Take a look at the surprising, enlightening, and sometimes hard truths we all face after we walk down the aisle of marriage — and how they teach us about what love really means.

"…And they lived happily ever after."

You’re smart. You know life is no storybook. Nevertheless, admit it: Somewhere deep in your subconscious lurk romantic visions of Cinderella, or maybe Julia Roberts. The images may be sketchy and a little outdated, but you can still make out the silhouette of the bride and Prince Charming riding off into the sunset.

In real life, sometimes your Disney fairy tale ends up feeling more like a Wes Craven horror flick — and you’re the chick who keeps falling down and screaming for her life. I’ve been there. Let’s face it; marriage is not for the faint of heart. You want to believe your pure love for each other will pull you through. And it does. However, it isn’t always pretty.

UNTOLD SECRETS:

§  You will look at the person lying next to you and wonder, Is this real? Forever?

§  You’ll work harder than you ever imagined.

§  You will sometimes go to bed mad (and maybe even wake up madder).

§  Getting your way is usually not as important as finding a way to work together.

§  A great marriage doesn’t mean no conflict; it simply means a couple keeps trying to get it right.

§  You’ll realize that you can only change yourself.

§  As you face your fears and insecurities, you will find out what you’re really made of.

§  That’s the strange beauty of marriage: It’s full of hard times and hard lessons that no one can ever prepare you for. Nevertheless, in the end, those things give richness to your life together— and make your love even deeper and stronger than when it began.

Marriage is a very serious commitment and in the throw away society that we live in it is easy to determine that a marriage is over. We often do not focus on our marriage but rather our own needs. Creating a strong marriage is an effort that takes work and a constant dedication to trying to resolve issues and try new communication techniques. Turning in one bad marriage for another doesn’t fill the void. When I was young, I heard the theory pronounced that the divorce rate has increased because too many young adults had lacked positive relationship role models. The firs marriage was just for practice.

I held onto this belief for awhile until I realized that commitment is a choice. If a person feels strong enough to commit the rest of their lives once why wouldn’t they be able to stick to that commitment even when it wasn’t easy or simple? People change and grow throughout their lifetime and we don’t always appreciate where that change and growth is leading them. To make a marriage work, we all have to remember that there is a choice involved, and we can choose how we view changes and our response to them. We can either determine that our partner has changed for the worse or we can determine that they are doing what they need to do to take care of them and become more involved. Everything we do in this world we do because we are trying to prevent pain or entice joy, and ending or continuing with a marriage is no exception.

Marriage is closely connected with childbirth. Official registration of relationship is not enough to make a family strong and able to be stable and firm. Only children strengthen relations of wives and husbands to the desirable extent. The appearance of children in a family is natural and their absence is unnatural. Of course, it is quite normal when a young married couple decides to postpone the birth of their first child because they want to live for themselves and enjoy themselves. However, after honey-moon, which some couples prefer to prolong for several years comes to its end sooner or later and the time for having children comes. Those couples, who tell their friends and relatives that they don’t want to have children either hide their infertility or feel instinctively that their marital union will not last forever. As you see, marriage and children are connected so closely that you can hardly find people, who have a mutual agreement not to have children. There are even people, who think that marriage is caused not so much by love but by the desire to have children. However, such ideas are usually supported by people, who don’t believe in live. For these people children is the main family value. Thus we can state that having children is the value, which takes the second place in the list of family values after love. That is why the place of marriage is between love and children. Marriage is a result of love and condition for having children.

Marriage loses its attractiveness day by day. This process seems to be unstoppable and inevitable. Life shows us that marriage really means nothing. Since the moment, when living together without legal confirmation of relations became socially acceptable, people haven’t seen any sense in getting married any more. Besides, de facto unions don’t threat children any more, as they are no longer regarded to be bustards. It means that there are no obstacles for unofficial relations any more. People meet each other, live each other and part easily. Life has become much simpler without these formalities. I think that one more reason for such a great unpopularity of marriage is the fear of divorce. Divorce is a very painful procedure and is always associates with unpleasant feelings. Divorce is not only a mere loss of hope and disappointment. It is also connected with additional difficulties of legal nature. The fact that divorce is very difficult to go through makes many people reluctant to get married. They prefer to preserve the right to leave calmly and without any complications. However, we must admit that this state of affairs is the most suitable for men, while women often lose in this situation. They feel more responsibility for their children and when they remain without moneyed assistance. If a husband is irresponsible, the only way to force him to give money to his own children is a legal way. Only married women can count on legal support.

Today people come together with each other easily. They also part easily and find new lays. Besides, people nowadays tend to test their relationships by means of temporary living together. Thus people have an opportunity to test their feelings and household skills. In this case here may be several outcomes. The first variant is break-up in case of dissatisfaction with each other or one lay is dissatisfied with the other for some reasons. Another variant is going on living together. At first, people go through a period of adaptation to each other. They get accustomed to each other day by day and then simply live together. They think that if their relationship is OK, than they shouldn’t change anything in it. Thus they live together till they quarrel and part at last. The third variant of possible outcome is marriage. Today it happens increasingly rare. The majority of people, especially those who belong to younger generations are reluctant to marry. Modern youth is practical and pragmatic. Young people consider marriage as something which can bring profit. If they don’t see any profit in it, they prefer not to register their relationship and live together with no commitment. Thus they ensure the opportunity for possible retreat in future. Young people don’t like commitments and prefer to remain free even when they have children and don’t plan to part with each other in future. This is the way of life for young generation. Marriage seems out-of-date and obsolete for these people. They build their new world, where there will be no commitments and obligations.