On Marrying the Wrong Person | Hacker News Reader

On Marrying the Wrong Person

thebookoflife.org

246 pointszbravo120 comments

Three notes I would add:

1) In response to the "know yourself" bullet: I met my now wife at 15 - we learned a lot about ourselves between then and when we married at age 22. But we were pretty much committed to marrying by age 18, even though we learned a lot after. You can learn with another person.

2) Life pro tip on understanding other people (this is a quick reinforcement of a bunch of points in the article): if someone is behaving irrationally, 99% of the time its because they are subconciously insecure about something.

3) The odds of first marriage are better than 50/50. That statistic is for total marriages, but people who divorce once on average divorce multiple times. Success rate of first marriage is something like 65%. Also, that success rate goes higher if you're high income, like most of HN.

The odds of first marriage are better than 50/50. That statistic is for total marriages, but people who divorce once on average divorce multiple times. Success rate of first marriage is something like 65%. Also, that success rate goes higher if you're high income, like most of HN.

Yes, thanks, I was about to post the same thing. Also divorce rates are lower among college graduates (which is correlated with income of course).

I have no data to back this up, but I would guess that college / university graduates also get married later in life.

Based on the first Google result [1], average age of first marriage goes up by ~2.5 years for men and ~3.5 years for women with a bachelor's degree over just a high school diploma.

1 http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divorc...

Not just that, the divorce rate increases with the number of previous sexual partners (especially for women): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/21/more-sexual-partner...

> 2) Life pro tip on understanding other people (this is a quick reinforcement of a bunch of points in the article): if someone is behaving irrationally, 99% of the time its because they are subconciously insecure about something.

How about the possibility that they are tired of their partner? The irrationality might come from the fact that they are bound to them (e.g. marriage) and feel pressure to not break that apart. That'd be quite an internal conflict, and might produce irrational behavior.

If this is a possible explanation (I've seen it many times at least), do you really think it's an only 1% of the time cause? I think that's being unrealistically optimistic. Because then your narrative sounds very convenient and comforting: "Oh, I just have to help them get over their insecurities and it's happily ever after." Not to be a downer, but I think people need to be more realistic about these things so they have better odds of finding a partner with which they have a good dynamic.

(It's kind of like being stuck at a job you don't like, but you need the money. That's bad for both the employee and the business.)

But of course you could take a step back and ask why they're tired of their partner. Sometimes that's a result of an internal insecurity, too.

Put another way, you might say that a person who is 'tired' of their partner is in some perhaps fixable way insecure about the relationship itself, of which they are a part.

So if every (or most) relationships are fixable, what does it matter who you pick as partner?

You've discovered the secret! It doesn't.

It may not matter whether you can make it work, but it'll matter if you're having fun while you're trying...

You can have fun with a wide variety of people. It may require letting go of your preconceived notions of "fun" and being open to new experiences, though.

I used to think this way, but what happens when they become dependent on you for emotional/financial/whatever sustenance?

I think those who are 'fun' to 'fix' are therefore at risk of dependency on that. Like a drug.

"Have fun" != "fix". If those concepts are crossed in your mind, that could be part of the problem. Just don't date the people who need fixing - or if you do, make it clear that they are responsible for fixing themselves and you're not going to do it for them.

There are lots of people in this world who don't need fixing and can be quite fun to hang with.

I think who you pick as a partner is a pretty weak indicator for relationship longevity. Being/becoming the right partner counts more. As with many things in life, the day to day execution is much more important than the initial state.

It has a dramatic effect on what your children are like.

I don't think you two necessarily disagree.

One way to reconcile these ideas is to point out that it's entirely rational to push someone away you don't want to be with.

However, I think the grandparent comment is really talking about otherwise stable relationships where one party can, quite suddenly, start behaving very differently. Usually when this happens, someone will try to justify themself, saying that the reason is X or Y, often blaming the other party. E.g. they'll pick something close at hand, some bad habits or old points of conflict to justify the mood.

Consider two examples, with 'your' bad habit being leaving dirty dishes. If you just left a huge mess in the kitchen, an argument that evening is not irrational. If it happened earlier in the week without consequence (you cleaned up later), but suddenly it's being brought up as the cause of conflict, be suspicious that there's something else going on.

Honestly, sometimes when this happens to you, your relatively normal perception of the situation can make the really irrational stuff seem almost comical. However, it's so easy to get baited into an argument that that's what often happens. A little awareness and firmness in not getting drawn in can go a long way. There are patterns to recognize.

The key isn't to excuse irrational behavior (after all, the tailgater is still being dangerous), but to take it into account in how you respond. You can save yourself immense grief with half a second of realization that "something's up."

> How about the possibility that they are tired of their partner?

Then that goes to point #3. People who are "tired" of their marriage are the type who have little patience, persistence, hope, tools to fix their marriage. That is why they keep divorcing, because they can never feel complacent with what they have.

As far as the insecurity goes, it is like a pandora's box where all ills are born. They don't just affect marriage. They affect everything.

Yes, same goes for my brother, but I don't know how much of it relies on premise, that they can't live without each other anymore, because their life's are so entangled.

I mean he is 31 and they came together when he was 16 and she was 15. They experienced their whole adult life together. They split for about 4 months but came together again, probably because of this.

On the other hand, I'm the complete opposite, so it's hard for me to understand.

I had my first relationship with 19 and we were together only one year. I'm 30 now and had about 7 relationships. Right now I have my two longest relationships of 2 and 2,5 years.

Maybe it's a good thing to get together with 15, so you make the most important experiences in life together, to weld you together more strongly.

When I started dating with 19 I already had many expectations and a own life, which needed another person to fit in somehow. And most didn't...

I do always relate our relationship to two trees that grew together into one (only between us, though!)

Edit: I am also santaclause33, I had a different account logged in on mobile when I made the first post.

Wait, you have two relationships right now?

Welcome to the world of Berkeley-rational-polyamory! Overlaps more than you'd think with the HN crowd, I'm kind of surprised that you're surprised.

Yes, for over 2 years now.

Both of those relationships are better than any one I got before.

I've heard many people talk about a "two-year cliff". The exact date is immaterial, but for many there's a point in a relationship where it's going to continue a long time or die out. I think this plays a major role.

Basically, that's about how long it takes to really recognize people's patterns. Everyone has stuff like this, particular irrationalities and foibles that are, in general, not so good. The first time they happen, it's a new experience and you just deal with it. The next time it happens, there might be some added frustration and a sense of familiarity. The third or fourth, and you're really starting to get desperate if you haven't found a way to deal with it.

If you can recognize your partner's patterns and deal with them, you'll both benefit greatly. Sometimes it's like a switch has been flipped and you know with certainty that they're being irrational in their particular way. With some empathy and perhaps a little cleverness, you can deal with this effectively. However, if you miss your chance, the frustration kicks in with a vengeance. The same well-worn argument can feel inevitable and downright despairing.

I think most successful relationships deal with this through some combination of patience and empathy, but also with some good match-making. Some people are just better able to tolerate particular faults better than others.

The best "pattern" we found, is, that we can talk about everything.

We reinvented these relationships multiple times, when something was wrong.

Dude, your #2 is spot on. It has caused untold problems in my marriage and almost led to a divorce.

Your #1 hits home for me. Similar timeframe -- met at 16, married at 23, have been married happily for 7 years. We aren't the same people as when we first started dating.

It's hard for me to argue, rationally, that I happened to meet my one-and-only soulmate in high school. I think I got lucky because I married someone who valued marriage the same way I do. We both consider the marriage itself to be more important than either of us individually. We both came from stable families, so we have good examples to follow. It might not sound romantic, but we both could have probably committed fully to any number of people. As it stands, we committed to each other and the sum is greater than the parts.

I know other people are in tough situations, and I'm not saying that everyone should just "suck it up." I just think that marriages are more resilient when each person is secure in the knowledge that the other isn't considering leaving. It's hard to commit fully if divorce is an option on the table. When your thinking goes in that direction, you start resenting your partner for depriving you of that other life.

> if someone is behaving irrationally, 99% of the time its because they are subconciously insecure about something.

I'd generalize that to "they are reacting rationally to factors that are invisible to you"

This is one of those cases where evidence instead of supposition helps a lot.

> The odds of first marriage are better than 50/50

That depends on a shocking number of variables. For example, http://www.maselliwarren.com/2014/03/20/divorce-rates-increa... "60 percent of marriages for couples between the ages of 20 and 25 end in divorce. For couples who are even younger, the prognosis becomes bleaker still."

http://www.maselliwarren.com/2014/02/28/factors-affect-divor... "“Marriages are more likely to last for longer periods of time when people marry at an older age, have a higher education and earn more"

There was another source citing evidence that too much relationship experience prior to marriage can confound marriage happiness somewhat, but it was from a Christian (and therefore biased and/or scientifically suspect) source. Here's something more scientific:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7893...

If someone is behaving irrationally, 99% of the time its because they are subconciously insecure about something.

Or because they are sleep-deprived. I guess that applies more later once you have kids though ;-)

Here's an uncomfortable thought: an effective 1-to-1 mapping between men and women probably doesn't exist.

The fact of the matter is that women are primarily interested in a top smaller percentage of high value men (this is called hypergamy). This smaller group of desirable men would most like to have multiple mates (this is called polygamy). Marriage, and the accompanying culture and customs, 'corrects' this by trying to create a 1-to-1 mapping. Both extreme strategies described are traditionally shamed and discouraged.

Why? Because marriage (monogamous long-term bonding) is good for society. It incentivizes the largest amount of people to be productive, and reduces civil unrest by distributing sexual access to women across as many men as possible. For more on sex and society, check out J.D. Unwin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Unwin

Now, how this relates to the OP. The fact of the matter is that people become unhappy in a relationship of any kind when they think they are getting the short end of the stick, and could be doing better. They'll rationalize it six ways to Sunday, "my partner doesn't understand me", "my partner smothers me", "they don't do enough chores", "we don't understand ourselves", whatever, but at the end of the day they think they ought to have a better mate, and are fed up with their current one!

This is especially true of women, who, by pure numerical inevitability, largely marry below what they would prefer. We know that women initiate most divorces too, at ~70% (fun fact: among college-eduated couples, that number rises to 90%). A smaller amount of men end up locked to one person too, when they know in another world they could have more mates. Such are the sacrifices for the monogamous society (often referred to as patriarchal, because women are more sexually restricted).

So in conclusion, what bothers me about articles like this, who delve deep into rationalizations instead of simple mate value and attractiveness, is the implication of a 1-to-1 mapping between men and women. Is there a right person to marry, for most people? Probably not.

>but at the end of the day they think they ought to have a better mate, and are fed up with their current one

I don't know if this is true across the board. I don't feel that way entirely, more along the lines of "I'm stuck in this situation; kids, a marriage where I get no real benefit, I just want to be free and do what I want and not have to bow to their whims."

I know several people, right now, that have been divorced for some time (5+ years, and in one case 10+ years) and don't even date or have interest in dating. Their motivations seem aligned more with mine than wanting a better mate - In fact, If I end up getting a divorce (we have agreed to try and work it out, again), I have no interest in dating again, at least not for a while.

FWIW, I'm 38, and the people I'm referencing are older than me, some as much as 12+ years older, so maybe it's an age thing.

Maybe an age thing, hormones do die down I hear! But I doubt these people you're talking about (yourself included) are all celibate though.

> "I'm stuck in this situation; kids, a marriage where I get no real benefit, I just want to be free and do what I want and not have to bow to their whims."

Unless you're celibate, then this is equivalent to wanting to be with another mate, as that is what will happen. Not to discount the rationalizations, by all means freedom beats family for a lot of people. The latter is necessarily a sacrifice of the former.

No, that rings hollow to me. Humans are sophisticated enough to genuinely have other needs aside from primal mating urges. Self-actualization is a huge one and more than sufficient to be the primary motivator for someone seeking to leave a family/marriage situation.

And yet, statistically, very few people have self-actualization urges beyond using them as a means to attract a mate and reproducing.

Few, not zero.

You say statistically but you don't have any references to support that statement. My anecdotal experience says otherwise.

>Unless you're celibate

Pretty much, rough marriage, sex with each other isn't something they want even if you do. Needless to say, more than 12 months go by between 'action.'

Right now we are together for finances and the kiddo. But I still have to deal with all of the negatives. I might hook up with others once everything is normal, but really the primary motivator isn't sex or a better mate, it's just freedom to better my career and myself. Right now it's all about her career and me dealing with the kid.

Focus on your happiness mate and rest will fall together.

Suddenly you will become desirable once you do that and get rid of bad habits like needy behavior.

I would suggest focus on health as well and do some lifting and read the book "No more Mr Nice Guy" by Robert Glover and look for references on the web.

I was in a similar situation to the GP. Desirability and bad habits are not the issues. You're blaming the victim.

You can't compete against someone else's selfishness. You will lose every time. The only thing to do is to walk away, but in the context of a marriage, it's not easy to do.

My ex is still indescribably selfish five years later. She still wants to appear to be a good mother at the expense of actually being a good mother. She still tries to sacrifice my career and passions so that she can suit her whims. She tries to push our daughter on me during her custody period all the time (after fighting for more custody and costing us both $$$). And she still blames me, through a series of seriously twisted thoughts, for the dissolution of our marriage.

During the marriage, surviving her selfishness was the only thing possible. It wasn't that I wasn't focusing on my health and happiness. It was that those things were being taken from me more quickly than I could generate them. And I had to protect my child's psyche from her as well.

I don't think anyone would describe me as a "nice guy". I have a very low tolerance for bullshit and have no problems saying exactly how I feel or saying no. But I expect a partner in a relationship, not someone who I have to grab by the scruff of the neck in order to get them to not be a shitty person.

I don't mean this in a derogatory manner, mostly curious, as I've heard similar stories from extended family and have become rather concerned. Looking back, do you see any warning signs of a future marriage like the one you described? How long did you date before you got married/had your daughter? It seems strange that traits like you described could remain hidden until bursting out once you're "trapped" by marriage, but the tale you tell is not an incredibly uncommon one.

Though I'm not who you responded to, I'd like to say that I certainly did see warning signs. Sometimes we fought over it, sometimes it made me seem petty (she'd tell me all about her day, but when she asked it seemed more of a token, and she'd get that 10,000 yard stare and eventually tell me she didn't need that kind of detail - and I'm not a long talker). In one instance she left me abandoned at school (frozen door at school), she wouldn't risk the 2 mile or so drive and told me to walk instead (situations being reversed she would have probably left me and I'd have been ostracized for abandoning her). There were many others, but the signs were all there, I think I just ignored them hoping things would get better, etc.

In the case of my ex-wife, it was fairly stealthy. My ex-wife was (and probably is) desperate for approval. So anyone she doesn't "have" in her circle of people who accept her, she will bend over backwards to please. Before I was her husband, I was one of those people. She wanted to make me happy so that I would make her my wife. However, once she has that approval, it ends. The closer you are to her, the less effort she will make. That seems backward to me.

I also dated another severely selfish woman. In that relationship it was much like the sibling poster mentions. There were high expectations of me, but even minor expectations of her resulted in her playing the victim or making lame nonsensical excuses. There was no reciprocity, zero respect, and no concern for the relationship as its own entity.

What both these women had in common was a desperation for approval and attention from others. This need was so large that I could not possibly fill it and I was ultimately made to feel that I was only a giver of attention and a tool to aid in the acquisition of more attention from strangers.

This type of thing is very obvious to me now, but when I met my ex-wife I was much younger and pretty clueless about women in general.

Your precise situation is a common theory for why women disproportionately initiate divorce.

Yeah, that makes sense, and can totally empathize with them for that. I love independent women though, and love a career oriented woman, so I can't complain. I had just hoped it was going to be equal, she'd consider the situation and help out a bit. It's not entirely her fault though, I add to the entropy of our marriage just as much, if not more.

But, in aggregate, women, more so than men, understand that raising children is a significant and valuable career choice.

There is a huge amount of social pressure on women to grin and pretend that to be the case. My wife and I work in the same profession and are similarly busy. But she gets 10x as much flak for the same things (blowing off parent-teacher conferences, etc) than I do.

"The fact of the matter is that people become unhappy in a relationship of any kind when they think they are getting the short end of the stick, and could be doing better."

This is such a pithy statement, used with such simple compelling force, that I applaud it even while disagreeing. Some points that counter this message:

1) What percentage of partners that end up leaving the marriage do so with another partner lined up?

2) Of the percentage that do not - a sizable set I would assume - how many exited after long-term (years?) relationships?

3) Of the percentage that did - another sizable set I would assume - what caused the reasoning process to take so long? Why didn't they conclude they could do better earlier?

I would argue most people go into marriage with at least some amount of good faith effort to make it last. Why do they make such a good faith effort in the first place if they are operating as you would say?

Thanks, I've been working on my over-the-top writing style as it sparks discussion and draws attention.

> 1) What percentage of partners that end up leaving the marriage do so with another partner lined up?

According to [1], surveys show that 55% of people say infidelity is a contributing factor in the divorce. And that's probably just the ones that know (as it is often kept a secret), so we can take this number as a floor of the actual. "Lined up" - implying future relationship - doesn't matter so much as "other partner involved" which is to what this refers, and is my point. Even without infidelity, the exiting partner could have potentials "lined up" that they'd rather date (than stay married).

> 2) Of the percentage that do not - a sizable set I would assume - how many exited after long-term (years?) relationships?

I don't know. I'm sure it's possible to be repulsed by someone you're married to without knowing exactly who you'd go out with next.

> 3) Of the percentage that did - another sizable set I would assume - what caused the reasoning process to take so long? Why didn't they conclude they could do better earlier?

Marriage is (was) a very hard contract to annul. That's the point of it. These people are often fighting these feelings for years: weighing their natural biological impulses against higher-level rational thought. Rational thought that has been crafted from the narratives of a culture, encouraging marriage as a virtue. The impulses come from diminished pair bonding chemicals and more enticing (and realistically accessible) mating opportunities.

> I would argue most people go into marriage with at least some amount of good faith effort to make it last. Why do they make such a good faith effort in the first place if they are operating as you would say?

Of course. The key is that they don't know how they're operating. They don't understand that we've evolved multi-year chemical bonding capabilities to help us raise young children, and that after those fade, shit gets tough, and the lure of bonding with someone new/better (new is a form of better, genetic diversity and all that) becomes more attractive. The bond dies quicker if a better partner is easily accessible, btw. These types of mechanisms are necessary to help women select for better genes.

[1] - http://www.divorce.usu.edu/files/uploads/lesson3.pdf

> "These people are often fighting these feelings for years: weighing their natural biological impulses against higher-level rational thought. Rational thought that has been crafted from the narratives of a culture, encouraging marriage as a virtue."

Ah, but I think this concedes too much! The thrust of your argument is basically that we can boil down this very complex web of variables that make up the decision tree to seek a divorce to a cold calculation of, "Can I do better?" Were you to model this behavior in some simulation you would see people exiting and entering relationships very quickly based upon the speed of calculation.

But the actual calculation of whether to seek a divorce is not so simple. It is a complex web of interacting considerations and "rationalizations" that do battle with the impulse you would boil it all down to.

Does this impulse exist? Absolutely. Does it win out in many circumstances? Absolutely. Is every divorce ultimately a simple case of this impulse winning out over other considerations? I think that goes too far. And what about all those cases where the impulse does not win out? Would you reduce all of those to the calculation returning, "No, I don't think I could do better!?"

Regardless, the story of why people divorce is much more complicated and rich than this simple impulse to look around and see greener grass.

> The thrust of your argument is basically that we can boil down this very complex web of variables that make up the decision tree to seek a divorce to a cold calculation of, "Can I do better?" Were you to model this behavior in some simulation you would see people exiting and entering relationships very quickly based upon the speed of calculation.

Liquidity, my friend. It's not easy to end and start new contracts in this manner. Well, things like Tinder are making it easier. But remember why we have so much societal pressure not to bounce around from relationship to relationship. It would be chaos. It would create a terrible society where all human energy would be directed towards mate optimization.

That's why certain types of societies thrive and succeed: they stabilize these things, through marriage. Marriage is the ultimate destroyer of relationship liquidity.

Again, I must reference Unwin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Unwin

> And what about all those cases where the impulse does not win out? Would you reduce all of those to the calculation returning, "No, I don't think I could do better!?"

Correct.

> Regardless, the story of why people divorce is much more complicated and rich than this simple impulse to look around and see greener grass.

It's about optimization: getting what's best for you, given constraints. We come up with social constructs, like marriage and church and behavior shaming (constraints), to reduce chaos and direct our energies to building a better society.

Don't get me wrong, I really do like the idea of marriage. But let's be clear about what it is, what the trade-offs are, and what happens when such constraints start to erode. Hint: more women start initiating divorces, because constraints are lifted ("no fault divorce"). Then more children start growing up in single-mother families, an excellent predictor of poor academic achievement and crime involvement for the child.

Fascinating topic.

The feeling of "I can do better" doesn't necessarily mean they have someone lined up.

The rate of divorce for men is much higher when they have a job in which they regularly interact with attractive, or even just young, women even if they aren't engaging in romantic relationships with said women.

In practice biologically, sure, you're right, but it's tough to look beyond the tribal-cultural ingrainment of marriage into people's psyches... sure, people may always fantasize about doing better than they currently are, but in how many people will those thoughts turn into actions?

There's too many contented or at least not actively dissatisfied people to support the idea you're discussing in practice, though I agree it's theoretically plausible.

Rather than a question of sexual access relative to resources, I'd reframe it for the 21st century as a mutual understanding of shared needs and shared solutions to those needs. Sure, not everyone can fill every need for every other person, but it's probably better than going without, which is why the pragmatic mate choice also provides genuine positive emotion, even if it's not the "maximum" need fulfillment possible.

Is it odd that a lot of this logic could probably be applied to the job market as well?

Yes, monogamy is usually framed as being good for women and detrimental to men when in fact it's been invented so that non-alpha males could mate; in a "natural" world, most (all) women would mate with the alpha male of the group, and all other males would not mate at all.

Therefore it shouldn't be unexpected that women who didn't get to marry the alpha male, are unhappy and eventually want out.

ironically, women's empowerment could eventually lead a society back to pre-historic times in a genetic sense. imagine a society where women no longer need husbands or fathers for either income or childcare (which is the current trend in the OECD). imagine further that there is no more stigma towards artificial insemination. then women will pick the fittest sperm from the bank (let's say an Olympic athlete with a Nobel Prize). thus we have reverted back to a time when the alpha males sire a far greater proportion of progeny. what kinds of long term effects are there on a society's gene pool? does this society then have less diversity, and thus decreased overall fitness as a whole?

what happens to the vast majority of prospectless men? mass immigration of females is one solution. but eventually the donor country will bar them from doing so. so imagine a country where 80% of single men will not get a chance to produce offspring. is that a recipe for civil unrest?

without any traditional patriarchy, it is in the female's best interest to get inseminated by multiple alphas. maybe there will be a social movement that that says for every alpha baby, a female must bear a baby with her beta partner?

One thing people forget is that in historical societies, the number of men would be less than women. This is due to war, other violence against men, etc. This left surplus women who were more inclined to the alpha males/royalty and fewer men without partners.

As someone who hangs out in circles where polyamory is common, I can say that it doesn't quite work out this way. There are certainly the super-desirable guys who have unreasonably-many unreasonably-attractive partners- but they still only have so much time in the day, they can't sustain real relationships (or even consistent sexual relations) with everyone. Those with only a fraction of these golden boys' attentions will occupy the rest of their romantic energies with others, and those others will occupy the remainder of their romantic time with others, and so on "down." Its hard for everyone to wind up happy, but no harder I think than in monogamous crowds.

(And the same thing happens, symmetrically, with the super-desirable girls. And pseudo-symmetrically with gays and lesbians and bisexuals and etc etc etc.)

It's a little much to present an untestable hypothesis as 'in fact...'.

Your same arguments apply in the other direction, you know. It's not just women interested in the most desireable men, it's also that men are interested in the most desirable women.

There are more desirable women (#1 young, #2 pretty) than men (#1 wealthy, #2 pretty)

I'd say that is quite the oversimplification you have there. You might want to check some of your base assumptions like how women only desire wealth and looks as well as men only desiring youth and looks. Generalizations tend to be wrong more often than they are right in my experience, and this seems no exception.

I don't think your theory jives with the evidence that men and women are equally likely to initiate breakups of non-marriage relationships: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/women-more-likely-than-m....

If it was about access to better mates, you'd expect to see the disparity extend to non-marriage relationships too, but you don't.

I checked the paper, an unpublished draft. The sample size of non-marital breakups is 279. Also, the question asked was "who wanted the breakup more" not "who initiated the breakup".

85 breakups were reported as mutual. That leaves only 194 breakups which were reported as wanted more by one side.

112 is the total number of breakups reported as wanted more by the woman. 82 is the number of breakups reported as wanted more by the man.

112/194 = 57.7%. Of a very small sample. With the wrong question asked.

Is this the best data we've got? If so, I am not sure we can conclude anything about breakup initiation outside of marriage.

Link to the paper: http://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rosenfeld_gender_of_breaku...

Note: It's not clear to me how the author got 56% and 53.4% as the weighted breakup wanted by women rate. It's possible I've made an error. But the Huffington post headline certainly seems unwarranted.

Been a while since I learned about choosing sample sizes, but if memory serves 279 is a really good set, assuming random selection.

That's a pretty insightful article. I wish I had that 20 years ago when I met my future ex-wife. Let's review my list:

1. we don't understand ourselves. (check.. plus). At least not then. 2. we don't understand other people. (check). I interpreted them as what I wanted them to be, not as they were. Note: all the little foibles and peccadilloes will add up. 3. we aren't used to being happy. (check). I was driven then and had been for so long. Suffering to me was success so being with an extremely difficult person was actually 'comfortable'.. or at least familiar. 4. being single is so awful. (no check). Being single was great then and now. (but it's harder with three kids..) Looking back, I was single living in NY..and have absolutely no idea why I got married... But this leads to.. 5. Instinct has too much Prestige. (CHECK CHECK). Love this line (and maybe I'm just too stupid to really know what it means), but I interpret it as 'I know what's right' (ostensibly). I really thought I knew what I was doing.. I was always such a know-it-all, did absolutely no homework on what really binds two people together and.. there you go.

Pretty much the same for me... I met my soon to be ex-wife 10 years ago, I was young, didn't know and understand myself. I've known that things weren't really right for already 6 years but I've tried to somehow change myself and her to improve things. Important to impose a time limit on that and you don't change the quirks of another person.

Now I know that I went into it too quickly, that our quirks do not match and that while I think she would be the perfect wife to someone else, she's not it for me.

How long were you married for and what was the final nail in the coffin?

It seems like there's never been a better time to be single, especially if you're living in one of the major cities. I have a lot of friends who say the same thing you said, having ''no idea'' why they got married; and when they say it they look truly befuddled as if they just woke up one day and accidentally found themselves in such a state.

I was married 15 years total.. the final nail was probably in the 10th year, I would say. In truth, having 'no idea' is wrong.. it's just that I had the wrong idea;).

The single most awful thing people do is treat love as an 'emotional' affair, something which is beyond reason. That when it happens, it happens, and when you're in a relationship, you must at all cost keep maintaining the sense of euphoria or else everything will be gone.

This would be equivalent of starting a business with someone not on the basis of the value proposition of the business, but based on how you emotionally like the idea, and then hiding all the losses and constantly trying to achieve the initial profit you saw.

After two failed relationships I started to treat love as a logical decision.

I stopped calling the feeling I get when meeting a new person I get attracted to as love. You know, "having a crush" on someone, wearing the pink-sunglasses, butterflies in the belly, or whatever they call it. Love is still about feelings for me, but about other feelings than those.

It's about being able to completely trust each other. About sharing experiences. About understanding. About learning and growing together. These are the things that make me continuously happy in a relationship for long time.

Sounds like the American economy.

This is a great article. There are some things it doesn't point out.

1) Marriage is a contract, but unlike most contracts, its terms and conditions can change at any time without the consent or knowledge of either party. That is to say, politicians decide the terms and conditions, and your marriage isn't grandfathered through with the laws in place at the time it was consummated.

2) As of today, the outcome of divorce (how assets are distributed) is overwhelmingly in favor of the female, assuming a mixed-gender marriage. This is one of the reasons for the large gap in divorce initiations: women profit far more, and thus more often end the marriage.

There are a couple more conclusions you can draw about whether you should do more due diligence on the person you're about to marry.

1) If you're female, you can be far less concerned. If it turns out to be the wrong guy, just divorce him. If anything, you'll get assets and a livable wage for no effort for years.

2) If you're male, you should be far more concerned. You need to do 10-50x more work vetting your future partner than your parents and grandparents did.

3) The divorce laws in 5 years may be completely different than today. Be sure to plan for how the political climate will change in the future.

I have been married more than once, so as you can imagine, I've had to put a lot of thought into this matter. The marriage that ended is responsible for reducing my wages, which should lead me to living comfortably in San Francisco, to being required to live with roommates. There is a large amount of danger involved in marriage, so make sure you understand the dangers before pulling the trigger.

EDIT: The reduction in income also has prevented me from working at several really great startups and instead having to slave at more profitable companies like ad networks etc. These go against my moral compass, so for me, at least, divorce also led to me having to contribute to increasing evil in the world. This is a huge personal hit that is hard to understate.

For men who had a bit of an awkward childhood (like, say, me, and perhaps some of you as well), perhaps the most important bit of advice about marriage is that your first serious relationship, should it happen to end, will not end up being the only one you ever have, and that "we've already been together for an appropriately long period of time" is not remotely a legitimate reason to get married.

Should there not be a very, very strong match - due to lack of shared values, mismatched libido, poor communication skills, whatever - then the appropriate thing to do is break it off, not limp along in an adequate-but-far-from-ideal state until length of tenure or the pressure of societal obligations compel you to the altar.

I agree with your last paragraph except for one point. Libido can and does change, but it's (from my experience) not controllable. OTOH, you can work on your communication skills, or even convince someone that, e.g. spending more money on trips than on clothing is better (i.e. influence one's values). Not even great communication between partners will fix a libido mismatch, it's not something that can be rationalized.

My wife had me buy her a poster this year which I have found to be particularly profound in a variety of life's situations. It says, simply "The grass is greener where you water it."

We've since had it framed.

While this post almost touched on the issue I believe the number one reason marriage is in trouble in the 21st century is due to media and societal glamorization of hedonism and selfishness.

Not mentioned in the post is the value that can only come from having a single mate for life and working through problems together (lightly mentioned as "growing together"). This idea became abhorrent in the 20th century, driven in large part by advertising but also the culture of the baby boomers.

Rock stars and groupies were glamorized. Men had immense media pressure on them to have multiple mates. Toward the end of the century women had the same pressure put on them with media like Sex and The City and Friends.

The documentary Century Of Self covers a lot of the root manipulation that created this situation, but the end result is a feeling of failure and shame for people with low partner counts.

There is "wrong person for you" and "wrong person for anyone". The latter, you must avoid at all costs.

What's the difference? If he/she is wrong for you, who cares if he/she isn't right for someone else?

Very little consolation (if any) if he/she turns out to be the right person for someone else.

In fact, the first thought I had on the matter is it's actually a little depressing if he/she turned out to be the right person for someone else and yet the two mistaken people suffered together for some number of years that could have been bliss with someone else.

What's the difference? Hmm, perhaps a car analogy. "Wrong car for you" might be a two-seater sporty thing, and you have five kids. "Wrong car for anyone" has brakes that suddenly stop working.

My ex wife was a Volvo station wagon whose brakes stopped working.

You can have a grown-up, amicable breakup with the wrong person for you.

The wrong person for anyone will destroy your life.

My grandparents met when they were both engaged to other people. The story goes that my grandfather came home that day and told his fiancee that: "I met another woman and while I do not know if she is the right one I have learned that you are the wrong one". He ended up marrying that woman he met that day and living happily together for more than sixty years. The fiancee found someone else and lived happily as well.

I don't think it matters much if someone is the wrong person for anyone. They are just as dangerous as the wrong person for yourself. If you are allergic to cats or peanuts who cares that other people enjoy them?

> They are just as dangerous as the wrong person for yourself.

Sure. Remember these words when someone drains your life savings to pay for a cocaine habit. :)

If you're able to see through people a mile away and completely avoid getting mixed up with ones who are either wrong or just wrong for you, then it doesn't make a difference.

I've got one word for all you lovebirds- roommates. Best (reversible) way to know your domestic faults. Distrust any potential romantic partner that hasn't lived with other people extensively. And in their adult lives, since in college most people aren't ready to do that kind of self-development. And distrust yourself if you haven't done the same, of course.

I thought this was pretty fantastic. I would say it nailed much of the reason I ended up marrying the wrong person.

However, denial was a HUGE part that doesn't come up here. Every time in the run-up to the wedding that I experienced something that made me want to call it off, I told myself it was just cold feet, that all guys think that stuff. Denial. But I suppose this is more or less covered by the part about not knowing oneself. Definitely learned a lot about myself since then.

Two more things:

1) It's really not hard to get laid in your 30s. I outright disagree with that part.

2) For me at least, the divorce itself was nowhere near the emotional blow of realizing that I was married to someone who was wrong for me. Carrying that burden inside was soul-destroying. Talking in counseling about what wasn't working, and then ultimately getting divorced, was nowhere near as bad as that. But, I was only married for two years. It probably sucks a lot worse when you've bought a house and had babies and stuff.

This site seems to be derived (or even created by as, it reminds me of his style) Alain de Botton's work -- author of many interesting modern philosophy books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_de_Botton

Yup, he helped found The School of Life, which is responsible for this website.

Out of curiosity, did you read the content and not read anything about the source? The first thought I had when I saw the domain name was huh, who is telling me to live my life this way.

> Back in the olden days, marriage was a rational business ...

It still is for 80% of the world population.

> We are still traumatised by this.

I don't think that 80% of the world population would be traumatized. Arranged marriages work absolutely fine. It is rather the alternative that is in doubt.

Agreed... ITT there is a good amount of presumption that the natural and appropriate motivation for decisions is personal actualization and short horizon victory.

E.g. contention that it's so good to be single today, why would you even consider getting married?

The answer to those in a prolonged adolescence with such a view is: because there may be more to life than yourself. The first thing that changes when you _have kids_ is that you should no longer be your own top priority.

Thank god neurobiology forces reorganization of imperatives as much as it does...! :)

I searched the article and found only one mention of "money".

My hypothesis is that libido mismatch and inability to reach consensus on household budgeting are the two strongest root causes for failed marriages.

There was distinct libido mismatch which ultimately deteriorated into an effective 'weapon', if you will (if you do this, you won't get that, kind of thing). Money was never a problem. I suspect money is Often used as convenient excuse hiding something more sinister (or prosaic like in my case, we just never loved one another )

It's easier to live with being broke if your sexual needs are being met.

If you're broke and sexually unfulfilled, that's not going to last.

Or even if you have money and are sexually unfulfilled. I'm pretty sure for myself, a libido mismatch was a contributing factor for some of our issues. We do fine, not in the 1%, but certainly in the 5-6% (household income ~140k in a not terrible cost of living area).

Our times of interest were even wonky. I get tired at night and lose interest, that's when she wanted it. I liked it in the morning (after brushing the teeth), she likes to sleep in as much as possible (After a kid, that means until he/she wakes up).

And she was quick to reach (sorry if this is TMI, lol), while I took a bit longer, and she was extra sensitive after and... uh, dried up so it became painful for her after she got hers.

After awhile, sex become uninteresting if you are the one not getting fulfilled, and the marriage suffers. No amount of money fixes that.

Tmi!

I'm not willing to go into detail but my divorce was very much about sexual incompatibility.

I think there might be simpler explanation. Consider that starting and especially leaving a relationship has major time and emotional costs. So we're simply biased to commit to anyone we happen to be with. Similar to why we work the wrong job, for example.

That certainly plays a role.

This was painful - I read the first point, skimmed the second and forwarded reading a sentence of each point further down the line.

Anyone giving out bullet points about marriage needs to back it up with some credentials - who are you to be making these statements?

This comes across a lot like self-help advice from someone needing some help.

'Learn by teaching' is a disaster in the making - you simply don't have the life experience to teach anyone anything but what a thousand thoughts going in a thousand different directions look like.

The heavy-intellectualizing of this post and the pomposity of 'book of life' - please take a look in the mirror and humble yourself, whoever the author may be :)

Umm shared experiences mainly.

There is so much wrong with the first section of the article, I could only put up with skimming the rest. The only thing I learned from the first section was not to marry the author.

Your comment would be a lot more valuable if you replaced "There is so much wrong" with specifics.

"Sex is hard to come by as well. For all the new gadgets and supposed freedoms of modernity, it can be very hard to get laid – and expecting to do so regularly with new people is bound to end in disappointment after 30."

I feel so sad reading this as I feel that my marriage is in the final stages and will end soon - regardless of what I want. I have a 6 and 3 yr old who I will do anything for but carrying on in marriage won't work and I don't have the final say if things are to end. Does anyone know some online groups or forums to talk through these issues? I'm not US-based but still would value the chance to talk to people in the same situation.

thanks.

These are the two things that led to the dissolution of a six year relationship.

- how can one raise children with them - how can one develop together

Seems like the biggest thing of all is forgotten here - people change. Even if you marry the right person, they won't be that same person a year out and you won't be either so it doesn't really matter who you married or who you were when you married. Sure there are some people who are really really wrong for one another but outside of that, everyone is going to "marry the wrong person". If they're not the wrong person when you marry them, just wait longer. There's a book that covers this as well as a lot of other misnomers on marriage and how to work through them, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0054TVVPK

I did much of what this guy did:

http://www.danoah.com/2012/10/16-ways-i-blew-my-marriage.htm...

At this rate, I'll likely never marry since I have a hard enough time knowing myself in general (not a joke, since I'm trans and dealing with my gender identity now at 35 it really sucks to meet people in social settings). Oh well, I can always just have a cat to feed and pet.

I am from a different school. I got married because I had to. The myriad questions of "incompatibility" were never given accommodation in both of our minds. Period.

Moral: I am not so special so as not to be able to accommodate another person !

Have to say I really like the layout and color scheme of the site and I like the general "life advice" theme as well.

What if we made a git-backed / wiki style site like this where anyone could contribute and the best "life advice" would rise to the top?

I'm sure there are a variety of subreddits you could combine into a multireddit that would serve this purpose. /r/diy, /r/lifeprotips, and /r/personalfinance all come to mind.

its simple... men need sex, women need children.. its hard wired. and eventually these needs go out of alignment

this was a lot of rambling nonsense

Why even comment with such a lackluster critique?

the truth is sometimes expressed better simply

WHY

ALL

THE

DOWNVOTES!?!?!

HMM?????????

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