Marriage
Wedding Planning Hides a Secret
Creating that perfect day distracts from the anxiety of “till death do us part.”
Posted September 8, 2025 Reviewed by Davia Sills
Key points
- Couples caught up in wedding plans tend not to think about how their marriage may be challenging.
- During "The Reckoning," the bliss factor has worn off. Partners feel disappointed and angry with each other.
- Marital therapy normalizes disappointment. Connection rebuilds as spouses share vulnerabilities and fears.
- The foundation of long-term love is a friendship where each partner feels seen and accepted for who they are.
A Case Example
Dora and Dennis are a composite couple from my office. They’re wildly in love, but they’ve sought premarital therapy because they’re fighting over wedding plans. Dennis arrives for the session in cotton khakis, metal clips around his pant ankles, his bike parked outside. Dora has long black hair, pretty eyelash extensions, and expensive jeans carefully torn at the knees. She met Dennis after he gave a public lecture about the impact of deforestation on tree frogs. His passion for saving the planet impresses her, and he loves her vivacious and sweet ways.
While with me, they argue about the wedding. Dennis lobbies for a rustic outdoor setting, guests dressed casually, eating vegetarian burgers. Dora wants a ballroom, with white linens, twinkling lights, and poached salmon. Squabbling over venues and food choices camouflages something deeper: their identities. The subtext is, “Are you really somebody who wants burgers? Because in my family, we would never consider that!”
The wedding planning shouts volumes about inevitable differences between each partner. In our fourth session, the issue is gift bags. Dora says, “Pretty baskets! Snacks and bottled water in the hotel rooms for out-of-town guests!”
Dennis suddenly registers exactly what she’s said. “Bottled water?” he asks loudly. “In glass or plastic?”
“Plastic?” Dora says almost in a whisper as she picks at a hole in her jeans.
He stands up and waves his arms at her. “Do you even care about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Those plastics are killing marine life!”
Dora’s mascara runs as tears drip down her cheeks. “Don’t yell,” she says quietly. “I already ordered them.”
Dennis plops back down on the sofa, his body looking like a deflated balloon. “Baby,” he says. “I’m sorry. I want you to be happy.” He lets go of a big sigh. “Just remember for the future, no plastic bottles, OK?” He grabs a tissue and offers it to her.
As if I’m not in the room, they hug, and Dennis gives her a tender kiss. When they stand to leave, he says, “I think we’ll be OK for now, Doc. Thanks!”
The Hidden Secret
In the crucible of wedding planning, hope burns for a perfect union and what it might repair inside each of us. We long to be seen and loved for who we are, to be cherished, understood, supported, and never abandoned. From where I sit, the function of wedding planning and extravagance for one perfect day is to distract you from what you’re really doing: making the terrifying leap into a new life with a stranger you think you know. It takes some time for that bliss factor to wear off. You gradually find out who you’ve married, that your union is flawed, as they all are, and your lobbying for change will not solve the differences between you.
Dora and Dennis come back five years later. They have an adorable boy now and a house which Dennis has designed to be eco-friendly, but they’re fighting often. She misses living closer to her parents. His ability to control his temper has faltered. She’s tired from childcare and housework, and his controlling ways have shut off her sexual interest in him. He doesn’t feel supported by her.
They struggle with something deeper: They see clearly things about the other they don’t like and have realized those things are baked into the partner’s character and are not going to change. This is a normal phase of marriage, which I have named “The Reckoning.”
The Reckoning
It usually happens between years three and seven, when you have a much better idea of how you and your partner don’t fit. You must reconcile the disappointment this brings with the continuing value of being together. I tell a couple this: “The work of marriage is just beginning for you two. We must dig deeper into what is going on below your fighting.”
I ask each to talk about their relationship with their own parents, how they were viewed in the family, what wounds they carry, what beliefs they have about money, domestic roles, marriage, sex, child rearing, and play. It’s always easy to see how you’d be happier if your partner changed. The work is to see and own the ways you yourself are flawed and how that contributes to the conflict between you.
Good Marital Therapy
A good marital therapist makes self-examination possible for each partner in the presence of the other, because that exploration reveals to the other their deeper vulnerabilities and fears, and creates the possibility of true change. It can move the partners toward empathy, consideration for the other’s needs, and a willingness to admit being wrong. Such is the stuff necessary for marital repair.
Anger, distance, disconnection, sexual shutdown, and loss of faith in the relationship are not what you want to think about on your wedding day. Yet from where I sit, this new phase of marriage is normal: You have a reckoning about who your partner is, and the disappointing ways that partner doesn’t meet your needs. To move beyond it, you must accept those truths about the other and grapple with the question of whether, on balance, there’s more good in the relationship than bad. If you can accept what you don’t like, work around it, and embrace what you do still love about the other, you can go forward with the marriage, sadder, wiser, and ultimately happier.
Why Are You Happier After the Reckoning?
Acceptance leads to workable compromise, to making allowances for each other, and it stops nagging and fighting to change what cannot change. The result is the foundation of long-term love—a true friendship where each partner feels seen, forgiven, and accepted for who they are.
Facebook image: Shakirov Albert/Shutterstock
