I am of course speaking completely subjectively and offer nothing but my personal observations and thoughts. Not every marriage is like this, but most are.
Quick answer: There is a huge difference between long term relationships and being married. Of course long term relationships can exhibit the same symptoms as a shaky marriage, but it's easy enough to move on from once you've had enough.
I'm going to edit out the part where I lump long term relationships in with marriage. I was thinking of couples who were together for six or eight years and already fought all the time with clearly visible cracks in the relationship. And then they marry because 8 years is a long time and they're falling apart. An official marriage makes it very hard to break up. Something I've often heard was "we've been together for too long to ever be apart". Emotional codependency. Strong platonic attachment. No one wants to be known as a divorcee, a frightful badge of dishonor and it really comes with a stigma.
People change once it becomes official. Without fail. Everybody I know, myself included. I suppose I should've made that a point but I've never tried to figure out why.
Maybe it's the official legal contract? You are now bound together by your government. You are bound to each other by the banks and corporations. This is another level of trust forced upon you. You already have to trust your partner to not cheat on you or lie to you. You have to blindly trust on an emotional level when in a partnership. Now you also have to trust that person to not wreck your life financially.
Maybe it's the expectations born from cultural reinforcement. You have to be a good husband or a good wife. TV sure as hell taught us well. Then there are friends and family with the brainwashed mindset, often miserable in their own relationships, who want to put pressure on you to conform to their standards.
Without knowing, people start to "act like married people". Most pack on pounds during the first year or so. You see them less. Where you could phone them at any time before, you quickly learn when not to bother them. They start hanging out with other couples more than their with their old friends. Just some things I have seen happen to almost every marriage that I was close to.
I know people who have been in very long term relationships, some 20 years plus. They are doing the best. They still have fun together and are way more affectionate to each other than married couples.
So my problem is with marriage. It's a bad thing, still based in medieval religion and traditions.
Some people make it work beautifully until they are are bags of wrinkles, but the world has changed or more accurately, is changing every day.
Millennials should start to let it go. It's just an industry binding its customers like cigarette companies do with their producs.
It's outdated. It was designed with the man in absolute control over the household with women being submissive. It only "works" under those conditions. Which of course is ridiculous in 2018.
Again, some interesting points. I do agree with some parts of this, but I also think it's really hard to generalise since every marriage is different so I guess it's tough to identify what 'works' in marriage. I do this marriage is outdated, but also I really do understand why some people want to marry.
Our views come down to the lives we've lived. Perspective, a strange and wonderful thing.
Yep, we're all products of our environment. This is just where it took me.