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I have a feeling that your response, just like OP's is an emotional one, based on experiences you've had in life. In my 50 years on earth, I've witnessed all 4 kinds of marriages.

1. Unhappy couple that stayed together and worked out their problems

2. Unhappy couple that stayed together and remained miserable

3. Unhappy couple that split and are happy with their decision

4. Unhappy couple that split and now regret having done that

You cannot deny that there's beauty in 1, and I think when you made your comment number 2 is probably what was going through your mind.

In any case I did connect with OPs comment, and do think that things have value because they last long. People don't optimize for happiness in life, they optimize for other abstract concepts like fulfillment and purpose etc. Marriage and family can give a great sense of purpose and more fulfillment than any fleeting romance (or selfish decision-making). Life is long and full of ups and downs, marriage (just like religion and children) can serve as a great anchor point.

My post wasn't really shaped by any particular experience, but I did have 2 in mind, as well as 3; not a specific case in mind, but more a point that they do exist, and that they aren't any less likely or worth considering.

I think that all four options are definitely possible, but that people have a bias for maintaining their circle of comfort, and justify that fear of the unknown.

As for

>You cannot deny that there's beauty in 1

I do deny it; or to be clear, I think it is a story that we've been conditioned to prefer over the others, with sometimes disastrous results for everyone involved. I see the same beauty in any other option that ends up with a person living a great life they don't regret.

I think we'd have a better world if people focused on finding their best possible life without a notion that this choice is the default, more likely option for a live well lived.

> I do deny it; or to be clear, I think it is a story that we've been conditioned to prefer over the others

Speaking personally, and perhaps it is indeed my conditioning, but at 25+ years of marriage I am living that beauty in 1 every day and I know without a doubt it has led me to my best possible life.

Also speaking personally, I know more divorced couples than married couples, and have seen a married partner (who has a child) cheat on their spouse for going on a decade “because it’s the path of least resistance.” Also saw someone during a divorce light $100k on fire (from combined assets) in lawyer fees just to spite the other person (who had exhausted all options in attempting to repair the relationship before asking for the divorce).

Everyone is winging it, and the only beauty is in finding happiness while causing the least harm to others (imho). Do the best you can with the information you have, maybe it works out, maybe it doesn’t.

I don't mean to devalue your experience, nor imply that it is somehow less valid due to it happening to be our society's default "happy ending", for clarification.

If the default happens to work for you, that's awesome, and in fact it's probably what will work for most people - otherwise it wouldn't be the default.

I'm just against considering alternative ways of finding happiness or purpose as consolation prizes, bittersweet stories, or somehow less valuable or beautiful than others. There's effort in keeping a marriage working for decades; there's also effort in daring to leave an unhappy comfort zone to find better ways, or simply to learn to live life in your own terms if "the one" never appears for you.

Marriage is a mutual help commitment. A world with strong mutual help commitments is better than a world where people abandon each other at the first difficulty. So I try to make that world a reality through my actions. It's partly prosocial, partly for my wife and kids' sake, and partly for my own.

IMHO the issue is that society tells couples that 1 is the ideal outcome, creating plenty of 2s who believe they will eventually become 1s if they just keep trying. Some of those couples might be happier as 3s.

I believe both 1 and 3 are preferable to 2 or 4, so I don't find this trope particularly helpful. It doesn't really matter if 1 is best or not, since it's not going to be possible for everyone.

One way to look at it is, are you optimizing for a local maximum of personal happiness, when you'd actually have a more happy and fulfilling lifetime by optimizing it for the both of you (a la Nash equilibrium)?

Another way to look at it, constraints breed creativity. You sometimes come up with better solutions when you don't have total freedom.

Does constraint really breed freedom? It seems obviously true but has there been any studies on this subject?

Traffic signals and constraints help people travel in more freedom.

It's honestly so trite to say that it's not worth studying. More accurately, constraints _can_ breed creativity. They can certainly also squash it. The only reason it's worth saying the former is that sometimes people forget because it is nonintuitive.

My paternal grandparents were married 68 years.

My maternal grandparents had been divorced and remarried three times.

Guess which set were happier with their station in life when I knew them? In my experience, pursuing your immediate happiness at the expense of long term fulfillment is a losing wager every time.

Happy to try to explain. But, we are really getting into deeper waters of worldview and foundational values. Where we land on such things is rarely solely objective or analytical, so I'll just try to explain where I'm at, recognizing that it won't be satisfying or sufficient for others. I appreciate the sensitive/personal nature of these things, as you note, and your comments.

My worldview has been shaped by the Bible and, specifically, a reformed evangelical theology. Inherent to that worldview is the belief that my life is not my own, I was designed for a purpose, and my life will have the most meaning (not necessarily the most happiness) when I operate to fulfill that purpose.

> I can't see why you would want to remain less happy (or more miserable) that you'd otherwise potentially be

I don't believe one's personal happiness is a sufficient measurement to optimize one's life around. My worldview is shaped by different questions than, "Does this make me happy?" Even though this belief is, for me, rooted in religion, I actually think there is plenty of evidence for the truly objective to recognize the danger inherent in maximizing that metric.

I have biblical "justifications" for those ideas and for the adjectives I use (honorable, wise, beautiful), but a full defense is beyond what can reasonably be discussed here. "The Meaning of Marriage" by Tim Keller or "Sacred Marriage" by Gary Thomas would further elaborate on these ideas specifically in the context of marriage. TBH, I wasn't really trying to justify my beliefs in the parent comment b/c It's too hard in this context. I just figured I'd share what I thought and let the upvotes and downvotes work it out. :)

I'm not advocating commitment to marriage simply for the sake that it ends up being long lasting. I think there are benefits to the spouses, the children, and to society to not only stick it out, but to work on improving it. One of the things that I guess didn't come out clearly in my original comment was that, if you are in the marriage for life, and you are going to honor that commitment, it's a great reason to invest in that marriage and make it as good as it can be.

> I'd say that even if that is often true, it is often difficult to tell trials and sacrifices apart from refusal to move on.

When moving on is simply not an option, there's no debate, no wrestling. It's not refusal, really. It's more like war. I'm not surprised by the war, by the trial...by the hardship and sacrifice necessary. But I am committed to not leaving my partner behind..we'll go through it together, till death do us part. I think there's glory in that...I think most people feel it and want to be a part of a story like that. I think our attraction to such things is built in, wired into how God has made us. But when we celebrate self and personal happiness, that attraction gets re-wired, and as a society and as individuals we start loving attitudes and actions that really aren't lovable. Things that, in war, we would usually call cowardice.

Not every deserter in wartime is a coward and not every person who gets divorced is selfish. My wife was married and divorced before we met and were married. Complexity exists, wisdom needs to be used, my intention is not to judge. My goal is simply to share the perspective that commitment and steadfast love are better than selfishness. That optimizing for personal happiness is a bad metric. I hope that some will be able to hear and embrace that message...will be able to sense the honor and glory inherent in that perspective, even if I can't well articulate an objective analytical justification for it.

Thanks for the dialogue.

Ah, if your beliefs are rooted in religion then there's not much we can discuss to find a common agreement, since we're starting from very different axioms.

> I don't believe one's personal happiness is a sufficient measurement to optimize one's life around. (...)I actually think there is plenty of evidence for the truly objective to recognize the danger inherent in maximizing that metric.

I do agree that there are more things to take into account than personal happiness, to guide one's life - I could see for example how someone would sacrifice their life for a better cause for example. I just don't see any moral reason that would apply here, since the act of breaking the vows doesn't harm anyone if both partners are in a position of unhappiness. I do see however how you can see those moral reasons there, since marriage for you it's more than a symbol that you want to commit to the relationship, and it has religious implications.

> I think there are benefits to the spouses, the children, and to society to not only stick it out, but to work on improving it. One of the things that I guess didn't come out clearly in my original comment was that, if you are in the marriage for life, and you are going to honor that commitment, it's a great reason to invest in that marriage and make it as good as it can be.

I partially agree, and to be clear I wouldn't defend the position of not fighting to get the marriage to work. I just think that some of the reasons why marriages no longer work are simply not fixable by putting in effort, and that the belief that there must necessarily be a fix if only you work harder can be dangerous to - people can end up in a position where not only they remain unhappy, but also exhausted from their sacrifices and accumulate feelings of guilt since if the marriage doesn't work is because they haven't done enough.

> Ah, if your beliefs are rooted in religion then there's not much we can discuss to find a common agreement, since we're starting from very different axioms.

IMO, much of the world's arguments are a result of starting from very different axioms. I feel like too often people don't realize those "axioms" or as I would put it, those worldviews, are the real source of the disagreement. The actual disagreements themselves are just a result of approaching life or the particular issue with very different set of foundational beliefs and values.

But finding common agreement is, perhaps, not required or even the most valuable outcome. I believe there is value in simply being able to have those discussions, reasonably...respectfully, even if agreement itself is elusive.