What does success mean to you exactly? If success is only finding the love of your life and getting married than everything else in your life will be a failure which sounds profoundly depressing.
In those "unsuccessful" years, did you have any fun dates? Interesting sex? Exciting flings? Because connecting with another person in those ways should be considered amazing successes!
1 date? 10 dates? Marriage? Marriage without a divorce? Marriage despite a divorce?
You ask anyone off the street and they'll say "Yeah, of course I want a successful relationship; I don't want an unsuccessful one". But we can't seem to agree on a good definition.
We never came to a conclusion on that road trip and I still don't have a satisfying answer. $FLAVOR_OF_THE_WEEK promises "success" implicitly, but we never ask then what they mean by that.
Maybe it's really just an opportunity to ask "what do I _really_ want?"