Stop Pretending Conservative Marriages Are All Rainbows and Butterflies

From the perspective of a traditionalist.

Photo by Samantha Gades on Unsplash

Anyone who is married will tell you — marriage is hard.

It requires setting aside your wants and sometimes even needs to put another person first. If there are kids involved, forget it. A good parent will argue that you come last.

Constantly having to cater to other people and give up your career, finances, hopes, and dreams for the good of the family does not appeal to young people these days. This is partially why people are deciding not to get married. (And why so many articles on Medium and elsewhere on the internet argue against it.)

However, the negativity surrounding marriage these days hasn’t deterred everyone. There is still a rather large group of people who still tout marriage as a pinnacle of human happiness.

There are still little girls who long to be wives and mothers, teenagers who dream about their weddings, and young 20-somethings who rush into marriage thinking that it will lead them to the ultimate purpose of their lives. Many of these people happen to be conservative and identify with a particular religious tradition.

And then, when they actually are married, and it turns out to not bring the satisfaction and…