Best advice I ever heard on getting ahead in life: Choose your parents wisely. My advice on marriage is similar: Be stupidly lucky in choosing a life partner. It worked for me! Last summer we celebrated our 35th anniversary. Looking forward to the next 35. (You laugh! My uncle and aunt celebrated their 70th.)
Less flippantly: My parents divorced when I was 5 and my brother was 3. This was the defining trauma for much of my young life. I vowed never to do that, never to inflict that on children I might eventually have. When I married, it was simply, absolutely for good. I would die rather than violate that oath.
My family urged me to do the standard thing they all did, of setting up a pre-nuptial agreement and having the prospective spouse sign it. I never considered that for a minute. I was not going to place that sort of fault line in our understanding of our marriage at the beginning. We are active Catholics (she from birth, me as an adult convert).
We laugh a lot, and enjoy each others' jokes, off-hand witticisms, and spontaneous turns of phrase. I think it is fair to say that we each find the other to be extremely interesting intellectually. We tell each other we love each other frequently. We leave the kids behind and go on a cruise together once per year.
My wife rather unsentimentally states that love is not a feeling, it is a decision. I think it is worth it to consciously reflect on what will communicate love to your partner in ways that they understand and find meaningful. Then, do it. The doing can be more important than whatever transitory feelings might or might lie behind it.
Relatively early in our marriage, I made a career choice that was an unambiguous case of putting my career ahead of my marriage and family. The consequences of that choice resonated for years in our marriage. That was the biggest mistake I ever made, and I am grateful that our family managed to survive it. I will never do something that selfish, thoughtless, and stupid again. Things can get difficult, ugly, and painful for a time.
Expanding on the point above about dying rather than walking away: That probably relates metaphorically to the NYTimes article shared by the OP. In my experience, as you and your partner grow and change over a lifetime, you have to let go of, and in effect die to the relationship you had. Over and over. There is a cycle of death, relinquishment, and renewal that is inevitable in a lifelong relationship.
Would you really want to spend time as a 60-year-old with a person whose best years were their high school years, and who doggedly clings to that identity for the rest of their adult life? Of course not.
You become co-authors of an amazing, surprising, unfolding story. Your and your partner's identity co-evolve. To support and encourage another person's growth inevitably involves letting go of who they used to be.
(BTW, please do not take anything I said above as condoning abusiveness in a relationship. There are of course horrible and untenable relationships that simply must be ended.)
Agreed. To speak to your cycle of death, relinquishment, and renewal pattern. I have seen this too and often explain it as: "Good things eventually leave and you have to work to make new good things, but they will always be different than what was."
I have noticed this pattern in my marriage, friend groups and vocation. That there are parts of the past that I cannot recreate or experience again but rather than try to recreate them I should move forward and learn to enjoy and improve what I currently have.
Going through a downward phase of this cycle myself for the last year, and have to point out that it can be very tough. In previous downward cycles (we've been together 25 years, so this is far from the first time) I've found that I almost have to forget the past to embrace the present. Having a good memory is not always a blessing
> Relatively early in our marriage, I made a career choice that was an unambiguous case of putting my career ahead of my marriage and family. The consequences of that choice resonated for years in our marriage. That was the biggest mistake I ever made, and I am grateful that our family managed to survive it. I will never do something that selfish, thoughtless, and stupid again.
Any chance you'd be able to expand on that a bit? It sounds like something that could be very educational to the younger generation!
What I learned from two failed marriages is that above all else, you have to pick spouses with whom you can even have the luxury of doing these things. That requires finding someone of vaguely comparable social background and education level.
For a lot of people, this sort of assortative mating happens naturally because they draw on relatively healthy dating pools within their community—college classmates, colleagues, church, etc. Others, however, fall through the cracks. I feel that I did because I dropped out of university at age 20 and left the world of W-2 employment at age 22. What peer group? Solipsistic professional existence in a largely solipsistic and male-dominated profession. That's a very isolating existence and full of wrong turns unless you make strong, proactive efforts to stay in healthy social circles, which the average mid-20s person isn't going to be scrupulously careful about doing. It's very easy to start pulling dating partners from /dev/urandom, particularly amidst the loneliness and angst that eventually catches up to you.
This way lies madness, especially if you try to parlay that into marriage.
The American national mythology teaches us to look at people in highly individualised, democratic don't-judge-me ways, and leaves us blind to the fact that not all people are destined to fruitfully communicate or relate. In more traditional cultures, where social class boundaries are more explicit, this messaging is explicitly woven into people's upbringing. For better or worse, and despite the undeniable drawbacks of "traditional" social strictures, there's a certain timeless wisdom in that. Americans, however, commonly believe that any two people can build a bridge of understanding. In reality, that requires a vaguely comparable level of cultural development and intellectual sophistication. Otherwise, you're going to have to defend every one of the values you hold dear, and you're going to feel like you're having to explain them in crayon for three hours every time you do. And you're still going to fail because you're just not going to see eye-to-eye.
So, from where I sit, this "embrace change" idea is rather high on the — if you will — marital Maslow's Hierarchy. As a first step, make sure you've got basic interpersonal communication and some rudimentary compatibility sorted. For people who have been fortunate or made relatively conventional choices, this may seem an odd preoccupation, but if you've been in a union where that's lacking, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
> Solipsistic professional existence in a largely solipsistic and male-dominated profession. That's a very isolating existence and full of wrong turns unless you make strong, proactive efforts to stay in healthy social circles, which the average mid-20s person isn't going to be scrupulously careful about doing. It's very easy to start pulling dating partners from /dev/urandom, particularly amidst the loneliness and angst that eventually catches up to you.
And that's how I messed up mine. Profoundly. I suspect it happens to tech people far more than is discussed, as I've seen this antipattern a number of times in lives other than my own.
I also have seen this happen with others, and have met girls who were able to recognize the "depressed and lonely programmer" pattern themselves through many similar dates (of course over dating apps) they had.
Also, it seems only logical that a totally male-dominated lonely and addictive profession that usually encourages and/or requires a lot of dedication even outside of worktime would produce a bunch of solitary men. (And maybe _attract_ a bunch of others.)
Yeah, so what ends up happening is sooner or later one ends up pulling dating partners from eccentric and probably unhealthy places. And the ones most willing to engage have their own reasons for seeking out a lonely programmer.
One can find great partners in such places, but it's really a spin of the Roulette wheel. They lack the proven characteristics of partners from healthy and likeminded peer groups. And they're likely to have fallen off the back of the wagon for their own reasons—sometimes good, but quite often, bad.
Everyone in this thread is talking in rather vague terms. I have a feeling I understand what you mean but I'm not sure. Can you (or anyone else) give an example of what you're referring to?
I don't think we're being deliberately vague, the answer just varies for different people.
Generically, bad places to pull a spouse from: online dating sites/apps, bars, concerts, large parties, etc. Just about anywhere that attracts people from a variety of social strata and offers zero curation for common values, education or habits of mind, and/or doesn't sort people in any way based on useful proxies for those things.
The trouble is that those sources are tempting if you are socially isolated (from the opposite gender) and perceive yourself to have few options, and/or because you're lazy or fatigued from the ever-frustrating chase.
Always bad? No. But the median outcome is going to be worse than with other, more enlightened dating strategies.
Yeah, but when most people think "backfire", they think "painful breakup" backfire. It can get a whole lot worse than that. "Bad dating choices" can be an underwhelming euphemism at times. It all depends on what kind of hornet's nest you get into.
If you marry the wrong person because you dated the wrong person via one of these mechanisms, you can end up in a really dark place.
Uh... you and the rest of the world. You sound like you have some emotional angst about this, so I'll tell you what I learned a few years ago I wrote an HPV epidemiology simulator for a certain large pharmaceutical company (based on the best published studies at the time).
80% of the sexually active population will get at least one strain of HPV in their lifetime. >40% of people in their early 20s have at least one strain of HPV right now. Most people clear HPV (it becomes undetectable) in 1-2 years (mean of 8 months); the cancer cases appear to be the small percentage of unlucky ones whose immune systems don't. There's some debate whether HPV goes dormant or people just get reinfected. It's a hard theory to test because humans are constantly getting exposed to HPV.
Being "HPV+" is not like being "HIV+". It is not rare or permanent, and if you're out of your teens you can pretty much assume that 2/3 of the people you meet are also "HPV+". Unfortunately some strains increase the probability of certain cancers, and it's very much worth vaccinating against them EARLY. But you pretty much can't avoid HPV unless you become a hermit.
Hey, thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge. I am aware of how common it is.
I mentioned it now mostly because I am sure I have exposed myself to risky situations (that could have gotten me a way worse outcome than HPV) out of trying to "solve" loneliness, as we are discussing here. (And I ended up being one of the unlucky with persistent high risk strain, had a couple of cauterizations done.)
I mentioned it now mostly because I am sure I have exposed myself to risky situations (that could have gotten me a way worse outcome than HPV) out of trying to "solve" loneliness
Yep. Same here, for exact same reasons.
Coming from a somewhat sheltered (or at least, exposed to different kinds of problems) university background, I was not adept at identifying dangerous situations as they relate to drugs, disease and mental health in other segments of society. Missed or downplayed the red flags. Got lonely, walked right into dealing with uh, other segments of society. Learned the hard way. I do, as you do, count myself very lucky. I lost a lot, but at least I'm alive.
In as a non value added way possible I want to add that the roulette wheel analogy holds really well - sometimes, only sometimes, the wheel pays out a HUGE win to a really lucky couple.
What a beautiful and well-articulated comment! The issue of value-compatibility (cultural, social, psychological) for successful communication/relationship is immensely underestimated and there is therefore a huge lack of guidance and sensible warnings for a human starting their mating lives outside of circles perpetuating traditions. Many of us get eaten in that jungle and wake up mamed a couple of decades later... I hope your comment helps someone out there realize how important it is to spend energy on "finding your tribe" in order to "date your species" as Reid Mihalko puts it.
>That requires finding someone of vaguely comparable social background and education level.
Westerners are always shocked that even educated people get arranged marriages in India. This is precisely why it works, all the groundwork is done for you. You are raised with similar memes, your arranged partner has been programmed into similar groves as you. Top that with a conformist culture where people try to fit than stand out, chances of finding something truly surprising about your partner are super rare. No amount of dating, living together can match this.
I used to find arranged marriages disgusting and backwards but now I have come full circle having looked at many of my close friends with successful marriages ( there is also aspect of higher social stigma of divorce, but thats another topic).
There is indeed a great deal of rationality to these traditions.
I myself am half-Armenian, and while that is not a culture that has arranged marriage, it's got the common folklore of quasi-oriental clan civilisation. Parents are going to have a lot of input into just about anyone's marital choices, and it is understood on all sides that you're not marrying the spouse - you're joining families. So, there is a lot of opportunity for elders to object if a match patently doesn't make cultural (one might even say "civilisational" in extreme cases) sense.
That's what we don't have here. You're expected to dig out a partner from whatever corner of society you like, and if they suit you, great! There is something to be said for a paternalistic curation function, despite the annoyances and drawbacks of such a meddlesome way of living.
One of the drawbacks of a culture where, on the one hand, family input is very important, but on the other hand, arranged marriage as such is not a thing, is that it's all too easy for relatives to fall into the pattern of pushing the veto lever without proactively introducing you to someone themselves. If everyone's wrong for me, who's right? :) The fact that families have a matchmaking responsibility is an appealing virtue of arranged marriage culture.
While it might seem true, arranged marriages seem to me kind of like adopting children.
There's a million variables to consider when having your own children, when you're adopting children you're adding many more. Sure, it could all work out wonderfully, but you're just increasing the random factor. See the recent movie "Lion" for examples of randomness, both good and bad.
What's wrong with having the same culture you mention, except for the fact that people can marry freely? You'd have the same benefits but hopefully with lower risk. If you want to work in the same cultural limits, just ask for advice (from your family, friends, etc.) before marrying and try to follow that advice.
A lot of more traditional places work that way, e.g. Southern and Eastern Europe.
Of course, the general problem is that you're asking 20s-something people in the throes of hot, passionate romantic love and attraction (in cultures which also celebrate romantic love!) to voluntarily submit to a plethora of mood-killing "cultural limits". Boo!
But it's probably still better than the American approach of, "look ma, no hands!" :-)
I would say that temperament is very important too, though not explicitly mentioned by you.
For example: When putting together furniture, do you like to read the instructions, or just dive right in?
It is important to do at least some projects together, and take some trips where you face at least a little adversity to get a good measure of how well you two can work together.
Doing that can also help you find other potential problem areas, like differences in communication style. You will inevitably have conflict, the question is how will you work things out.
> and take some trips where you face at least a little adversity to get a good measure of how well you two can work together.
While I agree with this and do it in my own life, I don't think that taking a trip is enough to ensure a relationship is a success.
As an example: my partner and I have been on several trips to other continents. We've managed to make it through these trips without breaking up, and while having a reasonably fun time.
But while trips are stressful and are the ultimate test of your ability to compromise/communicate, it isn't the same as daily life together.
For example, my partner loves to leave dirty dishes in the sink to wash later. I prefer to do the dishes immediately so when I come by later to use the sink, it's not full of dirty dishes. It's small, but persistently annoying. We're both working on our tolerance for dirty dishes. (Before someone suggests buying a dish washer, our European apartment is too small for one, so the sink is the only option).
This not the kind of thing you'd notice on vacation.
I agree. Trips are loads of fun. They can occasionally be stressful, and they can engender certain conflicts of style and priorities, but on the whole they are replete with novelty and distraction. People also have a habit of taking them while they're still in love, during honeymoon periods, etc.
As such, they offer a poor window through which to preview the feasibility of everyday domestic life.
> Otherwise, you're going to have to defend every one of the values you hold dear, and you're going to feel like you're having to explain them in crayon for three hours every time you do. And you're still going to fail because you're just not going to see eye-to-eye.
I'm too young (at least too immature) to have gone through the whole marriage loop, but I recognise this. I'm christian, although progressive, and had a great relationship with a girl who wasn't. We had a great deal in common, but she thought that church was a "weird" institution and I couldn't relate to that experience. Of course I took the easy way out when some shit happened.
We do still talk frequently though, and she's probably the one person who knows me best.
What I have learned from 13 years with the same woman is different. What you say makes sense, and having comparable social and educational background are certainly going to make things simpler.
But above everything, your partner and you need to have compatable sexual drive and desire, compatable ethics, and be willing to communicate and ability to listen to critique. If the relationship lack any of those, it will not last, or it will be one sided.
You can find this outside of "comparable social background and education level", I certainly know many couples that have been married for more than 20 years that don't fit this, and I know even more that meets this criteria that are seperated.
My feeling is that when a topic of discussion finally comes along that you perhaps didn't even realize your mind has been working on for a long time, it just pours out of your fingers like magic.
While it falls short of magic, I suspect, obviously, I've had a lot of opportunity to reflect on why and how I screwed up, to go through cycles of blaming myself, blaming others, chalking it up to "shit happens" cosmic randomness, etc., and ultimately to settle on some sort of stable interpretation. I was looking for love in all the wrong places, as the country song goes...
> Solipsistic professional existence in a largely solipsistic and male-dominated profession. That's a very isolating existence and full of wrong turns unless you make strong, proactive efforts to stay in healthy social circles, which the average mid-20s person isn't going to be scrupulously careful about doing. It's very easy to start pulling dating partners from /dev/urandom, particularly amidst the loneliness and angst that eventually catches up to you.
Yes, this is certainly a thing in the industry (software development, computer engineering). It's happening regardless of the country, culture, or native language. It's happening regardless of the industry the person creates the software for. Now as we identified the problem, can we do something about it? Dating app/website to this particular profile? (from my experience they never work). Is mid-late 30s already too late?
One of the marriages was in a traditional culture (where I have family roots; not _entirely_ what you've got in mind), so I'm the first to say that's not a magic solution. But at least the problem there was framed more explicitly and recognised for what it was. Here in America, it gets lost in a fog of individualistic "nonjudgmental" received truth.
I'm having trouble expressing this sentiment, but I feel the NYT has taken on a patriarchal tone these days. I browse their mobile site every morning, and I see very little news, with a lot of "do this" info-pop stuff, i.e., "To be happy and live long, exercise," "to be a good person, do X." Usually they cite a study somewhere with little scrutiny, and then write condescendingly. It's kind of disturbing on some level, and the amount they do it is inappropriate for the NYT imo. But I guess this is what readers want these days. With people moving on from religion they are looking for someone else to preach a code to them.
Maybe it's just the headlines that bother me. "to stay married, embrace change." This is someone's advice, not a law of physics. A headline with more integrity would be "Embracing change may help a marriage endure."
"For Quality Journalism, Embrace the Print Version"
Jokes aside, my experience is that if you are looking for an increasingly clickbait-y, informal and low-end version of Hallowed Publication X, with lots of self-help and thinly-disguised celebrity gossip, then the ordering is "Print Version of X" << "Web Version of X" << "Mobile Version of X".
Usually all the content is there in all 3 versions, but it seems to make a huge difference in terms of what's buried and what leads.
New Scientist did something like this when it started to emphasise the mobile version: more pop psych, less hard science. Then I stopped reading it.
It's interesting to find archive copies of New Scientist and Sci Am from the 70s and 80s to see just how far the tone and content have drifted.
Maybe I'm unduly pessimistic, but I'm finding it hard to imagine something like Martin Gardner's math and puzzle columns appearing regularly in a mainstream online journal today.
Yes, even at school aged 14 I was told that if I wanted to really learn about science I should read Scientific American in preference to New Scientist.
Pretty sure the commentor is just switching words.
There is some word that kind of means to give unwanted advice, or to always be assuming you know and can teach people stuff. It's not pedagogical, not patriarchial, but something close. Im not even sure it starts with a "P". Not kibbitzer.
It's a common enough phrase to describe a certain kind of moralizing and instructive manner of speaking. Derived from times gone by where it was a given that the head of the family was male and would instruct others and be deferred to.
I took his meaning to be that they are acting as a ruling father (i.e. or parent), just declaring what one _needs_ to do, rather than express the fact this is an opinion and not based on any news or science.
It's been happening more in Bloomberg and the Financial Times too (although, in the case of the latter, I think it's partially attributable to the fact they were bought). It's almost more annoying when the tripe is mixed in with really good work vs. having entire periodicals dedicated to that garbage. At least in that case it's easier to filter.
Marriage at year 1 is nothing like marriage at year 5 is nothing like marriage at year 15 is nothing like year 20, ad infinitum.
If you don't embrace the person your spouse is at this very moment, nothing will help you stay together. After having kids, our lives are very different, and we have become different people. I need to love my wife for who she is now, not yearn for who she was 8 years ago, and vice versa.
The author is recommending, in a round about way, a way of dealing with a sex-asymmetric phenomena that was perfectly expressed in this image, from another NY Times article on marriage[1]:
Why are we to believe this is sex-assymetric? I'd be amazed if there weren't as many married men who were resentful because their wives have changed, whether that means becoming less thin, focused on career, children, less interested in sex, etc.
I wouldn't, myself, characterize your original comment in this thread as "discuss[ing]" sex differences, but rather as asserting them.
That's not to say they don't exist — they most certainly do, though perhaps not necessarily in the forms so many like to think. But your comment reads to me as, "See! There it is again!" which smells like nothing so much as confirmation bias.
Women are more likely than men to initiate divorces, but women and men are just as likely to
end non-marital relationships, according to a new study that will be presented at the 110th Annual
Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).
And later:
Social scientists have previously argued that women initiate most divorces because they are more
sensitive to relationship difficulties. Rosenfeld argues that were this true, women would initiate the
breakup of both marriages and non-marital relationships at equal rate
The paper goes on to theorize that the assymetry may be because the institution of marriage (and the social expectations surrounding it) has not caught up with expectations of gender equality, leading women to feel oppressed.
And that has absolutely nothing to do with what this article is about, and certainly does not support the claimed sex-assymetry of marital dissatisfaction due to spousal changes that you claim (without evidence) exists.
You can have different interpretation of the data.
COST of a normal break up vs cost of a divorce.
There is a huge difference of financial outcomes of a break up between a 7 month relationship and a 7 year marriage.
For the 7 months relationship the couple moves on, and no financial re-arrangements happens. For the marriage, there is a much higher chance that the woman: 1) takes custody of the children (if the couple has them) 2) is recipient of child support 3) is recipient of alimony payments
You can say that a "divorce" is much more costly to men and hence they are more likeley to stick it out a relationship or try to make it work, but there is less cost to women (financially at least), hence they are more likely to initiate it.
Given the current marriage laws are a remnant of the 50s and 60s lifestyle (of women staying home, and needing financial protection in case of divorce), you can argue that the current law framework in the US encourages the initiation of the divorce from women, and discourages that from men.
Since no divorce costs are involved in a normal 7 months long relationship, you see men initiating breakups just as much as women.
TLDR: Current divorce laws favors women by a long shot, hence they are more likely to initiate it.
You can have different interpretation of the data.
COST of a normal break up vs cost of a divorce.
As I said in my other post, I could considered that. But the study diminishes the likelihood of that interpretation.
Married men initiate divorce less and report higher relationship satisfaction than women, while unmarried men and women report the same levels of relationship satisfaction.
If men initiated divorce less simply because of the cost of divorce, that data does not make sense. You'd expect the same or lower satisfaction than women, but that's not borne out in the data.
You're making multiple unsupported assumptions and simplifications in these couple sentences that might not hold, so your conclusion becomes invalid. One example: the age of people in marriages compared to people in unmarried relations will be different and with it a variety of variables, such as the presence of kids. Another: single women are more interested in marriage than single men, so there could be even more differences between married/unmarried couples. Or let's take cheating - I could be completely satisfied throughout 99% of the duration of the relationship until the point when cheating occurred. Or we know that women are more likely to divorce men earning less than them or stay-at-home dads and the earning power of men and women in marriages changes as compared to unmarried men and women. Etc, etc. Social science gets very messy very quickly.
> You'd expect the same or lower satisfaction than women, but that's not borne out in the data.
Why would you expect that? Having options often decreases satisfaction.
If you have a good job that has a few frustrating downsides which situation would make you more satisfied?
A) You know all the alternative jobs are a lot worse. Better to try and improve the few frustrating bits.
B) You are constantly informed about other great job alternatives. And you know you get to keep a lot of the benefits of the first job if you do change.
Most often people in situation A will be more satisfied.
Err, yours is an argument for men and women both having lower relationship satisfaction in marriage as compared to unmarried couples.
But you argument doesn't explain why married men and women have different levels, and definitely doesn't explain why men report higher levels than women.
Statistically, men and women tend to have different expectations about marriage. Thing like whose career will be the more important one, who will do child related work (all those drop offs and pick ups that take time during work day, talking with teachers etc).
If you love your job, do a lot of overtime and are happy with familly, the spouse might be increasingly unhappy without you knowing (no matter which gender is on which side).
These things matter less when you don't have children and one of you did not moved where other one has job. Meaning, they are more likely to hit married people.
So your argument is that because women can get out of a marriage easier due to lower cost, they will report lower satisfaction due to a grass-is-greener effect.
Interesting! Sounds like a theory worth exploring, definitely.
Be careful with generalisations. The laws could differ a lot in different countries and even in different states in the US. See the "Real World Divorce" book for details:
That's not true in California; there's a lot of flexibility in deciding that here. For example, if the separation will mean that one of the two parties will have to reduce their standard of living below that of what was enjoyed during the marriage, that can result in alimony payments.
But that theory doesn't explain why, in addition to initiating divorce less frequently, married men also report higher levels of relationship satisfaction than women, while unmarried couples report the same levels of satisfaction.
I'm guessing it's because even today, married men still expect the women to do all or most of the housework, while also holding a full-time job, so men in marriage get a better deal as long as they're in the marriage, and don't realize how frustrated and unsatisfied the woman is. But they get screwed once divorce happens.
Couples who file for divorce are a subset of unhappy marriages.
Many people stay unhappily married (or unmarried & together) for a variety of reasons -- my comment was solely intended to reference people who pull that trigger.
Yes, there are many interpretations of the data, as with any social science data. None the less, women end marriage (we are discussing preserving marriage) vastly more frequently than men, and I stand by my interpretation.
I doubt very much we will convince one another of much, so I hope only that exposure to an alternative view point helps us both better understand our own thinking.
I can't figure out what your interpretation is. The picture you linked to in the NYTimes shows a woman who is unhappy her husband didn't live up to her illusions she had during the honeymoon stage. That is something that can happen to men or women. In fact, it used to be a stock joke: the woman who scares her husband without makeup once he finally sees her.
My interpretation of the data is that women tend to tire more quickly of their husbands and are more likely to end a marriage over it. We have the stock story of the man "trading in" his wife, but as we can see from the statistics, women are much more likely to divorce husbands than vice-versa. (A shocking statistic: 90% of divorces amongst college educated people, presumably the target demographic of the original article, are initiated by the woman.)
I think this behavior has its roots in evolution: women have far fewer fertility cycles (which are correspondingly more valuable) and are much less able to remain in a marriage while pursuing other mates.
It is not a popular interpretation here, at least not one that is spoken out loud, but I believe it to be reasonable and I think it is worth burning some karma to say so.
In fact, that study takes a very different tack (again, their study suggests the issue is with power imbalances that form within marriage due to institutionalized gender biases), and the fact you don't seem to realize that supports my theory that you're allowing yourself to fall victim to confirmation bias.
For someone who espouses keeping an open mind, you're doing a remarkable job of demonstrating the danger of choosing facts that fit your preconceived notions.
I would not expect a sociology study to pursue my thesis, as it would be severely career limiting in today's university environment.
I will certainly grant that confirmation bias is a risk for all of us, particularly when the hard data is layered on top of something as subjective and open to interpretation as marriage satisfaction.
As the old saying goes: a woman marries a man hoping that he'll change. A man marries a women hoping that she won't ever change. Usually, both are disappointed :)
One should not set a tactic as a goal. Marriage is buy a way to amplify enjoyment in life. Some marriages are wonderful, some are deadly. To be clear in ones objectives is to hit the mark much easier. Many the married person would be better off finding a new person to enjoy marriage with, than fight desperately to not be in something new.
Thus it's not the staying in a situation that's important, that's but a means to an end.
That being said, flexibility is nice, and if you have more paths to happiness and less paths to sorrow, you are likely to be happier. Don't sweat the small stuff, and it's all small stuff the saying goes.
Easy to say, hard to do. We don't like change. Change means possible danger, it means relinquishing opportunities, it means no safety net.
Part of the happiness that comes from a new relationship comes from not just discovering new things about each other (or NRE, or the Coolidge effect) but from the (misplaced) belief that things will go on this way forever. Embracing change means sacrificing that pleasure, which you might be able to do if you possess foresight/discipline, but it is hard and not obvious, especially when you have an of love that's foolish, us-against-the-world that reinforces that mentality.
I read about a British maths expert that wrote some formula that would accurately predict if couples would stay together. His key variable was working out if people have a willingness to compromise.
I've been through two failed marriages and my conclusion has been that this fixation with "compromise" is woefully misguided and constitutes an antipattern, although, for all I know, that's why I've been through two failed marriages. :-)
Still, on a theoretical level, the religion that's been made of compromise in therapeutic settings is a pet peeve of mine.
The first problem is that compromise is viewed by most laypeople as "splitting the difference" or "meeting in the middle". That may work for a lot of property and financial disputes, and maybe even business disputes in general, but it doesn't always work in life and relationships, though I don't deny that many things can indeed be compromised. But sometimes an equitable settlement is one where I get 90% and you get 10%, commensurate with the hand the parties are playing and the amount of leverage they have. Although most businesspeople experienced in negotiation know this instinctively, they don't seem to teach it in how-to-be-a-better-spouse school.
Besides that:
1) Compromise encourages parties to take extreme and unreasonable positions with the expectation of being "bargained down" to more or less what they really want. This contributes to "position inflation".
2) It may be that, as a practical matter, compromise is the worst possible option, far worse than either of the starting positions. This happens a lot in relationships.
Most damningly, in my view:
3) The pressure to move toward the middle creates an artificially level playing field where it may not exist. It does not weigh whether one side's position is a lot more reasonable, fair and thoughtful than the other. Aside from the unfair aspect of this ipso facto, it also encourages position inflation.
Some disputes lend themselves to splitting down the middle. Others have
nonlinear/discontinuous qualities where "some" is not better than "none". TL;DR sometimes one party's position sucks a lot more than the other's, and the aim to compromise only furthers the negative consequences of this iniquity.
I don't know if compromise is the right word for making decisions together. Sometimes compromise means seeing the terrible movie with the predictable plot because your spouse is going to love it. If you compromise by seeing a movie both of you know you'll both hate, that's a poor decision.
Of course, movies are easy, and life is hard. Decisions about jobs to take and where to live and how to spend money can get tricky. If one person has a job offer in SF, and the other an offer in LA, moving to Fresno is a poor choice; if both jobs are the job of a lifetime, it's going to be a hard choice. Respectfully reaching a decision together, and working together to put the decision into practice, even if you don't like it, is key. But if one person never gets their desired outcomes, it's not a good time for them.
I have been saying this forever as it relates to politics. Compromise and meeting in the middle my indeed be the worst of all solutions to a problem. These things should be treated at least as skeptically as any of the other positions one could take. The media has hyped up compromise as the solution to everything when it is likely to produce the worst of all worlds.
I almost never compromise with my wife, and we're very happy. That seems shocking, I know, but here's why:
Compromise is born from an adversarial starting position. But my wife isn't my adversary. I love her, and I would die for (and nearly have), and so I (try to) give of myself freely and completely. If both people really care about each other more than themselves, happiness follows easily and naturally. The real questions are (1) what do I need to do to learn to love my spouse more than I love myself? and (2) where do I find a person who will reciprocate that kind of love? Experientially, I've found the answer to both questions is to have a deep commitment to God, who teaches and models this behavior to us.
I am an atheist and want to commit myself to my spouse (which believes in God, goes to church, etc.), but it currently looks like she doesn't really want to reciprocate. So I don't believe you that commitment to God is an answer.
I'm raised Christian from both parents, and my wife who wasn't has gone more of a Dawkins atheist route.
I would best describe us as soft agnostic and hard agnostic.
I think the key is accepting that none of us know what the fuck is going on in an unobservable space.
We'll raise our child(ren) by letting them develop their own world model, rigid where provable, soft where not. Always retesting.
I want to believe David Lynch made Blue Velvet on purpose as opposed to the ramblings of a mad man, even though no one can prove that to me. That is a soft belief, just like faith in "something" (should be).
We are happily accepting of each other. If we instead would've had fundamentally different views on what facts and beliefs are, that would have been a problem.
> Compromise is born from an adversarial starting position.
I get what your saying but all compromise is from an 'adversarial' is over egging it. Sometimes yes, but iother times no. E.g. My wife likes curry mild and I prefer spicy. Sometimes we have mild, other times spicy. There is no conflict here. We know each prefers the other and will encourage or accept the others preference because we know it makes them happy. This is a small example that scales to larger issues. The larger the issue the more we discuss to nut out what really matters. Sometime we argue but we get back to the discussion later with cool heads. I feel your fooling yourself if you believe there there will be no adversarial events in a long term relationship.
I find things like that to be weird because I feel like they're focusing on the wrong thing. If you optimize for overall happiness, "staying together" might not be the best path to that. Compromise can (and I suspect often does) reduce happiness to a degree where breaking up could give both people a better outcome in the long run.
I thought the defining characteristic was buying bids (more than 2/3 of the time, or so). You know, someone makes a comment or suggestion and the other person accepts it (not necessarily agreeing with). In awful relationships that simple transaction is short circuited by passive aggression or the similar negative behaviour.
Personally, I don't think it's a terrible thing that marriages end. If we all lived to be a thousand years, but our psychology and perception of time remained otherwise unchanged, I doubt many would make it the whole way from 30 to 999 with the same partner. I daresay that it would be rather unusual for anyone to do.
That said, for those who wish to see their marriages last, compromise and change tolerance seem quite necessary.
> Personally, I don't think it's a terrible thing that marriages end.
What do you feel that marriages should represent, then? It seems, to me, like one should not promise to remain forever if the design is not to follow through. Beyond the legal requirements of marriage, what else do you think should be implied?
Marriage is probably more due to socialization - from religious marriages to shotgun weddings - than a deep desire to stay committed for the rest of one's life. Is it more likely that people are conforming to social norms, or that they have all found "the one?"
This quite shallow rationalisation. If you live in big city and have more prospects on finding someone else, if your life is all rosy and beautiful you might not have big desire to stay committed to rest of your life or more than couple months. All this ends when you or someone close to you gets sick, you lose your job or money. When you have to support your parents or siblings your dating pool shrinks quite a lot because you do not have time/money to spend on new dates. Your health is not going to be perfect all the time, you might get hit by a bus any time. It is more of insurance policy which you give and receive at the same time.
So again if you live in big city and break your back or whatever, it is far easier to get any help. Think of all those living in some far from anywhere places. People who have to stick together to afford house. Those things create "social norms" and not the other way around. You might be angry at aunts pushing social norms on people without thinking, but they did not invented those norms.
I'm unmarried, so I'm not in the situation yet, but I would be very uncomfortable uttering the standard "till death do us part" lines during my future wedding ceremony. I think it's unreasonable to expect anyone to promise that, at any point in their lives.
I would certainly promise to remain faithful to my partner, and to do my best to support them (emotionally, financially, etc.), and to make them my #1 priority in life, but I would never make a promise that precludes the possibility of divorce. I take promises very seriously, and I wouldn't make one that it's impossible to know if I'd be able -- or even want -- to keep.
As a happily married person I'd like to say: please don't get married. Integrity is important. If you do not mean the words, dont say them. Getting married and not making every effort to stay that way cheapens the concept for those of us who do mean it.
I agree that integrity is important, and I'm curious to know why you think what I've stated lacks integrity. I wouldn't want to be with someone who unrealistically expects me (or anyone, really) to promise to stay with them for the rest of my life, and I wouldn't expect them to promise that to me. I would certainly be happy if that's the way it worked out in the long run, but staying in a relationship "just because" is a terrible idea, and promising to do so paints you into a hole that apparently 40-50% of Americans end up breaking out of despite the promise. Are you suggesting that all or even a significant number of those people are cheapening marriage for you?
I've been to several (secular, and religious but non-Western) wedding ceremonies where nothing along the lines of "till death do us part" was said or promised. Are they, in your mind, not marriages?
At the risk of being hyperbolic: there are quite a few people in the world who believe marriages between people of the same gender "cheapens the concept" for married men and women. Given that HN is generally socially liberal-minded, I'll assume for a moment that you agree with me that those people are wrong. What makes your strict definition ok, while their strict definition is bad?
And I think that's the crux of it: you do you, and I'll do me. Marriage meaning a certain thing to me does not in any way change what it means to you. My being unwilling to make a lifelong promise that I find unreasonable and not in my or my partner's best interests does not take anything away from you.
You can't, but I believe the parent isn't suggesting that, but is suggesting that you commit to stay with that person regardless of whether or not the emotions fade or if there are other problems. Which, I think, cool, if that's what you find value in doing, then do it and be happy. I just -- for me -- don't see the wisdom in committing to stay with someone the rest of my life when I can't know if 10, 20, 40 years down the line that commitment still makes sense to me (or to my spouse).
You haven't felt the pain of a relationship ending?
You don't see the value committed and deep long term relationship? The kind only possible if both parties commit to sticking with each other through thick and thin?
Committing to sticking through things doesn't automatically mean there's no pain, or that the pain experienced by staying together won't exceed the pain of ending the relationship. The idea that marriage is for life is just a social and religious idea, and then a fairly recent one. There's no natural law that states that it is, or even should be, for life. If you're not happy in a relationship, whatever its stage, and have little belief that anything can be done to make you happy, then end it. Not saying it's easy, but I daresay it'll be worthwhile in the long run.
No, because it's just a silly romantic fantasy, that's all. People change, and relationships come and go. Embracing change (as this article recommends) means not holding onto relationships after they've gone stale.
> No, because it's just a silly romantic fantasy, that's all.
It's actually more than that.
Failed marriages are more likely to lead to negative outcomes in life, with single-parent households more likely to be in poverty, children more likely to abused by non-biological step-parents or partners, and children of failed marriages also more likely to get involved in criminal behaviour (both as a juvenile and an adult).
Which is not to say that all failed marriages lead to those problems, or that stable marriages don't, just that there is a greater likelihood of it happening, and when applied to society as a whole the effect is noticeable, and therefore there is a benefit to society in promoting stable, healthy, long-term relationships.
I suspect the negative outcomes aren't because "failed marriages are bad", it's because we have stigmatized them to the point that support networks for divorced people in these situations are very poor and lead to negative outcomes.
There's plenty of evidence to show that children raised by married parents who stay together "just for the kids" have a bunch of their own problems because of that. Maybe those problems are less bad, but I'd still suggest that's the case merely because that's the more "socially accepted" thing to do.
I think promoting stable, healthy, long-term relationships is fine, but stigmatizing those who "fail" at that for whatever reason is the root cause of the negative consequences you describe.
For sure the same problems exist in more traditional marriages too (and I made sure to explicitly mention this in my post), it's just that the likelihood of those things increases for marriages that end in divorce.
Individually, there are plenty of separated families that are successful and happy, and plenty of long-term marriages that are miserable and awful for the people involved. When applied to society as a whole though, on average, long-term, stable marriages have better life outcomes for the people involved than ones that ended in divorce.
I don't think it's necessarily a result of stigmatization either, rather it's that life is just objectively more difficult for a larger percentage of divorced families, and in order to be able to make a living, compromises have to be made.
For example, take a married housewife, who suddenly finds herself divorced, and is now a single mum needing to work to survive because maybe alimony and child-support aren't enough (or the dad is a deadbeat and doesn't pay as much as he should).
Years out of the workforce (and maybe also sacrificing education and/or career development for her children) limit the jobs available and alimony/child support might not be enough to make up the difference.
So maybe she has to work multiple jobs, or is working at odd hours and so the children become latchkey kids, with little/no adult supervision and guidance when they come home.
It not stigmatization that causes the problem, it's just an objectively more difficult situation than if the marriage had been stable and healthy, and although latchkey kids is not a phenomenon limited to single-parent families, it is more likely to occur in single-parent families because circumstances are more likely to require it.
Likewise for things like sexual abuse. The chance of it happening increases significantly with non-biological parents or partners. Again that's not anything to do with stigmatization, rather that if a divorce occurs, then when the parents get involved with new partners it increases that risk. It happens too with biological parents, but just at a lesser rate.
Looking at your example, I see that more a problem of our general social organization than as a problem with divorce. In some cultures, extended families are close-knit. Cousins, aunts, uncles, and parents all help with taking care of and raising children. The Western concept of the nuclear family vs. extended family just doesn't really exist, or is at least minimized. Divorce there doesn't really affect the divorcee's livelihood, or that of any children.
I'm not saying that's an ideal structure, just that it's a possible structure. The idea that Western nuclear family structure is the be-all end-all is a little silly, though. It's very fragile in exactly the ways you describe.
The point I'm trying to make is that divorce is hard on people in large part because we as a society have decided that divorce should be hard on people. It doesn't have to be; we've just set up our family and community structures and support systems in such a way that divorced people (especially divorced people with children) will often have a harder life.
And these are excellent reasons to avoid having children. It's a minefield fraught with peril, and is more likely to end up with a negative outcome than not. Modern society simply does not facilitate having children, and the standard two-adult nuclear family is like a 2-wheeled vehicle: fundamentally unstable and one wrong move ends in a crash.
Only in the long term, and only to society at large, not to people individually. Moreover, society actively punishes most people for having kids, rather than promoting it (some paltry tax breaks are not sufficient to be considered promotion), so if it produces a negative outcome to society, that's society's fault.
I think it's far from established that failed marriages lead to these problems. They are associated with these problems. Correlation usually isn't causation. https://www.gwern.net/Causality
Some of them are pretty direct causes, which is not to say that it always leads to those problems, but that there is a higher likelihood that it will lead to those problems.
I think one of the compromises being inadequately discussed so far in these threads is that people sometimes need to realize they are holding onto a personal identity or value system that has gone stale, and ruin relationships in the process.
I think that the process of letting go of attachments, in the spiritual sense, is really about internal desires and inflexibility in the individual. This can emerge as a toxic effect in all their relationships.
Plenty of unmarried people stick with each other through thick and thin. I think, "for life, despite changing preferences and feelings," and, "through difficulties, under relatively constant preferences and feelings," are related but not identical types of stickiness.
"Embrace change" may be a great idea, but I don't think it gets to the heart of the issue. I think the key to staying married is having two people who are committed to staying married. From that, other things follow: embracing change, learning to be a better spouse, etc.
I've only been married for 12 years, but I can absolutely say that my wife and I have always been very happy and willing to be accommodating, precisely because we're committed to lifelong marriage for religious reasons. I've met a lot of people who think that sounds like a prison sentence, but for me it's been bliss.
I agree with you, and my wife and I will have been married 27 years in June. I will add that not only is part of my motivation for staying married religious (I'm Catholic), but I also depend on God's help to keep us together. Marriage can be hard, but it's absolutely worth it. Learning to love the same person for a lifetime makes one a better person.
I'm sorry if this offends you and the person you replied to, but why are you committed to staying married for religious reasons?
Why are you not committed to staying married because you love your partner unconditionally and because they are your best friend that you love to spend time with?
It seems totally bizarre to me (being Atheist) to marry, and stay married, for religious reasons, or to believe that yourself is so special above all other people that God would help you.
I can understand people having faith in a higher power(s) and following traditions and beliefs, etc. But the bit that baffles me about these two comments is that your marriage sounds like it almost now only exists for religious reasons and you no longer love your partner for what ever reason that made you want to get married to begin with.
Instead of "stay married, for religious reasons" I'd say "stay married, with religion as an anchor" (not sure if OPs agree, but I'd suspect they might).
Religion is not the primary reason, but added security.
> love your partner unconditionally
There is no such thing. That's an ideal, not something you can build a marriage on.
> best friend that you love to spend time with
Is every day like that?
Marriage has good and bad days. Religion can help to carry on through the bad days, by
1. restricting the quick exit paths
2. giving tools to resolve the issues, e.g. forgiveness
My version of "religious reasons" reads: I promised by wife what I will love her and stay faithful in marriage. I will do everything to keep this promise. And I pray to God to help me keep this promise.
> Why are you not committed to staying married because you love your partner unconditionally and because they are your best friend that you love to spend time with?
This seems awfully naive. I think the point of they NY times article is that this isn't sufficient? I would definitely say this is not sufficient.
You seem to think that 'religion' taints or devalues a marriage. I've often wondered what role spirituality should play in a relationship. I think it's probably grossly undervalued. I suspect there is at least a tiny bit of nihilism at the heart of every (unnecessary) marriage break down, no matter how much love or friendship there may have been. Spirituality is a way, perhaps the most reliable way, to combat this nihilism. For cerebral types, it's too easy to convince yourself that it's all pointless and rationalise packing it in. I'm not talking about 'religion' in the sense of an institutionalised faith, spirituality can mean many different things some of which are compatible with an Atheism. I find that considering the the mysteries of the universe, however briefly, helps my marriage a lot. As does being with someone that is willing to do the same.
I don't believe religion taints of devalues marriage. I'm trying to understand, based on the comments, it seems like they are only still married because of their religious beliefs. This sounds like they do not love who they are married to which to me is wrong.
I'm trying to understand why they say that they continue to be married because of their religious beliefs.
Plenty of religious people, and plenty of non-religious people, stay married for life.
But I have literally never heard someone say they strive to stay married because of religion.
Not either of the posters you've replied to, but I don't believe either of them said that they're only in the marriage for religious reasons. They want to abide by the restrictions their religious beliefs places on them. They may be lucky that their marriage is working out, and that they've been able to work through the problems they've encountered. Maybe someone without their religious beliefs might have thrown in the towel earlier, but they personally don't think that's the way to go. But who knows, maybe someday they will hit an impasse and decide their personal happiness is more important than their religious beliefs. But for _now_, they are happy and stable enough that their religious beliefs help (as another poster suggested) to anchor them.
Full disclosure: I'm an atheist who thinks staying in relationships solely for religious regions is sad and a waste. I just believe you're misinterpreting their statements.
Well, the other key is so obvious: be nice to each other.
The couples I see that fall apart complain about each other behind each other's backs to their friends. They're snarky, disrespectful, when they fight they fight dirty. When they get resentful they retaliate instead of talking.
Just. Be decent. Like each other.
It's not that hard if you can work on not being selfish, self-centered, or self-righteous.
If it's hard to like someone, you probably shouldn't get married to them. Spending years of your life with someone who grates on you is worse than being single.
I dunno... there's still a line one crosses when you stop treating you spouse as a person and start treating them as an adversary.
The things I've heard people say about, or worse, to their spouses sometimes stretches my definition of basic human decency.
Regardless of how someone changes, every person deserves basic respect. Even little things like complaining about bad habits behind a person's back fosters resentment borne of disrespect, resentment that can grow and fester. Resisting that urge and instead treating ones partner with dignity is a critical skill many couples lack.
I don't think anyone's arguing against what you're saying. It's just that you may like someone, and then at some point down the road, you or they change in a way that causes you to stop liking them. It's unfortunate, certainly, but it happens. Sometimes it's reversible, sometimes not.
The stigma against divorce (made worse when driven by religious edict) is often why things turn into the bad state of affairs you describe: spouses treating each other as adversaries, speaking about them negatively behind each other's backs, etc. If you get to the point where you don't like your spouse anymore, just get a divorce. No, that's not a decision that should be made lightly, but unless you have a really good reason to stay in a relationship that makes both parties unhappy, it's crazy to stay together.
> The stigma against divorce (made worse when driven by religious edict) is often why things turn into the bad state of affairs you describe: spouses treating each other as adversaries, speaking about them negatively behind each other's backs, etc.
I doubt the stigma of divorce has any such impact. Plenty of second marriages contain hatred, anger, resentment, etc
People do change over time, it's in our nature. You're a different person at 25, at 30, at 35. Marriage is hard, there's a lot of luck involved, lots of compromises that need to be made in order to make the whole thing go forward. My failed marriage is one my worst (probably the worst) failures in my life, especially as I was thinking that I was having it all under control. I wasn't.
> From that, other things follow: embracing change, learning to be a better spouse, etc
In my experience, the harder it is to dissolve a relationship, the worse it is. There's no incentive for good behavior because the other person has to stick with you no matter what. Adult relationships with siblings and parents are often quite toxic for this reason.
I think your own example contradicts the idea that the harder it is to dissolve a relationship the worse it is.
Adult relationships with parents and siblings can indeed be toxic.
However, you aren't actually forced to stick with them no matter what.
In fact, for the most part, it takes consistent effort to keep family in your life.
As a contrast it's much harder for most of the population to quit their job and stop associating with their boss and yet the employer-employee relationship is often a lot less toxic.
> As a contrast it's much harder for most of the population to quit their job and stop associating with their boss and yet the employer-employee relationship is often a lot less toxic.
There's usually _much_ less emotion involved in the employer-employee relationship. In my experience when a significant amount of emotion gets involved, it's more often negative emotion, and then you start hitting problems where you feel trapped in a job with no alternatives.
Many of the worst spousal relationships are ones where one spouse feels trapped and cannot leave for religious, financial, social, etc. reasons.
>> the key to staying married is having two people who are committed to staying married
This is all it is. Too many people focus on instant gratification and short-term expectations. Most failed marriages (well, long-term relationships in general) happen due to boredom and the inventing of excuses to be unhappy, simply because the honeymoon period is over. Well guess what? If you give up on one relationship because it got "boring", you're in for a wake up call when that becomes the case with every subsequent relationship.
Barring exceptions such as abusive relationships, the grass will not be greener on the other side with a new relationship. The grass will become the same shade of green you already had. The path to success is learning how to fertilize the grass you already have, instead of replacing the grass every time it starts to turn brown.
> Most failed marriages (well, long-term relationships in general) happen due to boredom and the inventing of excuses to be unhappy, simply because the honeymoon period is over.
I'm actually curious as to whether or not this is true. It's certainly true in some cases, but the absence of the honeymoon period is absolutely necessary to determine if a relationship has long-term potential. We're completely incapable of making a rational determination of that while in the honeymoon phase.
I suspect that many relationships end after the honeymoon phase more because one or both parties realize that, after the hormones have died down a bit, they just don't have enough else in common (beyond their initial emotional attachment) to forge a lasting relationship. And that's ok! It's good to figure that out, especially if you can do so before you've made a long-term commitment.
I absolutely agree that "having two people who are committed to staying married" is certainly a way to staying married, but that's like saying "the key to being ok with keeping your hand on a hot stove is being committed to not caring how much it hurts". It's true because it's something of a tautology, not because it's a good idea. Being committed to staying married when there are better alternatives might keep you married, but at what cost?
>> they just don't have enough else in common (beyond their initial emotional attachment) to forge a lasting relationship
This is the fallacy. That somehow there is a magical formula that determines "compatibility". I'm of the opinion that nearly any two people, put together, should be capable of making a lifelong relationship work. Outside of one of the people being completely hopeless, such that they would be incapable of ever maintaining any meaningful relationship.
The way you get to grow old with a partner is obtained by the very simple means of having a committed partner. And therein lies the secret sauce. You don't look for the "perfect match". You match with anyone willing to have a go at life together, and you ride out the long and hard journey. The way to win is to realize that life is mostly made up of shit circumstances, and that life is too short to be lonely. You're better off having someone, anyone, rather than having nobody.
> This is the fallacy. That somehow there is a magical formula that determines "compatibility".
I never suggested there was, and agree with you that there isn't. A ton of things go into compatibility, and determining the compatibility between two people is a case-by-case, very personal thing.
> I'm of the opinion that nearly any two people, put together, should be capable of making a lifelong relationship work.
I think we're going to have to just disagree, then, because I don't share that opinion. I of course don't believe in something silly like soulmates, and I do think people can be compatible with many more people than they think they could be, but it's a matter of degree, and I think most arbitrary/random pairings likely won't/can't turn out well.
Put another way, perhaps nearly any two people put together could make it work... but at what cost to both of them? For some pairings it would be low cost, and for others drastically higher. Why would that cost always be worthwhile, just for the sake of having a long-term relationship?
> Being committed to staying married when there are better alternatives might keep you married, but at what cost?
The evidence shows, on average, divorcees end up poorer and less happy than couples who stick together through tough times. The evidence shows, again on average, the children of divorcees are worse off.
The problem is people are amazing at self-deception. They are terrible judges as to whether they are going to be happier/better off post-divorce.
I don't have all the answers. But its clear that sticking together is more often than not the right strategy.
> The evidence shows, on average, divorcees end up poorer and less happy than couples who stick together through tough times.
How do you even measure the latter bit? Happiness is entirely based on self-reporting, and a divorcee can't say "I would have been happier had I stayed together", because they literally cannot know that. Likewise, someone who stuck it out can't say "I would have ended up less happy had we broken up", because, again, that's unknowable. They can guess, and of course people will want to believe they made the right choice sticking it out, so I could see why they'd report greater happiness.
I think your point about people being great at self-deception cuts both ways: they may not be able to accurately predict whether or not a divorce will make them happy in the future, but they're also likely to rationalize the decision to stay as being better when they have no real basis in doing so.
Regarding poorness and:
> The evidence shows, again on average, the children of divorcees are worse off.
I think it's worthwhile examining why that is the case. It's telling that we say that people who have divorced have "failed" marriages. It's a negative. It creates shame, and people feel pressured, due to religion or other social reasons, to stay together. Could it not be that people end up poorer and children end of worse off after a divorce mainly because we as a society do not have the proper support structures in place to keep divorcees from experiencing negative outcomes?
And hell, a decent amount of the "poorer" bit could be ascribed to the cost of the divorce itself, including court fees, lawyers, etc. Alimony also ends up being "inefficient": a friend of mine got divorced a few years ago and was required to pay alimony to his former spouse. The end result was the the money was not enough to bring her up to her standard of living during marriage, and the expense on his side was enough to drag his standard of living down as well.
As an aside, do you have any references that support your claims? I'm very interested in reading them.
Basically they look at people who are going through marital problems and collect self reported happiness levels then follow up a few years later and collect self reported happiness levels again.
Some of those couples will have divorced. Some will still be together.
There are certainly issues with these studies but overall they paint a pretty clear picture.
> It creates shame, and people feel pressured, due to religion or other social reasons, to stay together.
I don't think there is a lot of evidence for this view.
The high rate of divorce indicates to me there isn't much of a stigma at all.
And there are plenty of sources extolling the benefits of divorce.
> And hell, a decent amount of the "poorer" bit could be ascribed to the cost of the divorce itself,
It could be. Why should divorce costs should be excluded?
> As an aside, do you have any references that support your claims?
I haven't looked at these studies in years but I'll see if I can dig them up.
I wonder if by the time we find "The Ultimate Secret to Staying Married" we'll have already learned that marriage doesn't have to be the final goal of a relationship after all.
Please married folk please tell me this ain't the case...
What, change?
Of course change happens.
I'm almost 40 and have been married for 13 years (and we've been together for almost 20).
In the last ten years I've learned to: ski, dive, rock climb, and backcountry hike. And while this stuff isn't my wife's thing, she's always supported me 100%.
Yes, it's really the case. Not for everyone; see the guy who replied bragging about all the physical stuff he's learned to do. However, the odds of both partners in a marriage not turning into fat couch potatoes is very small. (This happened to me: I was married, I'm like that other 40yo guy and do lots of physical stuff, my ex got fat, we got divorced.)
Be very, very, very careful who you marry, and if you're not planning on having kids, think very hard about whether you need to even bother getting married at all. It's usually not a good deal, and instead will cost you more with the IRS if you're both working and have similar incomes. IMO, the entire institution is obsolete and should be abolished.
I'm disappointed you're getting downvoted, because you make some very good points (though I'd understand that some people might think you were doing so in an inflammatory way; I choose to read it more charitably).
People change, certainly. Some change is palatable, some is not. If you're an active person and plan to be that way until the day you die, and enjoyed being active with your partner... if your partner stops being active, that can be a genuine problem if that aspect is important to you and the relationship. It may not even really be the physical acts around "being active", it could be the fundamental traits and attributes of the person that make them want to or not want to be that way, and I could see those differences ending up being irreconcilable.
It wasn't just the activeness that drove us apart; she turned into a raging right-winger.
The way I see it, people are going to change no matter what, so this idea that people need to "stick together" until they die is not only obsolete, but just plain wrong. Regular friends usually aren't life-long either, as interests change, people move, etc., so why do we expect romantic relationships to be permanent? It's crazy.
Yeah, but optimally by that point you are sleep deprived too, tired from work and children too and have job that meters to you too. These personality changes happen because circumstances you live in change.
Not sure what you are talking about. Hypergamy is about a difference in social status between the partners. More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy
Since you were talking about a "redpill perspective" you may have wanted to find a term that describes the idea of having intercourse with a larger amount of others. Maybe you searched for "promiscuity"?
If the latter is the case I'm not certain how it relates to the article. The article elaborates on common problems in monogamous relationships.
Less flippantly: My parents divorced when I was 5 and my brother was 3. This was the defining trauma for much of my young life. I vowed never to do that, never to inflict that on children I might eventually have. When I married, it was simply, absolutely for good. I would die rather than violate that oath.
My family urged me to do the standard thing they all did, of setting up a pre-nuptial agreement and having the prospective spouse sign it. I never considered that for a minute. I was not going to place that sort of fault line in our understanding of our marriage at the beginning. We are active Catholics (she from birth, me as an adult convert).
We laugh a lot, and enjoy each others' jokes, off-hand witticisms, and spontaneous turns of phrase. I think it is fair to say that we each find the other to be extremely interesting intellectually. We tell each other we love each other frequently. We leave the kids behind and go on a cruise together once per year.
My wife rather unsentimentally states that love is not a feeling, it is a decision. I think it is worth it to consciously reflect on what will communicate love to your partner in ways that they understand and find meaningful. Then, do it. The doing can be more important than whatever transitory feelings might or might lie behind it.
Relatively early in our marriage, I made a career choice that was an unambiguous case of putting my career ahead of my marriage and family. The consequences of that choice resonated for years in our marriage. That was the biggest mistake I ever made, and I am grateful that our family managed to survive it. I will never do something that selfish, thoughtless, and stupid again. Things can get difficult, ugly, and painful for a time.
Expanding on the point above about dying rather than walking away: That probably relates metaphorically to the NYTimes article shared by the OP. In my experience, as you and your partner grow and change over a lifetime, you have to let go of, and in effect die to the relationship you had. Over and over. There is a cycle of death, relinquishment, and renewal that is inevitable in a lifelong relationship.
Would you really want to spend time as a 60-year-old with a person whose best years were their high school years, and who doggedly clings to that identity for the rest of their adult life? Of course not.
You become co-authors of an amazing, surprising, unfolding story. Your and your partner's identity co-evolve. To support and encourage another person's growth inevitably involves letting go of who they used to be.
(BTW, please do not take anything I said above as condoning abusiveness in a relationship. There are of course horrible and untenable relationships that simply must be ended.)