Is Married Life Really Worth It?

Some women have been planning their weddings from the time they were little girls. They already know what style dress they want, the types of flowers, the cake, and even the menu. Some girls even goes as far as to choose the time of year, season, or month they want to be married in (mine is October). All that is left now is just to wait until Prince Charming comes along and sweeps them off their feet, right? Well, as fun and exciting as planning a wedding may be, married life is a lot more responsibility and work than many people may know. Do you have realistic expectations of married life or have you not thought about marriage past the big wedding and honeymoon?

Many people start planning their weddings as soon as they get engaged. You got the ring and now it's time to show off to the world that you're finally off the market. This is a time many women dream of because they feel like everything is finally falling into place in their lives. They have found Prince Charming, or possibly an impostor, although it's not evident yet. Now, it's time to have a big party, aka wedding so that all of your friends and family can celebrate your new beginning with (hopefully) the love of your life. After the wedding, you have the honeymoon to look forward to as well so life seems to be really happening for you right now. Well, what about after all that fun stuff when real life with your partner actually begins? Are you ready to face all your responsibilities and duties as a wife and future mother or is it simply too much for one person to handle? Let's find out.

Living with someone is not like having a sleepover or one nightstand because you can't really leave the next day, well you can but you still have to come back. This means you should probably marry someone you get along with really well because you're going to be seeing that person A LOT. Part of living together is figuring out whether your lifestyles are compatible or not. If you're really organized and he's a messy person it's going to cause problems. The only way you're going to meet halfway is if you are going to clean less or he agrees to be more tidy. Compromise is necessary otherwise you're going to want to kill each other eventually. When you're married, you automatically think you have to take care of your partner so you might be the one doing the majority of the cleaning just because you think it is your job to do so.

Unless you're really wealthy and can afford to hire a housekeeper, cook, and nanny, chances are that you are going to have to clean, cook, and take care of your children all by yourself. That is a lot of responsibility for one woman to take on. Sure, it's possible but it doesn't really leave a lot of time for yourself or your husband. The modern woman today also chooses to work because that's a mark of being independent and not having to rely on your husband for money. Can you imagine having to cook, clean, watch the kids, and have a full time job? Now that sounds darn near impossible to me!

After cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, and possibly working, a woman is still expected to have time to do her hair and makeup and dress up so she looks good for her husband because god forbid she doesn't he's going to stray and start cheating on her. Wow, so this is the married life women strive for and wait their whole lives for? To basically become a housekeeper and nanny? So where does the husband fit in in this fairy tale? Well, usually the man works, and if he wants to provide a good life for his family he works long hours. This means he's not going to be around much and you're going to be alone raising the children and making sure dinner is ready every day while the house is also kept clean because if someone comes around and the house is a mess they're not going to blame it on the husband, they're blaming it on the woman for keeping a messy house although the real reason it's messy might be because the husband is a slob and the kids are well kids.

Now what I just described is the typical life of your average middle class American family. Obviously if you can afford to hire help inside your home your life will be very different and you will have a lot of free time to yourself. Some women, even middle class women don't work and are simply just stay-at-home moms and do everything themselves. Well that is a job in itself isn't it? The sad thing is that raising kids is one of the most important jobs a woman can have and she doesn't get a lot of credit for it. People assume that being a stay-at-home mom is an easy task because well you get to stay at home for one so you're already in a relaxed and familiar environment. Mothers on the other hand, think very differently about their stay-at-home position. Some would rather go to a 9 to 5 job and have their husband stay home with the kids because they know the reality is that being a stay-at-home mom is a much harder task than just having a 9 to 5 job. Being a stay-at-home mom is a 24/7 365 type of job with no vacation time and barely any breaks.

Being a young woman myself I understand the appeal of getting engaged and getting married. I think it's a wonderful thing to find a loving partner and spend the rest of your life with that person while raising a beautiful family. Sadly, that is not the reality of married life in our modern society. Fifty percent or half of the people who get married end up divorced. That's a very heartbreaking statistic because it means that something is obviously not right with society today. Either people are rushing into marriage without really thinking it through or they are just not taking it seriously enough. Or maybe they're just not intelligent. If you talk to people of other generations who are the age of my grandparents (somewhere in their late 70s or early 80s), marriage meant something different and something more to them. Most people of that generation married once and they did it right because they stayed with that person for the rest of their lives or until one partner passed away. Marriage meant something serious to them, something they thought through before they took the plunge. It's not something they did while drunk in Vegas or because everyone else was doing it so they might as well do it too. That generation had the right idea about marriage, our generation, on the other hand, has no idea about what marriage truly means and why it should be taken seriously.

So what is a woman to do when faced with the idea of married life? She should take some time and really think things through before going into this big commitment. First and most obvious, think about the person you are marrying. Is he really it for you? Can you seriously imagine spending the rest of you life with this person? Are you sure you're not just settling because no one better came along? Just because he offered a ring doesn't mean you have to accept his proposal. I get it, the ring is beautiful and the thought of married life sounds oh so blissful, but are you sure you're not just thinking about the wedding and the honeymoon? Because the bliss of the wedding lasts one day and the honeymoon is a week, maybe two, but forever is a really long time to spend with someone so you have to make sure you really really like them in addition to loving them. Think about all the responsibilities of married life and whether you are ready to take them on. It is a lot more than most women think. You have to be sure that the person you're choosing to spend the rest of your life with is truly worth it. Do they really deserve you? And are they really going to make the rest of your life be the best days of your life? These are some questions that you should be asking yourself before taking a step as big as a marriage. Even if today's society refuses to take marriage seriously you still need to. You only have a limited time on this earth and you don't need to waste it being married to the wrong person and staying with him for the sake of the kids. You don't need to be a cook, maid, and nanny when your main full time job is the only career you want right now. It doesn't matter if all your friends are getting married, you need to ask yourself if marriage is in your best interests. After all, you're the only one who has to live with that choice right?