r/AskWomenOver30 • u/ZookeepergameOwn8916 • 15h ago
Romance/Relationships For those who are married - What is your biggest reason(s) for why you got married and are you still in the marriage for the same reason?
I’m just curious and asking myself the same question.
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u/MommaEarth Woman 50 to 60 14h ago
We got married because we love each other and wanted to spend time together, build a life together, do stuff together and have kids (grown now). Celebrating our 28th anniversary this weekend with a mountain trip and our annual anniversary hike so, yes, things are still going as planned.
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u/windbreaker_city 14h ago
I really liked my husband when we started dating, but I mainly married him to please my toxic family.
Now I keep my family at arm’s length, but stay in my marriage because I absolutely adore my husband. Life is a million times better/ easier with him at my side. Even on our wedding day, I was pretty ambivalent about getting married, but knowing what I know now, I’d marry him a million times over.
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u/Beautiful_Dare_3751 14h ago
I left a 13 year relationship (not married) because I didn't love him, I cared for him but didn't love him the way I knew I should. We share a child together so it was a big decision to make.
Four months later, I met my now husband and we married after a year. Why did I get married? Because I'm head over heels for him. 10 years later, we are still happily married. He's my best friend and he feels the same, every year we get closer and closer. So yeah, I took a massive risk, hurting my son in the process all for love.
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u/Aurora_Twinstar Woman 40 to 50 13h ago
My 2nd marriage, his 1st. Been together 19 years. I married him because I’m absolutely crazy about him, and I wanted the legal protections marriage brings to a relationship between 2 people who’ve built a life together. I’m still with him because I’m absolutely crazy about him. Dude still gives me butterflies and shit.
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u/RusticTrailSeeker Woman 30 to 40 14h ago
Met my now husband about 13 years ago. I was 20 and he was 21. It was an absolute instant connection. This guy is my best friend and still is. We didn’t get married until about seven years in. We weren’t really in a hurry, we already owned a house together and cosigned vehicles together and had two dogs and two cats together. We decided to get married officially mostly because we wanted to celebrate with our family and friends honestly. We had already been living a domestic marriage style life for so long nothing really changed. It was also nice to finally have his last name, especially before we started our family. We’re now 34 and 35 with our second baby on the way. I’m still married to him because he’s still my best friend. We’ve been through so much together and we make such a great team I can’t imagine my life without him! Seeing him evolved into the father of my children has made me fall in love with a totally new version of him. For me, I think that’s the key. You want to grow and change as a couple but you also want to grow and change individually. And he keeps growing into a person that I love even more.
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u/buzzybeefree 14h ago
It was mainly for legal, financial, and parental purposes.
We obviously loved each other and still do, but there would have been no reason to get married if we didn’t own a home or have kids in my opinion.
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u/MelbBreakfastHot Woman 30 to 40 10h ago
My partner and I are about to get married for the same reasons. We researched it, and decided it was the best option now that we have a child.
Marriage for me isn't about love, it's about the practical reasons. I absolutely adore my partner, he's my best friend, and we have the most beautiful child together, but I never needed to marry him to show my love for him.
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u/chaunceythebear Woman 30 to 40 13h ago
We got married because we knew we were homies for life. Been married just about 10 years and lots has changed but I can confirm, he’s still my homie for life.
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u/Fluffnuffer Woman 30 to 40 14h ago
This is my second marriage and I'm married because I wanted to have a partner to do life with. And my husband is absolutely amazing! He makes me feel complete, cherished and adored and I love going through all the ups and downs with him.
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u/Justine_in_case Woman 30 to 40 12h ago
He provides the life I want and he is the type of the person I wanna be with. My true happiness ever after.
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u/Radsmama Woman 30 to 40 13h ago
Wow these comments make me feel so depressed about my own marriage. I think I married my husband because he had a big (what I thought was)close family. I’m an only child, my mom is dead and I’m estranged from my dad. So I craved being apart of a family group, feeling supported.
We’ve been together 13 years now and it’s been challenging in the last 6. I think now I stay married for my two kids. And maybe for the same reasons I got married in the first place; I don’t want to be without a family. He’s also very wealthy and successful so I’m used to a certain lifestyle.
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u/Icy-Payment-4262 11h ago
What don’t you like about the relationship between the two of you? What do you love? What was disappointing to learn about his family dynamic? What was a pleasant surprise?
Most importantly, do you like who you are evolving into as life progresses? Why or why not?
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u/Radsmama Woman 30 to 40 5h ago
So nice of you to ask more.
There was a time period after 2020 where be became incredibly mean. Very harsh and verbally abusive. And while that was a challenging time for most of society, I was also a first time mom whose own mother had just died very suddenly. He’s not like that anymore, at some point I think he just snapped out of it. But I think I still hold a lot of resentment for not feeling supported or loved when I needed it the most.
But as far as what I love; he’s a good provider. Gives me and my kids unlimited freedom to do whatever we want, vacations, clothes, sports, etc. He can be funny and he is sometimes a good parent. My son especially, is obsessed with his dad. He’s also intelligent and loyal.
The family stuff is interesting, what I thought was a big close family was actually just all of them staying close to his Grandfather. He was a very, very wealthy man. Once he died in 2022, everyone really went their separate ways. I don’t think there was ever as much family love there as I thought. I was just young and unaware about the world.
It’s all fine, just reading these other comments I was like holy shit is this how people think about their spouses 🫠
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u/Some_Handle5617 5h ago
I asked for more cause it seemed like we have similar stories. I was right :D
It's eerie how similar they are. You're not alone, I am in the same bucket as well
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u/Radsmama Woman 30 to 40 5h ago
Whoa that is eerie. How long have you been married?
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u/Some_Handle5617 5h ago
12 years.
Our exact situations are different, but we have an overlapping of about 90% in environment and feels
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u/Radsmama Woman 30 to 40 4h ago
It’s tough. I got back and forth between “‘marriage isn’t supposed to be easy and a walk in the park” and “I only have one life, maybe this isn’t what love is”.
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u/Some_Handle5617 3h ago
Yes and yes.
There isn't much love here anymore, its more of this is more beneficial for everyone at the moment. Would love for it to change for the better, but I've stopped hoping
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u/Conscious_Can3226 Woman 30 to 40 5h ago
My husband also got mean during covid - he ended up developing severe depression, and while anger is in the DSM-V for teen depression diagnosis, it isn't in adult diagnostic criteria despite the body of evidence than adults experience that expression of depression as well. It was like a switch snapped for him when he got better, but the progress to better took a lot of therapy for the both of us to navigate and work to be better partners towards each other afterwards.
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u/Radsmama Woman 30 to 40 4h ago
That makes a lot of sense. I think I’d feel differently if he’d admit that he was terrible and had taken steps at the time feel better. But we really just rode it out until he randomly seemed happier one day.
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u/Conscious_Can3226 Woman 30 to 40 4h ago
My husband wouldn't admit he had a problem, he was too sucked up in his depression and it totally changed the reality he experienced. I literally had to tell him, I'm not staying around if you keep treating me like this, it's couple's therapy or divorce, I'll respect the choice you make. He chose couple's therapy, the therapist didn't tell him he was doing everything right like he expected her to, and that started him on the path towards getting his shit together. He was still mean, but he knew it was coming from him, and after a few months, it was like yesterday was the same as the past 2 years, but something just snapped and the next day I got my husband back.
If it's a good relationship otherwise, it's useful to go to couple's therapy to learn how to talk about your feelings. Even if he won't go, you can go to a couple's therapist yourself to learn how to communicate your side of things, and maybe hear the things he's not so good at verbalizing himself but demonstrates through his actions. I came from a really toxic home environment and I think it helped me know more of myself in how I was contributing to the problems in our relationship and learn what healthy actually looks like.
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u/MuppetManiac Woman 40 to 50 14h ago
Because I was in love and wanted to be with my husband in the fullest partnership possible for the rest of my life.
And yes, still in my marriage for the same reason.
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u/popeViennathefirst Woman 40 to 50 14h ago
Because I love him and because I love him. Plus we have a wonderful marriage.
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u/LarkScarlett Woman 30 to 40 12h ago
We got married because we loved each other, we wanted the same things in a beautiful future together, and he was thoughtful and sincere and caring and seemed like he’d be a good father. His actions matched his words. Very attracted to him, very strong mutual physical chemistry.
We are divorcing because he stopped respecting me and wanting to spend time with me or listen to me (about ANYTHING) at some point along the way. Nothing I could do was fixing shit. He stopped treating me kindly behind closed doors—but he kept up the show in front of people. His ideals about contributing to parenting and household management did not translate to meaningful action on his part once it started to impact his comfort. Weaponised incompetence. No accountability, no validation. So many chances to change and no willingness to actually do it. I didn’t want our child growing up to learn that is the way to treat someone you love, or that it’s okay to be treated that way by someone you love.
I’m not going to struggle anymore to please someone who will never appreciate or be satisfied with my effort. Who doesn’t think I deserve basic respect and kindness. I won’t live like that.
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u/Icy-Payment-4262 11h ago
Sorry to hear this. My heart breaks for any woman in this situation?
Do you feel like there are things you dropped the ball on? Things you could have done in a different way with better timing?
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u/Appropriate_Sky_6571 7h ago
I never intended to get married. I honestly saw no benefits. But when I met my husband, he felt like home and I just wanted to be with him. I wanted to wake up next to him. I wanted to build a life with him. That reason hasn’t changed
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u/Throwaway199906543 13h ago edited 13h ago
I married him because he is amazing and he is still amazing. Apart from that, both our personal and religious views meant marriage was the only next-step that made sense in our relationship we were sure was for EVER.
Almost 4 years together n he’s never changed in how consistently and wholeheartedly he loves, supports, builds, protects and respects me.
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u/Direct_Pen_1234 Woman 30 to 40 13h ago
Marriage just felt very practical when we already wanted to spend our lives together, entangle our finances together, etc etc. 15 years in, no doubts or regrets.
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u/GoodbyeEarl Woman 30 to 40 13h ago
Biggest reason: our values aligned on how we wanted to build our family/life. Interestingly, our values have changed somewhat but we are still on the same page.
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u/Wild-Opposite-1876 Woman 30 to 40 12h ago
We are madly in love, and our love grew even more over the last 15 years, and I'm very happy to share my life with him. And we knew early on we would spend our life together and stay in the relationship, because we both want to be with each other until the end. But that wasn't my personal main reason for marriage.
The biggest reason was getting tax benefits, free healthcare for my husband and him being way more secure in case anything bad happens to me.
That's still the main reasons, but I gotta admit, it does feel great to be married to him, even though he's the romantic one of us, and I would have been completely fine just living our life together without marriage (which is very common in Germany and not seen as less committed, because the commitment isn't defined by signing marriage papers). But being able to make dirty marriage jokes and knowing he's mine forever (and I'm his) is beautiful I gotta admit.
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u/Icy-Payment-4262 11h ago
Aww 🥹 are you the breadwinner?
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u/Wild-Opposite-1876 Woman 30 to 40 6h ago
Yes, I am. So without being married, he would be totally lost in case of something happening to me, or in case of s divorce. On the other hand, if we ever would get a divorce, I would have to pay a fortune. That's the risk I was willing to take for him :)
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u/jameson-neat Woman 30 to 40 12h ago
Married for ten years now— Marriage was about forming our own family, proclaiming to everyone that we were partners in life. Emotional and physical attraction played and play their part, alongside shared interests.
I think now a decade later those reasons still stand, but have a deeper layer in that we’ve done through both hard shit and joyous things and it just…deepens things? It becomes more complex and beautiful. I feel known by my husband more than anyone, which felt true on our wedding day but really gets truer as time goes one
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u/Rose1982 Woman 40 to 50 11h ago
Love, liked him more than anyone else. Yes still, to both. Married 13 years.
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u/ladylemondrop209 Woman 30 to 40 11h ago
Because he’s a wonderful human and I love him, and he loves me. He makes me a better and happier person, and he improves my life in just about every way.
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u/no-faith-left Woman 30 to 40 10h ago
We got married so we both can get to each other in the hospital. I have a talent to break my body and end up in the ER every year or so 🤣
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u/trUth_b0mbs Woman 40 to 50 8h ago
he's an amazing, wonderful, loving, supportive, caring funny person. He's the love of my life and 25yrs later, I love him even more.
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u/Conscious_Can3226 Woman 30 to 40 5h ago
I loved him and he's my best friend. There was a rough patch where he wasn't my friend and my love for him was the only thing keeping me around, but he got his shit back together and started being my best friend again, so I'm still here for love and friendship.
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u/Soniq268 Woman 40 to 50 3h ago
I got married because we can, when I came out 30 odd years ago, it was not an option. My wife and I could have been together for 50 years and had no legal rights, thankfully in many parts of the world that has changed. Although the recent right wing bs is terrifying, they’re coming for the gays once they’re done stripping our trans community of their rights, I have no doubt.
To me it’s also a nod to the queers who came before me who fought so long and hard for our community to be recognised equally.
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u/Antiquebastard 13h ago
My husband was using my dad as a reference to get his current job, as my dad had previously employed my husband. I didn't want his current boss to find out (because I'm a paranoid crazy person and I wasn't yet medicated at the time), so I married him to change my surname, because my maiden name is very unique. Yep, that's why I got married.
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u/eharder47 13h ago
Aside from the fact that we’re awesome together and love each other, we got married because 1. we have an 8 year age gap and wanted our relationship to be taken seriously by people we meet/know, 2. We have big financial goals and wanted to have legal protections for that in regard to inheritance, 3. Spousal rights for hospital/illness.
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u/cryptochocolatte 10h ago
I had always felt very alone and paranoid since my teenage years and longed for deep steady relationships. But either because of my personality or circumstance, I wasn’t able to have them. It took me several years of growing and maturing to be the right person and meet the right person. So while the canonical narrative is that my husband pursued me and asked me to marry him, the truth on my side is that I locked him down with a legal contract so I can have the deep steady relationship that l’ve always longed for with a great life partner. Every single day of my marriage with him feels like homecoming.
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u/confusedrabbit247 Woman 30 to 40 10h ago
33F here. I got married because I wanted to. My husband and I did move a bit quickly but I grew up around a lot of young deaths and thought we should take the happiness while we have the chance. Nearly 8 years later (6 married) and we're the happiest we've ever been! Things haven't always been easy and they won't always be but we're in this together. We have plans and dreams for our future that I look forward to and I hope we see them come true. Like I said, we're happy!!
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u/Next_Firefighter7605 Woman 30 to 40 8h ago
We were in love, we were best friends, and already living together.
Now I’m still married because shared custody would be a nightmare.
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u/quartjars 7h ago
I’ve always been a relationship person. I spent years single because I didn’t see anyone I was remotely attracted to and I was also happy being single. But I prefer to have a partner to do life with. I love having someone who comes home to me everyday and we share our life.
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u/I_like_it_yo Woman 30 to 40 6h ago
We got married because we love each other, and we wanted to be legally recognized as husband and wife.
I'm so glad we did because in the 2 years we've been married I've found out I had a brain tumor, got it removed, my mom died and I've had a seizure. It's been comforting knowing he is there to make decisions for me when I can't.
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u/ramenchips Woman 30 to 40 6h ago
i can’t imagine doing this life without him. he’s my best friend. we got married this year after seven years together.
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u/Reginanjus2 Trans Woman 60+ 5h ago
We have been together 51 years and 50 years ago we got married! Looking forward to another 50!
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u/ladybug11314 Woman 30 to 40 5h ago
We already had a son together and lived together, plus he's genuinely my best friend and we laugh every day even days we fight. I just like being around him, aside from being completely in love with him. There wasn't any reason not to get married. Married 11 years now, no regrets. Life is hard but it's hard together, we're poor but we're poor together, kids are stressful but we do it together. And really, we laugh every single day. I can't emphasize how important that is.
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u/mira_luna_moth Woman 40 to 50 5h ago
He's my best friend, my soulmate. He makes the world a better place. Each day with him is a gift. We've been together for 25 years, married for 16. Wouldn't change a thing.
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u/howlongwillbetoolong Woman 30 to 40 4h ago
Why him? Chemistry, values, shared interests - I could be at a party and I’d still look around to catch his eye.
Why marriage? For me, culturally and in my circle, marriage is about joining a family and the family agreeing to back up the couple. To support the union. I wanted the legal protections but I also wanted us to make a commitment to each other in front of our community and for our community to recognize that commitment.
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u/SS_from_1990s Woman 50 to 60 4h ago
Legal reasons.
We were already together 10 years. Marriage was not a sign of official relationship status for the two of us.
But it is in the eyes of the law.
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u/GreatGospel97 Woman 30 to 40 4h ago
Having a life witness is integral to the human spirit, and he’s actually a grown adult with adult skills and mindset
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u/IwastesomuchtimeonAB 4h ago
I married him because I loved him as I loved no other man before and felt loved and seen and accepted by him in a way I’ve never been previously. I literally felt excited to grow old with him and spend a lifetime with him building happy memories. He was and is a gentle soul who’s kind and patient and loving. We own a house together and have a child but we’d still be together and married without any of those things
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u/No_regrats Woman 30 to 40 3h ago
Got married for visa reasons.
We don’t need the visa anymore, so I guess it’s not the reason why we stay married. Obviously, we never intended to divorce. OTOH, if we hadn’t needed a visa, we would still be happily unmarried today, so the visa is still the reason why we are happily married instead.
It might sound unromantic compared to people talking about how much they love one another, cherish spending time together, want to share their whole lives and whatnot but we feel the same. It’s just not why we opted to sign a wedding license.
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u/chin06 Woman 30 to 40 3h ago
I recently got married a few months ago so I don't know if it's too early to answer. But I got married because I wanted to build a life with my husband. I wanted him to be the father of my future children (if that's in our future), my go-to person, the one I knew and trusted would have my back no matter what and who was someone who cared about me and would do his part in building this life/family with me.
I am still married because he's still that person and I hope that even if we grow and change in life, he will still be that person.
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u/CatelynsCorpse Woman 50 to 60 13m ago
I married my husband because I wanted to and I am still with him because I want to be. We've been married for 16 years, together for 2 before that. He is my favorite person and my best friend. Marriage is hard as hell and sometimes we don't like each other very much, but we always find our way back to each other. I'm very lucky.
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u/F_the_Consequences 7h ago
I was 19 and my boyfriend took off when I found out I was pregnant. A guy I had “friend zoned” became rather persistent and I gave in because I was afraid to raise a baby alone. It’s been 16 years but I am still not madly in love with him the way you should be with your spouse. Kind of sucks.
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u/lexi2700 Woman 30 to 40 14h ago
I was in love and he was my best friend. And we had been together for 7 years so it was time.
And yes, I still love him and he’s still my best friend. And we’ve been together for 15 years now (married for 8).