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[Pembo]

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[DisneyPhD]

I think part of the problem is most people perceive "work" as something bad, hard or undesireable. Work is not always a negative.

I agree, and well said. Life is work really. Marriage hasn't been hard or bad work, but it does require thinking of something besides yourself and your own needs. For some people that really is work.

I think we should be working to make relationships better. You know communicating, putting effort forth, making kind gestures.

I mean think of it this way. A trip to WDW is a lot of work, but a lot of fun too.

14 years this summer. Sure it is work sometimes, but good work.

 

[lovemygoofy]

Effort? Hmm....I don't think I do that either. Wow, maybe our marriage is awful and I didn't even know it?

I think that it's great that your marriage is happy and it comes easy to you. Consider yourself a blessed person. I really think that some people have to work/maintain/use effort to keep their marriages going and active for many different reasons and for ours it's our lifestyle.

Being married was not anything I ever aspired for and never really thought I would do. Imagine when I finally wrapped my mind around wanting to spend the rest of my life with this man, who has one of the scariest jobs you can have but I still chose this life. To have a happy marriage for us, I have to work on communicating and not bottling things up and he has to work on letting me just have my time. With the hours we work and the things that get in the way, sometimes we have to work/schedule to have some Matt&Tina time. It just doesn't happen naturally all the time.

When he is away, we both work to show the other how much that person is loved and appreciated through other means than the normal that some are used to. We have learned to be creative and we have learned to communicate through writing and telephone conversations, which is still a work in progress. Because of the life we live, it can very naturally drift into two people that live under the same roof who pass by each other occassionaly. While for some marriage is natural and easy, some others have many other things that get in the way whether its their occupation or possibly sick children or even family problems that strains a marriage and causes them to work/maintain/put effort at it.

 

[disykat]

I would say that my marriage just happens. We don't "work" at it, I don't put time and effort into it, we just live life. We have 3 kids. I wouldn't say that my kids are "work" either. We take things one day at a time.

For those who have to "work" at their marriage, do you have to schedule date night? or plan time to talk? I've never understood that either.

Does fighting constitute the "work" part?

I think my marriage takes work, but rarely hard work. I think my kids take work, quite often hard work. I was single for many years and know what it's like to come home from work and have only myself to worry about. While it's a joy, and I much prefer it over being single, being part of a family does take some work!

DH and I sometimes schedule date night, time to talk, and sometimes even sex. Why? Because it's easy for things to slip off the priority list if we get busy with the kid, jobs, different sleeping schedules, etc. If we don't schedule, we can discover that we are inadvertantly ignoring each other and making other things our priority. While we talk all the time, since we had kids we do have to schedule time for us to talk privately and uninterrupted - even more so now that they're older.

I don't think fighting is the work, though we do that occasionally. The work part is making each other a priority when maybe we'd rather just think about ourselves.

 

[SydSim]

I've been married for 14 years. I don't think marriage is work. I'm not even sure what kind of "work" it would be? - Dodie

I agree with you.

I totally agree. I don't see marriage as work. 12 plus years, and I'm not ready for a vacation from this job

I do know a few couples who seem to have a marriae that they have to work at....I don't think that they should have married each other, though.

 

[powellrj]

while I wouldn't consider marriage work, I do consider it to be something we work at. Its not easy to keep a household running with all that is involved in just trying to keep our heads above water.

We have been married 28 years and between our jobs and the kids and our families "us" sometimes gets put on the back burner. We really try to work at keeping it all together and running smoothly.

My mom thinks we are crazy, but we will sometimes schedule what I call business meetings just to make sure we are both on the same page and to make sure that we have all our bases covered for the up coming weeks. I will take our calander and check book and make sure that all up coming events are planned for and that there aren't any surprises!

 

[Booknut]

We're coming up to 6 years marriage, my first and dh's second. I don't know if i'd call it work, our relationship seems pretty effortless. No big arguments yet (except one over Margaret Thatcher...don't ask!)

 

[SydSim]

For those who have to "work" at their marriage, do you have to schedule date night? or plan time to talk? I've never understood that either.

QUOTE]

I totally agree. I never understood that concept either - I guess if you're having issues in the marriage, then scheduling these things (that to me, should be coming naturally in a marriage) might be work.

Communicating, listening, going over daily things with my DH, well, that just comes naturally to us. It doesn't take any extra effort to talk to my DH about anything, or to listen to him. And we also work opposite shifts, which to me, means there's more to talk about when we do talk.

 

[ToriLammy]

Well like everything else in life folks are going to disagree. I still think folks are assigning a negative connotation to "work" but that's just me. Work is rewarding, having a good marriage is rewarding - being happy with your way of doing things is all that matters. If you feel you are not working at it and it's good - great! If someone else feels they have to work at it but it's good then great for them too.

 

[AtlantaSue]

The relationship I was in before I married DH was "work" - and it wasn't something that I wanted to continue to do for the rest of my life. So I broke up w/ him. Then I met DH - fell in love, and wanted to spend the rest of my life w/ him. If I had not chosen wisely, I'm sure I'd say it was work. But for me, my answer is NO-doesn't seem like work at all.

 

[gina2000]

Practice makes perfect and practice takes work. So yes, it takes work but not with the negative connotations of work.