This post should more accurately be entitled “what can happen after you get married”, because many marriages stay happy for years. This is merely what could happen, and too frequently does. It’s pitched to guys who have never been married or had close friends who are married. It’s pitched to guys bc I have more experience with that angle. It would be an interesting idea for some of our female blogger readers to write something on this subject that is pitched to what women might find after marriage.
Some wives stay looking great for many years. This isn’t the norm. Be prepared for your wife to pay less attention to her appearance than she did before the marriage. This happens to an even greater extent after she has a baby. This is understandable on several levels. One, raising a small child requires a lot of time. It’s difficult for most of us to carve out time and energy to work out even without small children.
Also, there is just less incentive to keep looking great. There’s an old episode of the Murphy Brown show in which Candice Bergen finds which White House official started having an affair by looking at who started gym memberships. People, guys and girls, want to look their best when they are on the market or in a new relationship. After the marriage, working out is done less often. A Nordic Track is an expensive clothes rack.
Next, for those guys who were attracted to your girlfriend’s long, gorgeous hair, be warned that it may be one of the first things to go. Girls know that long hair attracts guys. But after they’re married they don’t really need the hair anymore. So off it comes, if not right after the marriage, then usually soon after a baby comes. And there’s nothing you can do about it. If you try to talk her out of cutting it (if she even tells you of her plans before going to the salon), she’ll reply defensively, “Well, it’s MY hair.”
I’ve noticed a curious phenomenon. If a woman gets her long hair cut off, her female friends will all applaud her for it. In fact, I think the exact phrase her friends will use is: “It’s sooo cute. And I’ll be it’s so easy to take care of.” (note: I’ll be Britney Spears’s recently shaved head is fairly easy to take care of; no worries about conditioners, stylists, frizz, hairspray, etc. ; just a Gillette razor and some shaving cream).
Women exert a lot of peer pressure on other women in regard to hair styles. They will applaud the women who cut off their long hair and try to convince women with long hair to cut theirs off. This mainly happens to women over a certain age. It doesn’t appear to happen to women whose job is dependent on their looks, such as actresses or models. One possible reason for this is that the women who cut their hair realize they don’t really need to be attractive anymore.
This are just a few of the areas which may well not be the same after marriage (or at least after the first few years honeymoon period). In light of our recent comment from a guy who married a Russian woman, I’m curious as to whether these things are common with foreign wives.
Tomorrow I’ll write about the most vexing change guys find with their wives after marriage.
