language is easy...and can quickly become the default way to talk to each other when you’re tired or low (which can be often)."

"You just don’t always have the energy and capacity to speak with kindness and empathy with the person you spend so much time with. Even though you want to and you know that this is the person that deserves it most."

—mummypig1978

15. "My husband struggles with some mental health issues. I'm always worried about how he's doing. I am there 1,000,000%, but it's always something I'm going to be worried about. When you're married you are the first person they go to when they're struggling. I knew that going in and I have no problem with that. I love the stuffings out of him and when I vowed to be there for him in sickness and in health, I meant it and still mean it. But you don't get a break from worrying."

—hiddencake55

16. "You will never stop learning how to communicate. There are going to be periods of your marriage where you may just not like each other. It could be weeks, months...hell, even a year or two, ESPECIALLY the first years with kids. But for commitment to persist it requires daily work to continue to grow together."

17. "Self-reflection. I was always unaware of my own shortcomings until I saw how it impacted my husband. My selfishness, my manners in a group of friends, my attitude, and my 'jokes' really made me see what I need to work on to be a better partner. I'm trying to be better and rewrite my bad habits for him."

—Mads, 26

18. "Being expected to make decisions every single day. Being married and especially having kids, the constant decisions about what to eat, what to get at the grocery store, what will the kids eat, what will my husband eat, what else does everyone need? It's exhausting."

—Anonymous, 38, California

19. "Feeling inferior. I realize I used to pick relationships where I felt superior in some way to protect myself against the person leaving me. I had some bad experiences and finally chose someone awesome. I now fear because he is so great that he will eventually leave me."

—Anonymous, 31, Maryland

20. "Not wanting to be around them or care for them when they are sick. A sick grown man grosses me out."

21. "Intercultural communication. We speak the same language, but were raised in different countries with different cultures. Our words, actions, and communication come off totally different in many aspects. Sometimes my husband says or does something that can come off totally offensive in my culture, but it’s a norm where he is from and vice versa. We’ve learned to manage, but even after 17 years we still struggle sometimes."

—LG

22. "Your husband might be a great dad when they are babies but really lack the nuanced parenting skills when they are older, causing a lot of strife. We have daughters, and once they were older and started having more complex issues with food, body image, grades, puberty, relationships, and emotions, he often said things that were not only wildly inaccurate and unhelpful but inflammatory and damaging to their mental health."

"95% of the time I take the side of my girls, but then it puts my husband and I at odds with one another, causing a lot of marital stress."

—Anonymous

23. "My job. I'm a travel nurse so I'm a contractor in my industry. I come and go as I please and make up to six times what a normal staff member makes in my industry. I only work 9–10 months out of the year. Right now, I'm on a 2.5 month stretch off. My husband, on the other hand, is a union factory mechanic. He gets his three weeks of paid vacation a year. He gets really jealous and makes comments like, 'Well not everyone can take off the summer,' or 'You make twice what I do!'"

24. "Substance use. My husband is a daily pot smoker. It doesn't interfere with his job or paying the bills or anything like that. It's just I hate that he does it so much. I smoke weed maybe twice a year and drink alcohol maybe two days a month. I don't need substances to make me happy, but my husband does because he thinks life is just so hard (he grew up very wealthy; I'm talking maids and nannies and personal chefs wealthy in his home country)."

"It's not like we are working all the time. We take multiple vacations and small trips throughout the year. The pot smoking though, it just gets in the way of communication and his attitude when he isn't high. I don't know if I can do it forever."

—Anonymous,33

25. "I love my partner, but dang, the house would be way cleaner if it was just me. He helps of course, but like, he doesn’t see (or care about) the smaller things. Does he think a magical cleaning gnome comes out at night and empties the bathroom trash cans? Or wipes off those fingerprints from the corners of the white walls? Meh."

Married people, share with us the everyday realities of your marriage that surprised you in the comments below! You can also fill out this form if you prefer to remain anonymous.

Note: Submissions have been edited for length and clarity.