Wrong Reasons To Get Married

Marriage is beautiful. However in recent times, we  have seen the great decline in straight marriages all across the world. 
  Marriage, the once beautiful fruit seems to have left a bitter taste in the mouth of so many. “Why do I have to put up with someone else all my life?”. A lot of people around the world have resulted to living together and be in an open relationships. Why the decline in marriage can be linked to decline in earning power of men, protection of personal wealth and assets which might be lost in marriage and other behavioral abnormalities and beliefs. One of the major reasons for decline in the rate of marriage and increase in the rate of failed marriages are that people get into marriage for all the wrong reasons. They give themselves all the wrong reasons to get married and what makes these reasons wrong is that they cannot sustain a marriage and would rather bring an abrupt end to the marriage. Here are some few reasons why people get married wrongly: 

1. Lust:

 One of the many  wrong reasons to  get  married is lust. It also happens to be the commonest reason why people get married. The thought of having a magazine cover girl or a well ripped athlete all to yourself might seem nice enough. The prospect of eroticism and sexual prowess that would be enjoyed  exclusively in the marriage also seems most of the time to blind individual from obvious signs of incompatibility and lack of communication whatsoever , all needed for marriage to succeed.  Everything seems to boil down to physicality in a lust filled relationship. Lust is one of the  wrong reasons to get married. Because it eventually wears out  and the marriage ends even before it starts.

2. Infatuation:

 Ever heard of the term” love at first sight”. Experts say that is a typical example of infatuation. You know it’s infatuation, when you are constantly thinking of how to reveal yourself to the other person based on your idealized vision of the other person. You immediately lose all form of security in yourself and are consumed with the thought of the other person liking you. You can't take your ground because you don’t want to lose the person. You basically work on egg shells doing everything in your power to recreate yourself for the person. Infatuation is what most love songs, and films portray as love, where you lose all sense of individuality and drown in this exhaustive experience. Infatuation, one of the wrong reasons to get married would sap out life from you, it would put your life goals and sense of individuality on hold and when you don’t get back the “so called love” you believe you deserve or your partner is not as infatuated as you are. You lose it, the whole marriage comes crashing down. Infatuation ends as fast as it starts. Getting married within weeks of first meeting each other is one of the surest signs of infatuation. 

3. Following the norm:

It is believed in most parts of the world that marriage is compulsory and is some kind of achievement and so every youth must eventually work towards that. Following the norm is also one of the wrong reasons to get married. Marriage is work and should be between two consenting adults who understand what they are going into and are ready to make it work and make it last. If you are not ready for that, there is no point following the norm of getting married just because you are expected to or because you love the idea of marriage itself or the fear of remaining unmarried because everybody is getting married. Marriage is beautiful but the aftermath of a broken marriage is like a scar that never erases even when you remarry. Do not allow yourself to be put under any pressure to marry by friends, relatives, parents or coworkers until you are ready to spend the rest of your life with someone you love, sans lust and infatuation.

4. Forcing Commitment:

One of the wrong reasons to get married which is also very common among the female folks is the need to force your partner into commitment to prevent being jilted in the future. Commitment should be gone into willingly and no one should be coerced into commitment. Marriage should not feel like a prison, it should be beautiful and enjoyed.  You would be wise enough to skip certain activities or functions until marriage to increase the value and incentives for marriage but not putting your partner  into a leash where he or she would be dragged into commitment under duress. Marriage should celebrate individuality as well as togetherness and forcing commitment would build marriage on a wrong foundation which would eventually send it tumbling down.

5. Money: 

This is arguably the most common of all the wrong reasons to get married. Financial security that a marriage can offer drives a lot of people into marriages they would otherwise not have gone into. This reason seems acceptable and laudable and a lot of people would applaud a lady who marries into money but the trick is,most monies comes with a lot of issues and the money in most cases is not worth the price of loneliness, unworthiness, paranoia and family feud that you have to put up with. Worst off, when there is a pre-nup. For the money bag, marrying someone because you possess the money you believe the other person needs would only be successful as long as the your partner, fails to apply themselves and make enough income on their own to fuel their sense of individuality and freedom. There has been several cases where a lady marries into money only to get some opportunities of applying herself and getting financial rewards on her own during the course of the marriage and then bailing on the marriage, or totally shifting all focus to herself and her money making enterprise.

6. Escape Route:

  Taking marriage as an escape route to leave a town, a city , your family or relatives is also one of the wrong reasons to get married. The purpose of marriage far transcends that and going into a marriage because  of such trivial reasons is asking for trouble. Find ways of dealing with people you don’t want in your life other than getting married and getting whisked away into a new world filled with new challenges and discoveries that marriage offers.

7. Pity Party

 Marrying someone out of pity is also one of the wrong reasons to get married and it ranks as one of the dumbest too. Feeling sorry and feeling responsible for someone is good enough, marrying them for that is just straight up dumb. Marriage is more precious than a relationship based on pity except of course the person in question  has about 6 hours after the wedding to live, then you can be over your dumb decision  in 6 hours otherwise you would have to spend the rest of your existence feeling dumb and dumber and it would be way worse to break out of such relationship because you would look worse than when you went in. This is also as dumb as marrying someone with the hope of changing them into your lifestyle, your religion or your culture. Even if they show early signs of tagging along, remember that is what it is, tagging along, not change, marriage is not supposed to impose a change on anyone. It would only go so far before you start wishing being run down by a high speed train.

8. Cultural beliefs: 

 A lot of Asian marriages fall under this category. This still doesn't change the fact that it is one of the wrong reasons to get married. Marrying to maintain some bogus cultural belief is absolutely ridiculous and synonymous to punishment. Marriage is supposed to be based on love, friendship, companionship, togetherness and fun, not some pre-arranged culture preserving mediocre where participants have to live with each other, get used to each other and resort to fate. While this kinds of marriage seldom end in divorce due to the fear of the same cultural beliefs that started it in the first place, it leads to a life of unfulfillment , loss of the sense of individuality and lack of emotional expression and togetherness. This is also as bad as limiting your choice of a marriage partner due to cultural reasons, geographical location, language or race.

9. Pregnancy:

 Having a baby on the way is one of the wrong reasons to get married. This reason ranks high in African Countries. This is because procreation has been falsely thought to be sole reason for marriage in these countries , especially west Africa. And most women mess  with the thought of literally trapping a man into marrying them by getting pregnant. This reason is as dangerous as it sounds, don’t put yourself in such dangerous situations. While it is not advisable for children to be born out of wedlock due to some future psychological issues postulated by experts, putting the weight of marriage on an unborn fetus is not a good idea and is a recipe for a marriage that would not stand the test of time.

10. Parental issues: 

Marrying to satisfy your parents and relatives also counts as one of the wrong reasons to get married , so is marrying to hurt your parents. No parent in his  or her right mind should force a child to get married for their own selfish benefits and no right thinking child should also go ahead and exchange vows with the sole intention of pissing off the parent. Marriage would come with it’s own issues and challenges, secondary issues might prove too difficult to handle in a marriage. The “ us against the world” mentality more often than not ends badly and no marriage should be put under such unnecessary additional pressure.

The above are all wrong reasons to get married because they usually end the marriage abruptly or rob the participants of the immense joy and happiness that marriage brings. Before signing on those dotted lines, it is important to note these reasons and either proceed  with or call off the wedding .