The Marriage Trap Nobody Warns You About

Something has been sitting uneasily in my mind for a while about what happens to people before they get married and what happens to them after they do. This is not because marriage necessarily makes people worse, but because something fascinating often happens to the relationship itself. Two people can spend years falling in love, learning each other, supporting each other and enjoying one another’s company, only to enter marriage and suddenly find themselves living under an entirely different set of expectations.

Let me paint a picture.

A man meets a woman and really likes her. He begins pursuing her, which essentially means doing everything he can to convince her that he is worth choosing. He brings gifts, plans surprises, sends lovely messages, calls frequently, supports her, shows up when she needs him and sometimes even goes out of his way to impress her parents. Eventually, she starts liking him too, and somewhere in the middle of all the conversations, dates, laughter and anticipation, she realizes that she has fallen in love with him. So she says yes, and they begin dating.

During dating, they are often simply two people who like each other very much. They are best friends, romantic partners, confidants and companions. Their relationship is largely about discovering one another, and because they have not yet entered the institution of marriage, they are often free to define what the relationship means to them.

For many couples, dating is the happy little world they watched on television growing up. The man may be living alone or with his parents, and the woman may be doing the same, so seeing each other carries a certain excitement because they know they will eventually have to return to their separate lives. For those still living with their parents, the secrecy and hide-and-seek can make everything feel even more thrilling because the relationship has not yet become a public family affair.

When they finally see each other, there are long conversations, holding hands, laughter, inside jokes, favourite restaurants, favourite places, road trips, gifts, visits with friends and those ridiculous little moments that make absolutely no sense to anyone outside the relationship. When they are apart, there are phone calls, video calls, midnight conversations, messages throughout the day and the strange ability to spend an entire afternoon thinking about someone who is doing absolutely nothing at that exact moment.

Then comes the first kiss, when it happens, and suddenly two people who have already spent months liking each other cannot stop thinking about the fact that they have now crossed another invisible line together. There are jealous moments when someone else appears interested, arguments that feel devastating because both people care deeply, and reconciliations that somehow feel even more intimate than the original affection. There are hugs, apologies, reassurance and promises that they will figure things out because neither person wants to lose what they have built.

There is also sacrifice. A woman may use the last money on her card to help her boyfriend pay for an important examination. A man may stay awake all night because his girlfriend is unwell. One may cook something elaborate simply because the other mentioned craving it. One may spend hours reassuring the other that they are capable and worthy before a life-changing interview. They support each other because they are partners, not because a marriage manual has assigned one person the responsibility of caring for the other.

Will You Marry Me?

One day, the man looks around and realizes that he has grown financially. Perhaps he has a good job, a successful business, a car and a decent home. He decides it is time to do what society has taught him is the next logical step, so he goes looking for a ring and proposes to the woman he has been dating.

She says yes.

And somewhere between that yes and the wedding day, the relationship begins to shape-shift.

During dating, they were simply loving partners. During courtship, they gradually become future husband and future wife. The labels sound harmless, but they carry an enormous amount of cultural baggage.

The man may suddenly begin to feel that he has acquired a new responsibility to provide and protect. The woman may begin to feel that she needs to become more feminine, more cautious, more respectful and more careful about how she behaves around him. The same woman who could laugh loudly, tease him, pinch his ears and behave like his best friend during dating may suddenly begin wondering whether she is being too much. The same man who once freely accepted her independence may begin thinking more seriously about what it means to be the man of the house.

They may not even consciously decide to change. They simply take in the expectations surrounding them.

Then Comes Marriage

And this is where the transformation can become particularly dramatic.

The couple does not just get married to each other. They get married to an institution.

Before marriage, the central question is often, “How do we want to live together?” After marriage, the question becomes, “How are married people supposed to live?”

Those are radically different questions.

Suddenly, Mum, Dad, the pastor, the imam, aunties, uncles, friends, culture, religion, relationship gurus, social media and everybody’s grandmother have entered the marriage as an invisible committee. The couple may have spent five years learning each other’s personalities, fears, ambitions, boundaries and dreams, only to discover that the institution they have entered already has a script waiting for them.

Marriage comes with rules. Marriage comes with responsibilities. Marriage comes with gender expectations. The man is now expected to be the head, leader, provider, protector and final decision-maker. The woman is expected to be the neck, the supportive partner, the submissive wife, the respectful wife and, depending on the cultural or religious tradition, someone who is expected to defer to her husband’s authority.

The two people who spent years building a relationship may therefore enter marriage carrying two completely different psychological contracts from the ones they had while dating.

This is one reason people can date for years and divorce only a few years after marriage. It is also why some people insist that their partner “suddenly changed” after getting married. Sometimes the person really has changed, but sometimes what has changed is the social meaning of the relationship and the expectations attached to it.

Consider a couple where the man takes his newly assigned role extremely seriously. He decides that being a husband means being the head, making the final decisions, providing financially and protecting his wife. Meanwhile, his wife continues behaving largely as she did during their dating years. She questions him when she disagrees, makes independent decisions, jokes freely with him and expects them to negotiate their lives as equals because that is the relationship she thought they had built.

He may begin interpreting her behaviour as disrespectful, unfeminine, disobedient or unserious about marriage. She may interpret his new behaviour as rigid, controlling, easily offended and completely different from the man she thought she married.

Neither necessarily understands what happened.

The relationship has acquired a new script, and only one person may be following it.

A Strange Before-and-After Experiment

The couple does not necessarily lose love overnight. Instead, love becomes surrounded by obligations that were not previously there, and eventually, people begin asking themselves questions they never expected to ask.

When was the last time your partner spontaneously brought you a gift simply because they thought about you?

When was the last time you received a long affectionate message from your partner that had absolutely no practical purpose?

When was the last time your disagreement remained a disagreement rather than becoming a referendum on your character, your respect, your femininity, your masculinity or your obedience?

When was the last time you could say, “That hurt me,” and simply be heard without being accused of being dramatic, disrespectful, manipulative or difficult?

When was the last time your partner planned something simply because they wanted to make you happy?

When was the last time you laughed together until your stomach hurt over something completely stupid?

When was the last time you felt pursued rather than managed?

When was the last time you felt chosen rather than obligated?

And yes, for some couples, when was the last time they experienced passionate intimacy that felt emotionally connected, exciting and deeply personal rather than something gradually transformed into another expectation attached to marriage?

These questions are uncomfortable because many people may realize that the answer is: before I do.

For some, the last time their partner went out of their way to impress them was before marriage. The last time they had an argument without dragging gender roles into it was before marriage. The last time their partner surprised them for no reason was before marriage. The last time they felt like their partner’s favourite person rather than another responsibility on a growing list was before marriage.

The last time they could simply be themselves with each other may have been before marriage too.

This does not mean dating is automatically better than marriage or that marriage inevitably destroys romance. There are couples who remain deeply affectionate, playful, sexually connected and emotionally intimate for decades. The point is not that marriage itself is the enemy.

An Unnecessary Marital Framework

The point is that marriage introduces a powerful institutional framework around two people who previously had more freedom to define their relationship themselves.

And sometimes that framework becomes so dominant that the relationship gets buried under it.

The man stops asking, “What does my partner need?” and starts asking, “What is a husband supposed to do?” The woman stops asking, “What kind of relationship do we want?” and starts asking, “What is a good wife supposed to be?“

That subtle shift matters because a person can begin performing their marital role so intensely that they forget to remain their partner’s friend.

The husband becomes so focused on being provider and leader that he forgets the woman beside him may simply want to laugh with him. The wife becomes so focused on being supportive, submissive and nurturing that she forgets she is still an individual with ambitions, preferences, opinions and desires. Both people can become excellent performers of marriage while becoming increasingly poor at actually enjoying one another.

The Quiet Transactionality of Marriage

Before marriage, the underlying question is often, “Do I love this person?” After marriage, additional questions appear: “What does this person provide? What responsibilities do they fulfil? Are they behaving like a proper husband? Is she behaving like a proper wife? Is he providing enough? Is she submitting enough? Is he protecting enough? Is she respecting enough?“

Love has not necessarily disappeared. It has simply taken on a new cloak.

The danger is that two people who originally chose each other freely can eventually begin measuring one another against roles neither person personally designed.

This may help explain why so many young people today are questioning traditional ideas about marriage. Increasing numbers of people want relationships that preserve individuality, autonomy, friendship, emotional safety and genuine affection rather than relationships that suddenly replace those things with rigid gender expectations after the wedding.

They want to enter marriage without losing the people they were before they entered it.

They want to be able to say, “We are married” without that sentence automatically meaning that one person becomes the permanent authority and the other becomes the permanent subordinate.

They want to make decisions together, divide responsibilities according to competence and circumstance, remain financially and emotionally supportive of each other, and continue treating each other as human beings rather than as roles.

Perhaps that is one reason marriage is increasingly being renegotiated by younger generations. People are not necessarily rejecting commitment. Many are questioning the package that historically came attached to it.

The promise of marriage is supposed to be a life built together. Yet somewhere along the way, many people are taught that marriage means entering a predetermined hierarchy and performing gender correctly for the rest of their lives.

Happily Once Before

Marriage was sold as a happy ever after, but perhaps for too many people, the “happy” was happening before the “I DO.” Perhaps the challenge of modern marriage is not convincing people to love each other more, but figuring out how to enter an institution without allowing the institution to swallow the love, friendship, autonomy and tenderness that existed before it.

Otherwise, years later, two people may look across the same dining table, share the same surname, raise the same children and pay the same bills, yet silently wonder the same painful question: