1. It really is true: Men assume that women will not change after marriage, while women are convinced that they can and will change their husbands.
Men are, for the most part, honest, straightforward creatures. They’ve analyzed their potential spouse and they’ve accepted her foibles. They think they can live with her faults. They concentrate on the positive qualities. If she’s basically a calm, organized person now, she should remain that way, shouldn’t she?
But oh how different is a woman’s perspective about such matters! Women accept themselves as irrational to a point, and they realize that changing themselves to suit their circumstances is the only way to deal with life. If they are moldable, men must be too, right? And with this firm belief does a woman enter into marriage: that he will love her enough to change for her, or that she will succeed in demonstrating the rationality of her argument, that this certain quality of his disagreeable, and that that particular habit is unacceptable.
What to expect: That a wife will change. She just might seem like a completely different person after marriage. She will probably expect her husband to change too, to suit any whim that takes her fancy. Can you make allowances for this? Do you know which of your traits she finds the most annoying, and are you willing to give that up for love? What about her do you find most endearing, and could you live without it if it were to disappear overnight?
2. It also is true that familiarity breeds contempt
Mark Twain once said “The reason we hold truth in such respect is because we have so little opportunity to get familiar with it.” The US army doesn’t just disapprove of fraternization between recruits and officers, it considers it a criminal offence. Considering that women are genetically wired to repeat themselves (read: nag) until they get their way, have you considered the odds that you might like her less the more you see of her? Are you completely sure that you can live with your girlfriend’s annoying habits and her little quirks for the rest of your life without wanting to pull your own hair out?
What to think about: Neither men nor women betray their true selves while dating. How much of what each of you appears to be is really you?
3. They tell this to women, but men should remember it too: don’t do anything during the first few months that you don’t want to continue doing all your life.
Expectations, anyone? It’s only natural that if you begin doing something nice for her, she will expect you to continue doing it for the rest of your lives. What she learns about you in the first few months is going to shape the way she supposes you will behave forever. Whether it’s taking out the trash or buying her flowers or gadgets on every monthly anniversary, she will remember these things, and if you stop doing them, you don’t love her anymore, sob sob…
What to consider: The problem here is that small as well as big things merit the same careful consideration. Most husbands aim to please at the start of a marriage, even though they might later forget what they consider insignificant to the large picture. Women, the divinely contradictory sex, associate affection with symbolic gestures.
To marry or not to marry her…no easy answer to this one. How well do you both understand each other? How many shared values and core beliefs can you boast of? If you’re not quite sure, maybe tying the knot is not the right decision…
