I've been thinking about this lately, and it seems related to our topic in a way - considering that married couples - conventionally - consist of one member of each gender, and also assuming that maybe part of the misery experienced in too many of these marriages might stem from unrealistic expectations of each other or the "self"...
What's bugging me about the concept of marriage is that it's not just media that often presents too rosy a picture of couples (so that some people like Cleofilias in "Woman Hollering Creek" by Cisneros live with the expectation that once they get married everything is going to be just great... and then they wake up (if at all) to the reality and at first feel paralyzed and can't do anything... ))) but it's the whole society - especially in Turkey - that when looked at closely seems to conspire together to fool singles to believe that they need to get married and that if they do they'll be happy (forever?)... you might not agree with me but I've started noticing that there are a lot of couples who are not really happy - but they pretend that they are; that everything is OK, especially in the presence of others, for example at weddings you see couples dance who might not even really talk to each other anymore when at home, at bayrams you see couples visiting relatives and faking a happy family, or when others come visiting them again you see a cheerful image ... all done out of a sense of a civic duty? not to worry the family unnecessarily?
As to the why? why does almost everyone play their part in this pretense? obviously not to trick poor singles into their doomed lives as couples - In fact, I think a lot of this pretending happens unconsciously...In some cases, at least, it seems like the spouses aren't even aware of how miserable they are - so you can't really blame them - they put on their masks when in company of others without even noticing it - or they are so happy to be with others that they forget about how unhappy they are about their supposedly most intimate relationships?
One reason might be that it is probably hard to admit (not just to your family and your social environment but more importantly to yourself ) that you didn't choose the "right" partner for you, your true "soul-mate" so to speak; and since it's a rather complicated issue you can't walk away from a marriage even though you're not happy - so it might be easier to just pretend like you were happy... ? and hope that magically everything is going to get better?
Of course we shouldn't disregard all the media that report the negative face or possible negative events that may occur in marriages such as domestic violence, but somehow these news don't appear to have the same effect as the more promising face of it - I guess people think sth on these lines "oh no, that won't ever happen to me/us", they somehow immunize themselves against these warning signs.
These kinds of news might also function hand in hand with the other "marriage = bliss" notion so that some couples even if they are aware of problems they might have in their marriage might think: "well, yes, we're not perfectly happy - but at least he doesn't beat me"... or " well, things could be better, but at least we don't fight / argue with each other" etc... So, in a way people accept settling for second best...which is sad.
Another reason why some couples might be staying together even if they feel disappointed or don't love each other anymore could be that they feel more detached from their parents like this and a connected fear that if they get divorced the parents will not let them live in peace. They might feel more independent than if they were considered single again, especially in Turkish society where your age and experience with life doesn't really matter so much from the parents perspective - they tend to be overly protective and feel that they need to interfere in their kids' businesses...? This could only be the case for couples where the partners don't interfere in each others lives too much, though...
There are probably more other reasons, but I'm getting a bit tired now... might add more to this later...
Don't get me wrong, I do not intend to tell you that you should never get married - or do I? anyway, I urge you to think it through carefully once you get to that point and don't buy into the "happy" families you see all around you:-) This doesn't mean that there are no happy families, but they seem to be rather the exception than the rule:-(
