What do you wish you had known before you got married?

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What do you wish you had known? (Besides that you were an aspie!) What advice would you give to others?

(It seemed like a good idea to ask this in parallel with the other thread I started.)

For all of them, I wish I'd known I had AS. I might have been able to work through some of the problems if I'd known myself better.

With my first marriage, I wish I'd known that I was attractive enough to not have to worry about never getting anybody else. One of the biggest reasons for our divorce was that I began to suspect that I wasn't unattractive to women, and couldn't resist the temptation to find out. I also wish I'd known more about human nature - I was very perfectionist in those days and I needed to get it through my head that nobody's perfect and that a lot of the seemingly huge shortcomings my wife had weren't really a sign of my having picked the wrong one.

With my second marriage, I wish I'd known how vicious my wife could be....she had a sugary-sweet style that I took as genuine, but her behaviour eventually showed an extreme callousness towards others, particularly to me. She got herself an affair after we'd had a child together, and the new guy was getting violent towards her within a few weeks of going to live with her. I could hardly believe that a mother would put her own love life before her child's emotional welfare, and I believe she scarred our son with it.

With my third marriage (still in existence), I wish I'd known that she didn't see living together as being important. I always thought that once we'd got married, we'd simply live together, but she seems to think that it's still a marriage even though she moved out last year. Best guess as to why is that she's accepted I have AS and doesn't want the trouble of living with a guy who has such a permanent disability. Frankly I'd not have got married at all if I'd thought that was going to happen. I'm still trying to weigh up whether divorcing her would do more harm than good, when it becomes legally feasible to divorce on the grounds of separation, in a year or so.

I wish I'd know that Australia and New Zealand have such stringent requirements that are likely to stop my wife (a fellow Aspie) migrating to either country (from the US). With Australia, immigration is exempt from the disability discrimination laws(!), and New Zealand has a barrage of tests (using all manner of arbitrary criteria) that could keep her out. She has interstitial cystitus, plus a rare condition which, whilst is inlikely to become a huge issue, has a skerrick of possibility of becoming so. We're going to have a go at getting me into America, once I can get enough funds together to cross the Pacific and have enough to live on until finding a job there.

But even with that difficulty, it has been worth it! We talk on the phone each day, and still get along like a house on fire. Yay for phone cards, and broadband internet.

To read "Mars and Venus On A Date" by John Gray. I would not have married my ex-wife, who I was dating at the time, had I read the book.

Don't know how you could say besides knowing I had AS...that IS the issue.

Not knowing ruined my first marriage and was making my second as difficult. Knowing now at least has me fore warned and fore armed. Not necessarily easier but at least now we both know what we are dealing with.

1. That people expect you to have kids next and never, ever, want to shut up about it. They start asking before you've changed out of your wedding dress. I never thought there'd be so much pressure on me to have children, from almost every direction. It's heart breaking. In a way, it makes me sad to be a woman.

2. That people are really old fashioned and feel it's their responsibility to tell me how weird they think it is I kept my last name (really? I thought this was fairly common). My favorite old fashioned question is, "and how does your husband feel about that?"

3. That the intense monogamy of marriage is actually difficult. It's not boredom with my husband, just an over all desire to do whatever I want when I want. I wish that sort of thing didn't lead to so much trouble.

4. That right around 2 years it would be very difficult. I don't even know why, it just was. And I've noticed a lot of others have had problems around then, too.

5. That despite all that, marriage can be fun.

I wish I knew how to be social and had the confidence to do so and that I knew then what i know now. I would have never had anything to do with her.

1. I wish I had known that I'd be happier alone. I've always been happier alone, but for some reason never really considered the option of being permanently single.

2. That I had AS. Once you realize that other people don't think/feel the way you do, it makes it possible to start understanding them. Without that, marriage is much more difficult.

I wish I'd known that the relationship would take more maintenance after marriage, not less. We figured it out eventually, but there were a few difficult years at the start.

My advice don't get married young, have fun but be safe. If relationships don't work out it doesn't mean either person is "bad," it just means you weren't the right match, accept that and move on. When you buy things sometimes you have to return them if they weren't the condition as advertised.

Things that irritate you about a person will only amplify 6 times after marriage.

One person does not have the strength for two when handling life's challenges.

Don't settle, your not doing anyone any favors by simply marrying them, if you are terrified and already at the chapel it is better to stand a small amount of humiliation than years of unhappiness.

Remember your not a child, don't marry the kind of person to please your mother and or both parents. You will only be living in denial which will eventually damage all involved.

Prior to marriage #1 [long gone] someone should have told me what [thank Gof] I knew by marriage # 2:

A. THERE ARE ACTUALLY PEOPLE LIKE ME who CAN and who WILL get what gives with me and whom I can UNDERSTAND.

B. It is better to wait for butter than to eat rancid margarine now [I knew that about butter, just not about marriage].

I wish that I'd known how much I need to be alone in order to feel ok. I also wish I'd know how irritated I would be by normal things like chewing.

these are so true! most of the marriages that ultimately end in divorce actually don't last 2 years, so i think around 2 years there is a reevaluation period.

for me, the most important thing was that you don't just marry an individual, you marry the whole family...

I should have asked my husband how he felt about adoption and putting our kid up for one.

I should have asked him about how he feels about aborting babies who are defective or if we ended up with a special needs child who is lot of works and costs too much money.

I should have askeds him about his parenting styles and his opinions on how to raise kids.

I should have asked him about how he spends his money and how he saves it and if he does the same thing I do by not doing anything at all that would make you spend money or use gas.

My advice is DO get married young. A couple of generations ago women married at 19 and men at 21. Your grandparents for example.

These days people think about getting married at 35 and are still looking for Mr. or Miss "perfect" at 40 or 45.
By this time they are set in their ways and have had dozens or even hundreds of sexual partners.

Look at shows like "Friends" or "Seinfeld" or "Sex in the city" or "Californication".

They are all about people in their 30"s and 40'S who are still looking for "Mr Right" but reject everyone because their laugh sounds funny or they chew with their mouth open or something.

This is why the birthrates in all "Western" countries have fallen like a stone to well below the replacement level of 2.11 children per woman.

This is why America will be majority Hispanic in a few decades. This is why Europe will be majority Muslim in a few decades.

Enjoy yourselves you dumb twits. You have not only spoiled your own life but you have doomed your entire RACE and civilization to extinction.