Most of us enter marriage with the best intentions, convinced we’ve found our person and are ready to build a life together. We believe we’ve done our due diligence—spent enough time together, talked through the important stuff, and felt that undeniable connection.
But sometimes, despite our certainty in the moment, we realize later that we may have rushed into one of life’s biggest decisions. If you’re wondering whether you gave marriage the careful consideration it deserved, you’re definitely not alone. The fact that you’re even asking this question shows self-awareness that many people never develop. Here are X things to consider to help that self-reflection along the way.
1. You rushed into marriage to solve existing relationship problems.
You may have heard the saying that “marriage isn’t a magic wand”, but when you’re in love, it’s easy to believe that making it official will somehow fix the cracks that keep appearing.
Maybe you thought that walking down the aisle would finally make your partner more committed, or that the security of marriage would solve those trust issues that kept surfacing. Perhaps you convinced yourself that their pattern of emotional withdrawal was just “commitment fear” that a wedding ring would cure.
The logic feels sound—marriage represents the ultimate commitment, so surely it will inspire better behavior, right?
Wrong.
Here’s the thing: marriage is a magnifying glass, not a magic wand. It amplifies whatever already exists in your relationship rather than transforming it. Those communication problems? They’re still there, just with shared bank accounts now. That jealousy or controlling behavior? It often gets worse when your partner feels they “have” you locked down.
Marriage is incredible at highlighting both the strengths and weaknesses that already exist, and if your relationship had more weaknesses than strengths to begin with, you could be in for a rough ride.
2. You were more excited about the wedding than the marriage.
Don’t get me wrong—there’s nothing wrong with wanting a beautiful wedding day. But when you find yourself more invested in how the photos will look than how your actual relationship functions, that’s a red flag worth examining.
I’ve seen people become wedding planning experts who could tell you everything about floral arrangements and seating charts, but when asked about their partner’s long-term goals or deal-breakers, they’d draw a blank. They knew exactly what their “something blue” would be, but had no idea how their partner handled stress or conflict.
The wedding industry encourages this focus on the event rather than the commitment—it’s more profitable that way. But marriage lasts a lot longer than your reception, and if you put more energy into planning one perfect day than discussing the thousands of ordinary days that would follow, you might have gotten your priorities backwards.
3. You’ve never had a serious disagreement or conflict.
This one might seem counterintuitive. Shouldn’t couples who never fight be the success stories?
Well, not exactly.
If you’ve never navigated a real disagreement together, you haven’t actually tested your compatibility—you’ve just confirmed that you can get along when everything is going smoothly. But the reality is that life is hard. And marriage involves making countless decisions together, handling stressful situations, and navigating disappointments. If you don’t know how your partner responds to conflict, you don’t really know your partner.
Maybe you’re both conflict-avoidant people who sweep problems under the rug rather than address them. Or perhaps one of you always gives in to keep the peace, which means you’ve never seen how the other person handles not getting their way.
When you finally encounter your first major disagreement as a married couple—and you will—you might be genuinely shocked by your partner’s reaction. The person who seemed so reasonable during your courtship might become defensive, manipulative, or emotionally explosive when they can’t just go home to cool off.
Some of the most “harmonious” dating relationships fall apart quickly in marriage because both people were on their best behavior, avoiding anything that might rock the boat. But marriage is the boat, and you need to know how your partner navigates it when the waters get choppy.
4. You made major compromises about fundamental life goals.
Love can make us believe we can sacrifice anything, and sometimes we agree to compromises that feel manageable in the moment but become sources of deep resentment later.
Maybe you agreed never to have children when parenthood was something you’d always envisioned, convincing yourself that your feelings would change or that your partner might eventually come around. Or perhaps you promised to move to a place that never felt like home, assuming you’d learn to love it.
When someone is deeply in love and focused on being together at any cost, major compromises can feel like small sacrifices. You might think, “I’d rather have them and no kids than kids with someone else,” or “I can pursue my career anywhere.”
But here’s what often happens: those aren’t just preferences you’re giving up—they’re fundamental parts of who you are and who you want to become. And while you might genuinely believe you can live without them, years of marriage can reveal that some dreams don’t just fade quietly away.
Instead, they become sources of ongoing sadness that strain the relationship in ways you never anticipated. You might find yourself feeling envious of friends who got to keep their dreams, or resentful toward your partner for “making” you choose (even though the choice was ultimately yours).
All the while, your partner might not even realize the depth of sacrifice you made, especially if you were convincing in your assurances that you were fine with the compromise.
5. You felt pressured by external timelines or expectations.
Sometimes the pressure to get married comes from everywhere except your own genuine readiness. You might have felt like you were falling behind because friends were getting engaged left and right, worried that your biological clock was ticking, or experienced family pressure about “when are you going to settle down already?”
I get it—when you’re constantly fielding questions about your relationship status, or when your social media feed is full of engagement announcements, it’s natural to feel under pressure. But the reality is that other people’s timelines have nothing to do with your relationship.
The most successful marriages happen when both people feel internally motivated to commit, not when they’re trying to meet external expectations or deadlines that someone else set for them.
6. You’ve never lived together or spent extended, uninterrupted time together.
Dating someone and living with them are completely different experiences. When your relationship has existed primarily in “date mode”—planned activities, best behavior, and limited glimpses into daily reality—marriage can bring some surprising (and rather unpleasant) revelations.
You might discover that your partner has completely different standards for cleanliness (and I mean completely different), approaches to money that make you uncomfortable, or ways of handling stress that you’d never witnessed during those carefully planned dinner dates and weekend getaways.
People naturally present their best selves during courtship. But daily cohabitation reveals everything from how someone handles minor frustrations to their actual relationship with personal hygiene, family boundaries, and household responsibilities.
Now, of course, some couples choose not to live together before marriage for religious or personal reasons, and that’s a perfectly valid choice. But it does mean you’re navigating a steep learning curve about basic compatibility that other couples work through before making their commitment official.
If you married someone and then spent your first year feeling like you were constantly learning fundamental things about how they operate in the world, you essentially skipped the “reality testing” phase of your relationship.
7. You can’t imagine your life without them (but for the wrong reasons).
There’s a difference between being genuinely excited to build a life with someone and being terrified of existing without them. If you found yourself saying “I can’t live without you” and really meaning it, you were likely operating from a place of co-dependency rather than genuine partnership.
Maybe you’d built your entire identity around being part of this couple, or perhaps you’d become so intertwined that the thought of being single again felt impossible to navigate. Some people realize they weren’t drawn to marriage because they couldn’t wait to wake up next to this person every day, but because they couldn’t imagine waking up alone.
Healthy marriages require two complete people choosing to share their lives, not two halves desperately clinging together.
8. Your friends and family expressed genuine concerns that you dismissed.
This one requires some nuance because sometimes loved ones are wrong, jealous, or overly protective. But if multiple people who care about you expressed the same concerns, and you found yourself getting defensive or dismissive, it might be worth examining what they were seeing that you couldn’t.
Maybe your closest friends gently mentioned that you seemed different in this relationship—less like yourself, more anxious, or constantly making excuses for your partner’s behavior. Perhaps your family noticed patterns that felt familiar from previous unhealthy relationships, or your most trusted confidants expressed worry that you were moving too fast or compromising too much.
The tricky thing about being in love is that it can create blind spots. When you’re emotionally invested in making a relationship work, you might rationalize red flags or dismiss valid concerns as jealousy or interference.
Now, I’m not saying you should let other people make your relationship decisions for you. But when people who know you well—people who have nothing to gain from your relationship failing—express genuine concern, they might have been seeing something from the outside that you can’t see from the inside.
9. You got married during or immediately after a major life crisis.
Grief, job loss, illness, family emergencies, or other major stressors can significantly cloud our judgment and create false urgency around big decisions. If you got married during a particularly difficult period in your life, you might have been seeking stability and comfort rather than making a clear-headed choice about your future.
People often seek comfort and stability during difficult times, which is completely natural. You might have been drawn to the idea of having someone legally committed to being there for you, especially if the crisis made you feel vulnerable or alone.
This doesn’t mean marriages that begin during difficult periods are doomed—sometimes a crisis reveals how well partners support each other. But still, you might have been operating from a place of need rather than genuine readiness for partnership.
10. You realize you don’t actually know them very well.
This one might be the hardest to admit. If you find yourself regularly surprised by your spouse’s reactions, opinions, or decisions, you might have married someone you knew much less about than you thought.
Maybe major aspects of their personality, family dynamics, or core values never came up during your courtship, leaving you to discover fundamental things about your partner after you’d already made your commitment.
Of course, you’re never going to know everything about your partner, regardless of how long you date. But if you’re only just learning about incompatible views and morals, traumatic past experiences that still haunt them, or visions for the future that look completely different from what you’d assumed, it suggests that important conversations were skipped or that the relationship moved much faster than deep knowledge could develop.
And that’s okay. It doesn’t make you stupid or careless. It just makes you human.
Final thoughts…
Look, recognizing these signs doesn’t mean your marriage is doomed or that you made a terrible mistake. Many couples work through these early challenges and build incredibly strong relationships as a result.
The fact that you’re reflecting on these patterns shows the kind of self-awareness that can actually strengthen your marriage moving forward. If you see yourself in some of these scenarios, consider it valuable information rather than a reason for panic.
Sometimes the best relationships require a bit of catching up—getting to know each other more deeply, having those important conversations you might have skipped, or simply acknowledging that you’re both still learning how to be married to each other.
Other times, it’s ok to accept you made a mistake and do what needs to be done to rectify it.
