Common Itera! We aren’t that bad 
12 but I’ve been w shorty for over half my life starting last year.
yep. Best marketing job ever in any industry.
I was married 6 years, 9 months. When my marriage was good, it was awesome, but when it turned bad, it became something that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Passed the two-year anniversary of my divorce a few days ago. It’s a happy anniversary. Things are good, and I’d like to get married again someday.
Life will never go how you plan, but it does go on.
^was it a ‘we should have never gotten married’ thing, or something that happened during the marriage that changed things?
7 years.
Me too. What if…no, it’s impossible.
Similar story here. I was married for just over six years. I am coming up on two years since my divorce. I would love to get married again as I do enjoy relationships, plus I do want kids. However, if it never happens and I remain single for the rest of my life I am ok with that as being in a bad marriage was one of the loneliest times in my life. I felt helpless and I remember those days vividly.
The short version is that people change.
I think sometimes about a conversation we had after being married about a year. Didn’t go well, and while I didn’t consciously form this thought at the time, I think that was the first moment when I realized I’d possibly married the wrong person. Four years later I was damn sure of it.
^You mind sharing what the conversation was about?
This is kind of scary. No matter how much time you spend finding the “right” person, you never know who you end up being married to five years down the road.
If you expect the person you’re marrying to never change, you’re going to be in for a lot of disappointment. You (both) need to be all in on the idea of staying together forever regardless of what happens, and then you’ll both work together to maximise the utility of that arrangement. That’s what folks should strive for, IMO. It’s not “hey this person is hot/cool/whatever and I like to be with them today,” but “I trust this person’s core values and I think I can handle big changes over time.” Because life changes big in the long game, especially if you’re having kids. Look for a partner for the worst times, not a partner for the best times. Anyone can be a pleasure to be with when times are good.
^bingo. an underated but important factor in success of a marriage is emotional resiliency and mutual commitment to work on issues. it’s an easy put option these days to get divorced so too many people choose to throw in the towel at the first sign of real difficulty. i bet a lot of people who make that decision end up reducing their quality of life in the long run.
14 and a half years…
^ +1
I agree with everything you said but at the end of the day you control only half of the equation. The rest is a huge leap of faith.
Well that’s the whole point. You have to seek out the right qualities
Well with that being said, there is probably a way to minimize risk of bad times happening, as well as predicting how someone will react to bad times. If your spouse has a good career and good education, for instance, maybe this reduces “bad times risk” from 30% to 15% or whatever. How someone might react to emotional stress might be reflected in indicators like divorce rate in the person’s family (shows degree of emotional support) or other things. Someone can probably do a multiple factor regression on various people and come up with a rating - George is AA2 marriage material - or something like that. Dating review might also be the next big thing on Yelp - remember you read it here first.
I think I heard that in a Cordell and Cordell commercial.