Marriage vs. Cohabiting

[Kris]

My cousin and her partner lived together happily for many years, sharing duties equitably. When they decided to finally get married she assumed everything would go on as before. He had other assumptions.

The morning after the wedding she was surprised to find out that he expected her to take out the trash, since he had always done it. But it was "wife's work" so she had to do it. And the trash wasn't the only thing. Their whole relationship changed, and not for the better.

Oh, lord. This happened to me the first time around. It was quite a... surprise. On our wedding night, when we got back to the hotel room, we were both (understandably) high on happiness and excitement for our future. My new husband gleefully said, "I feel so free!"

I didn't know what he meant by it, but just kind of assumed it was something positive.

It wasn't. It basically meant that he was home free to start exercising his strong beliefs of what husbands' and wives' roles were. Spoiler: those roles were very different from the ones we had enjoyed during our courtship.

The marriage lasted 3 1/2 years.

[jrhampt]

^^^ so weird and disturbing, right?  Idk why they would think it would work like this, but it took me a while to find someone and trust that they would not do this.

[Adventine]

Yep, I was raised by Asian parents with those expectations too. When I was younger, my mother outright told me that, when dating, the woman should be served by the man, but after marriage, the woman should serve the man for the rest of her life. This was the way both my parents approached dating and marriage.


At the time, I smiled and said nothing. But I thought to myself, "Fuck that," and decided to do things my own way.


My parents stayed married for 31 years, but ended up with three daughters who all had their own careers, their own money, and had romantic relationships that confounded their gender role expectations.

[oldladystache]

Yep, I was raised by Asian parents with those expectations too. When I was younger, my mother outright told me that, when dating, the woman should be served by the man, but after marriage, the woman should serve the man for the rest of her life.

Interesting. My cousin's husband was the son of Japanese immigrants.

[Kris]

^^^ so weird and disturbing, right?  Idk why they would think it would work like this, but it took me a while to find someone and trust that they would not do this.

Right? And also, I don't know what he was thinking by choosing someone like me. Anyone who has ever spent any time with me should be very aware that I am *not* a traditional feminine roles type of person. Like, at all. I mean, why did he even want to get married to someone like me? How he thought that I was gonna change after marriage -- especially without having a VERY clear conversation about it before we tied the knot -- is seriously beyond me.

[Metalcat]

Yeah, I call total bullshit on that concept.

My mom married 2 men and shared no assets with either and their divorces were super easy. She also had children with 2 different men with whom she purchased homes, stared businesses, and totally commingled finances.

Was this Canada? How different is it from the USA on these subjects? Assuming the OP is in the USA.

???

My point was that getting married doesn't necessarily make a relationship more complex or serious than not getting married. I wasn't saying it's a norm.

My DH was married for less than a year with no kids. No one took it seriously because it wasn't a serious marriage.

People can go get drunkenly married at a drive through in Vegas. Getting married doesn't make a relationship magically more serious than, say, a couple who have been cohabitating for over a decade and share children and finances.

[Just Joe]

Gotcha MetalCat.

[catccc]

Yep, I was raised by Asian parents with those expectations too. When I was younger, my mother outright told me that, when dating, the woman should be served by the man, but after marriage, the woman should serve the man for the rest of her life.

Interesting. My cousin's husband was the son of Japanese immigrants.

To mitigate anyone making assumptions or generalizations about Asian cultures and gender roles in marriage, I’d like to share that my Chinese parents split things pretty evenly. With maybe a slight lean toward Dad doing more domestic duties.  Both of my parents worked full time.  My mom was in healthcare and often worked nights, weekends, and holidays.  And my dad worked in an office with a regular 9-5, M-F schedule, so we just saw him more waking hours.  My dad also learned to cook as a child, and my mom grew up with a lot of domestic help and did not do much cooking or cleaning growing up.  They never fed us info or expectations on gender roles, and raised us to be independent thinkers.