An age old dilemma that pertains to the love equation between partners, the many advantages and disadvantages of marriage stands long validated. In fact, marriage as an institution has come to be long associated with such ideals of compromise and compatibility even when it perhaps should have also been some sparks of love lending the warmth to a husband- wife relationship. The idea of love not being essential to marriage was deep rooted enough to let arranged nuptials prevail as the norm, even when love manages to find its way many times in such arrangements as well. Today however, love is what we seek foremost when we set out to define the bliss of conjugal life.
But while the magic of love for sure is what makes not just marriage but also life all the more worthwhile, that does not make it completely bereft of any flaws whatsoever. Nothing is perfect in life, love included, which makes therefore for the case of even love marriage to have its own set of disadvantages. While it might be easy to lose sight of such negatives of love especially when you are head over heels with the dreaminess of it, the truth remains that love and the many marriages it leads to are not the premise of ‘happily ever afters’. Here’s outlining the biggest disadvantages of love marriage that it is necessary to be prepared for before embarking on a love induced journey of forever togetherness-
#1
Source: DW
Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of love marriage is that the transition of love from a relationship to a married state of life isn’t the smoothest. While love remains more or less the same, the dynamics of it changes owing to marriage bringing also with it a set of responsibilities. Even for those who tend to believe that nothing has changed for them as a couple, there are certain aspects of the love that is bound to morph into a different dimension. This manifests as a disadvantage of love marriage because it can lead to such conflicts between the couple that they had failed to anticipate. In misunderstanding therefore their relationship because of being unable to gauge the changing nature of the love, couples very often discover with disdain that their marriage isn’t going to be anything like they had envisioned beforehand.
#2
Equally pertinent is this factor of the known in manifesting as yet another of the disadvantages of love marriage. With someone you just do not know inside out but know also of the love they have for you, it is natural that entering into wedlock in such cases would have you harbouring certain expectations. With arranged marriage, the fact that you do not fully know each other can help in preparing yourself mentally for a life ahead that might not exactly be the one you had wanted. In love marriage however, couples take it for granted that their partners would come to live in their terms. However long a period of time you might be in a relationship with someone, getting married to them and having to live entire days and months together is a different gamble altogether.
As the nature of love changes along with the essence of the relation, it only is natural that all your expectations might not be met. This harbouring of the desire to have things turn out your way and believing that they indeed will just because you would be with the person you love only to find out that your married reality is not even half as rosy as your dreamy romance is one of the very ironic but really exerting negatives of love marriage.
#3
While love marriage itself might come with its own noticeable disadvantages, the problem gets all the more aggravated when the match is also not approved by the families. Within the spectrum of a marriage where love was your only reason to get hooked, problems sprouting in it are likely to make you isolated. With no support from your family, it gets harder to tackle the usual marriage problems resulting in some sort of frustration not typically encountered in arranged marriages.
The conflict with your partner is all the more worse since you never expected to be in such a tough situation with them. At the same time, not having your family to stand by you in such testing times is an added stress, potent enough to have you start doubting your own choice. Be it some issue arising out of a lack of compatibility or other such problems that can concern anything ranging from finances to more personal matters, finding oneself all by themselves even when they did it all for love can be one of the hardest battles to conquer.
#4
Pertaining also to such situations where a couple enters into marriage outside the consent of their families is one of the major disadvantages of love marriage. The decision to choose love over family is a very taxing one, since they face the fear of being sidelined by their own parents. Cutting ties off from one’s blood relations is always tough. And even in cases one proceeds to do so, they always feel a certain vacuum in their lives which is difficult to be filled with even all the love in the world. Worse still, if the marriage starts to go haywire, the sense of not belonging to any place gets all the more compounded and leaves them in a situation that might have them ruing their whole life.
#5
Love marriages also tend to be more difficult to adjust in since the existence of expectations means that any non conformity to them especially in the family set up would instantly trigger disputes. Since getting married into a like minded family goes outside the purview of love, this leads to a greater difficulty in discovering a middle ground. Even when the partner might be willing to oblige, the views of the family might not always align for the couple concerned. In such cases where they find themselves in a situation that has them unable to do as they wish due to the intervening family, the frustration is all the more likely to unleash as arguments in the marriage. With therefore families once again harbouring the potential to emerge as a bone of contention, love marriage tends to suffer from such disadvantages that totally overrun the very bliss of it.
#6
There also can arise such problems where the married couple finds a way out of the dilemma but the families on each side refuse to be on cordial terms. This affects the peace of mind of all and especially for the love struck pair, this everyday bitterness takes a toll also on their relationship. As issues refuse to subside, there might even begin a blame game between the partners that creates a crack in their conjugal life. Also with families already at war with each other, even minor arguments can escalate quickly and emerge as grounds for urging the couple to get separated.
#7
As magical as love might be, it can also turn out to be quite blinding. People in love generally tend to overlook the flaws in their partner which is all well and good till it genuinely does not concern either of them much. But it might also so happen that the obsession with the feelings or the person might get so strong that they deliberately brush aside even legitimate concerns since they believe love will help them to tide over it all. However as reality unfolds to them in quite disparaging assertions, the allegiance to love begins to fall weak in the face of unbearable behavior.
Stuck however in a marriage that they entered into through a vehement assertion of will, the once much in love souls experience a terribly uneasy feeling of having committed a grave mistake. Unable however as they are to come out of it or even make peace with such commitment to love they professed at some time in the past, the marriage persists with such woeful disadvantages that have them losing their very faith in love itself.
