Having pre-wedding jitters and nerves is normal, but for some people engaged to tie the knot, those doubts are a lot stronger.

And yet, many people - for various reasons - decide to marry someone even if they have a niggling feeling that they should probably break up.

Does it always end in carnage? People who went through with their weddings are now revealing what happened to them in a Reddit discussion.

One 25-year-old woman who married her partner at 17 because they had a baby explained how at the time, all she wanted to do was run away.

“I didn't want it, but I knew I couldn't make ends meet on my own and he was a great dad, even as young as we were,” she said.

“It's been eight years and I can't say things have always been perfect. We really had a lot of growing up to do, but I'm so happy to have him by my side. We built our lives from the ground up and it's been a privilege. 

“We've fought, nearly split a couple of times but we always come back to each other. He's my best friend and I really don't want to spend my time with anyone but him.”

She explained that a year ago she’d found out her husband had felt exactly the same about getting married all those years earlier: “One of the reasons I didn't want to leave was because I didn't want to break his heart. Turns out he was thinking the same thing.”

It just goes to show, you can’t presume what anyone else is feeling or thinking.

Some people realise they should probably break up with their partner when engaged and find it to hard to end things, but for others it doesn’t quite click until they’re standing at the altar, by which point it’s a little difficult to break things off:

“I was young and in the military and met a very sweet Japanese girl,” one man explained. “However her family didn't like the idea of her marrying an American serviceman. Long story short, she ran away from her family at the risk of being disowned to come to the US and marry me. 

“The problem was that as I stood at the altar I was just beginning to realise how different our expectations toward life were, not to mention our wildly differing libidos. I stood there at the altar that day and really had my doubts. But we had been through so much that I just couldn't tell her the truth.”

That was almost 30 years ago, and over the decades, the man found that he and his wife actually complement each other perfectly, and although he didn’t think they were soulmates when they got married, he says they’ve evolved into them:

“It has taken time and patience but we really have a very ideal relationship after all these years.”

And he’s not the only one to have had doubts about marrying someone only for it then to turn into a wonderful marriage.

“When he shocked me by popping the question, my stomach dropped and I physically wanted to run. Every fibre in my body was yelling ‘no, no, no!’ in that moment, but his proposal speech was so beautiful and heartfelt, and he was so vulnerable and open, that I muttered a bewildered ‘yes’ before I could even process my feelings,” one woman explained.

But she went through with it and has no regrets: “ We've been together eight years now, married four, and I'm so happy to say that we are the perfect partners for each other. He is the most insightful, self-aware man I've ever met, and he loves me more than I ever felt I deserved. 

“And through him, I learned how to love, genuinely and (to the best of my abilities) selflessly. He is truly my other half in life, and without him I would be so lost. I'm so grateful that part of me that was scared and hopeless and wanted to run away screaming decided to stay, to wait and see if we could grow together, to see what life we could build together.”

So if you find yourself with doubts about marrying someone, that doesn’t mean things won’t get better.

Some people marry their partners even if they think the relationship is imbalanced and one person likes the other more than they like them, which can cast doubts in your mind.

But, as one woman explained, this can improve a relationship over time:

“I don't have stars in my eyes when I look at him, but I think he does for me. Anything I want to do is what he wants to do too, and not just to humour me, he seems to genuinely enjoy doing whatever it is that will make me happy. 

“With time, I've come to appreciate him more and more to the point that now I don't know what I'd do without him. But I often think that he deserves someone better than me, he deserves someone who will look at him the same way he looks at me.”

Some people shared stories of their partners who had left them instead of getting married:

“She was the only thing I've ever known to truly make me happy in my s*** life. She left because she said she could never love me the way I love her and she felt bad about it,” one man wrote.

“I think it's unrealistic for two people to love the same. Someone always loves more.”

A painful truth or a fact of life? We may never truly know.