Why most marriages fail

Lift_and_Lurk · 2024-06-28T18:13:24+00:00

The reason most marriages fail is because one or both sides let unresolved issues seethe and fester into resentment instead of talking it out and working it out.

EulenWatcher · 2024-06-28T19:33:30+00:00

I don't think a lot of people would be interested in marriage if they view it purely as a contract to raise kids. That's just not appealing as well as a whole idea of bringing up kids to a possible loveless and joyless marriage.

40% of first marriages fail. The most commonly cited reasons are too many arguments, a lack of commitment, marrying too early, infidelity, financial issues, gambling, alcoholism, addictions, abuse. It seems a lot of people marry partners who just won't be good partner long-term and a lot of people are these bad long-term partners in the first place.

I view marriage as a way to confirm our intentions and make the state to see us as a family unit and not just two strangers living together. Practically it didn't change anything and my husband and my expectations from our relationship stayed the same. We're partners, lovers and friends. In the future we probably will be parents as well. It takes some efforts and sometimes it takes a lot of efforts (usually due to outside stress), but we've managed to keep up with the expectations so far.

Good_Result2787 · 2024-06-28T18:15:05+00:00

I'd be willing to take a crack at this but you don't really outline in your multiple paragraphs why you think marriage was "designed" specially in only this basic way you describe. One could say "marriage was designed to facilitate alliances, but only if both sides had sufficient assets to benefit each other" and that would also be true, but not the whole story.

Marriage (or any committed relationship) is still considered work by almost everyone, BTW. It's just that relatively few people want to pair up with people they neither love nor like just to raise kids with that person. That actually still happens, and it tends not to be amazing for the kids.

wtknight · 2024-06-28T18:39:40+00:00

It should go without saying, that no one person can be all of those things to anyone else and this is why marriages fail. We want it to be more than it is and so we expect our partners to be more than they are.

Some marriages work, though. So obviously those people are capable of being all of those things to another person.

Some people are just better at marriage than others, or better at choosing the right person for marriage.

N-Zoth · 2024-06-28T18:20:35+00:00

Loving someone and being loved in return is one of the most natural and human things you can do. What the hell is this post even about?

velvetalocasia · 2024-06-28T18:45:17+00:00

The bars you set for marriage and your job are in hell….I can’t see how this would not lead to major disappointment.

floridorito · 2024-06-28T18:32:34+00:00

I think they more often fail because people ignore (or are unaware of) various incompatibilities - especially ones that are seemingly small and insignificant but are where the rubber meets the road in a relationship. Others fail because over time people change and grow in different directions and start to want different things, even though they may have initially wanted similar things.

Sharp_Engineering379 · 2024-06-28T18:43:40+00:00

Marriage wasn't designed to be both a structure for raising kids and a container for passion and fullfilment

Please post the opt out form.

No woman in her right mind would sign up to serve as on call 24/7 gestator/sex toy/ birther/breastfeeder/maid/nurse/teacher/secretary/cook/lover/chauffeur/cheerleader/coach/tutor/facilitator/therapist/shopper/manager/whore/ if she isn't also receiving passion and fulfillment, while the husband merely works the same 40 hour job he worked when single and occasionally tosses a ball in the yard with his son?

Financial_Leave4411 · 2024-06-28T18:56:34+00:00

“ Marriage wasn’t designed to be both a structure for raising kids and a container for passion and fulfillment.”

If that’s too much to ask for then it looks like them kids gotta go!

<image>

“ …the love, the romance, the exclusivity, the religiosity, the sacrifice, the security, the legal status, the social consequences, the financial incentives…”

Are worth so much more. So if there is too much weight on marriage then the kids need to be the first thing you cross off the list. Clearly both parties need to have the time and energy to dedicate to each other and their relationship before making things complicated with kids as clearly the relationship isn’t stable enough for kids if you can’t manage the other core values of a relationship first.

CraftyCooler · 2024-06-28T20:00:54+00:00

Marriages fail usually because people marry too early, in some countries it's domestic violence and alcohol, quite often it's different vision of partnership.

In general divorce rate is falling - people marry later in life, crazy feminists are choosing the bear(poor animal - does not deserve such a cruel fate of being in the same forest with feminists), and people are better educated and independent so it's easier for them to set boundaries and communicate.

topyTheorist · 2024-06-28T18:29:17+00:00

Most marriage do not fail. US statistics says that first marriage end in divorce 43 percent of the time, so majority of people who get married stay together until death.

jay10033 · 2024-06-28T18:54:33+00:00

A Lamborghini can't be a minivan

A Lamborghini in fact can be a minivan.

harmonica2 · 2024-06-28T19:38:51+00:00

Do most really fail though? I live in Canada and it seems like only 20% of married people I know are getting divorced, but maybe the rates are higher in the US?

apresonly · 2024-06-28T19:14:26+00:00

the exclusivity

haha if you're not offering exclusivity i dont think most women are gonna think the juice is worth the squeeze

Love-Is-Selfish · 2024-06-28T20:02:52+00:00

At the end of the day, marriage was built to provide a context for people to come together and raise children, that's it.

Even if this is true, why should we accept the purpose that someone else designed marriage for? It doesn’t mean that marriage should always be for that purpose someone else designed it for. It doesn’t mean marriage shouldn’t or couldn’t serve a better purpose.

Marriage wasn't designed to be both a structure for raising kids and a container for passion and fullfilment. It just doesn't make any sense.

Nonsense. Marriage is great for people who love each other, and people who love each other enough to get married are exactly the sort of people who should be having children together.

For instance, a job is designed to provide people with an avenue to earn money in exchange for a service,

The same thing here. Why should we accept someone else’s designs?

kisforkat · 2024-06-28T20:50:12+00:00

At the end of the day, marriage was built to provide a context for people to come together and raise children, that's it.

Whelp, better tell my husband we need to get divorced, since we can't have kids.

Wtf even is this reasoning? Where did you learn marriage was for children? It's for establishing legal rights, duties, and responsibilities as a committed couple in the eyes of the government.

And even if you are speaking historically, that isn't necessarily true either. Marriage was just as much a way to arrange alliances between families and delineate property rights.

Rezboy209 · 2024-06-28T22:02:47+00:00

If my wife wasn't also my best friend I wouldn't be with her. I don't want to be married to someone I am not in love with or Someone I don't like to hang out with.

purplish_possum · 2024-06-29T01:18:23+00:00

Sort of agree. Marriages fail when one person (usually the man) doesn't meet the other person's expectations (usually the woman's). Over the last several decades women's expectations have been becoming more and more unreasonable.

AcephalicDude · 2024-06-28T18:38:24+00:00

I kind of agree, but also I think that at a certain age it is appropriate to let go of the desire for passionate love.

(Disclaimer: by "passionate love" I am not referring to sexual desire, or just wanting to fuck other people. I am talking more about that butterflies-in-the-stomach, love-at-first-sight feeling.)

In the first place, it is very normal for people to lose the capacity for that feeling completely. As we accumulate life experiences we become overexposed to people's bullshit and we come to realize that initial attraction and infatuation is always a mirage. Underneath the superficial stuff is always a fundamentally flawed person that you can learn to love, but that reckless feeling of love-at-first-sight becomes harder to buy into as you age.

Also, I think when a lot of older couples get divorced, they are usually doing it to escape all of the negatives of the marriage rather than to pursue new opportunities for passion. They might fool themselves into thinking that they can find passion with someone new once they are freed from their ball-and-chain, but they usually end up finding out that nothing feels the same as it did when they were younger. When they end up with a new partner, it is usually someone they can feel comfortable with - it becomes more about compatibility and stability than passion.

eli_ashe · 2024-06-28T18:54:58+00:00

i think i largely disagree with what i am taking to be the main premise of your argument; that marriages weren't meant to be about love.

i just don't see much evidence of this historically. while there has always been a tension between limited mate selection (marrying within small villages being a historical norm), and raising babies was always a part of the package, historically at any rate love, sexuality, and marriage have always been interconnected.

in arranged marriages one is supposed to grow to love one's spouse for instance. they aren't understood or viewed as aromantic relationships, they are understood and viewed as the context within which loves blossoms.

setting aside this point, i actually tend to agree with OP that there is far too much that is put on marriages, and this is why they tend to fail. this stems in part from its monogamy requirements (something that made far more sense in pre-effective birth control times), in part from the modern notions of nuclear families (compared to extended family living), and general social isolationism which stems from a wide variety of social realities.

Folks could understand OP's claim as a problem with heteronormativity, which prioritizes heterosexual relationships above all others. be those other relationships sexual in nature, or merely friendships.

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qunamax · 2024-06-28T19:21:04+00:00

Because it's normalized. Marriages are nowadays treated as any relationship, no weight to it, it's totally devalued and people don't fight to make it work.

OkStruggle8364 · 2024-06-28T20:33:10+00:00

How’s the breakup going lad?

goo_wak_jai · 2024-06-28T20:40:42+00:00

That just seems like a very myopic, rigid way of viewing things. I guess in an ideal world, each 'type of thing' should only fulfill just one function. But...even under that paradigm, you'll quickly find yourself in a conundrum where you can only have one of each type of thing to fulfill that singular, isolated function--assuming that you can even easily obtain it in the first place. At which point, if you cannot obtain it for whatever reason--then you're literally SOL.

If the function of marriage is just to combine two individuals under common law--then that's it. You cannot have any expectations or assurances beyond this singular, isolated function. That means no alimony or child support in the event of a divorce, that means no expectations of wife or husband responsibilities, etc.

I'm using just "one type of thing to one function" to illustrate that it doesn't matter what that arbitrary number is under the paradigm that you just defined.

If Mother Nature had not intended it this way, humans wouldn't be able to do a myriad of competing interests all at once and all at the same time with minimal to no cognitive dissonance. Evolution made it possible for us to be all of our base functions and beyond. Much beyond. So I don't think most marriages fail because a person is unable to be all of those things to make it work. It isn't a 'capacity problem'. The problem is a misperception or a series of misperceptions that lead one to believe that it's a capacity problem. It's not. Everyone has the capacity to be as many things as it takes to make a marriage work. Not everyone has the willingness to sacrifice or compromise--that is the crux of most failed marriages--this is especially the case when one or the other or both parties have the misperception that they have the upper hand in the marriage, whether real or perceived and act accordingly to that perception.

bluestjuice · 2024-06-28T21:01:44+00:00

The problem with these wide-view analyses of marriage is that marriage has always adapted to the values and mores of the time and place in which they were occurring. Aside from ‘social formalization of the relationship between Lazslo and Nadja,’ it’s varied endlessly.

I think it’s probably true that in the 21st western world marriage carries a much larger element of mutual care and support than it has in other, more interconnected communities. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to talk about these ideas and consider other ways we could go about having those needs met. I just have a really hard time with rhetoric like ‘marriage was designed’ because it wasn’t ever really designed, it just evolved according to the attitudes of the moment.

hongsta2285 · 2024-06-29T00:20:26+00:00

Lol most marriage fail due to familiarity of boredom

And the degeneracy of social media

The amount of idiots that look at social media of losers pretending to have their best lives is really pathetic.

And when u have groups of clowns fake posting living their best lives . U feel like wow I'm in a dead end relationship.

I've seen this many times lol loser couples that post living their best lives on Facebook meanwhile a wee while down the track they divorced...

Usually it's all a facade and show but it really shows The pure brain rot and utter sheer stupidity of escapism of the modern foolish people. They think it's a soap drama

Everyone's life should be aiming for stable house car job debt free. Finances sorted. No issues with family brothers sisters mom's dads grannies. Chilled life just peaceful uneventful and comfortable. To me that's a great life

Everyone has their own definition. Decide how u want to use your time wisely

MissLute · 2024-06-29T01:51:01+00:00

‘Most’? I thought divorce rates were declining

IcyTrapezium · 2024-06-29T02:26:47+00:00

Most marriages fail because of built up resentments and when communication is laden with the Gottman’s four horsemen:

Criticism Contempt Defensiveness Stonewalling

TheDwiin · 2024-06-29T06:03:38+00:00

The reason marriages fail is because people change.

One example could be one or both are tired of the minor annoyances that are building up in a relationship causing the love they once felt to turn into resentment.

Another example is two adults just realize that they're no longer romantically compatible, and amicably divorce.

Another still is there are direct conflicts of how to do certain things that you didn't think about before getting married, such as how to do certain chores, the importance of certain chores, or rearing children.

And even further, sometimes people fall in love again with other people, and either leave their spouse for that other person, or start an affair.

But you are wrong, marriage is not about children, at least not anymore.

throwaway1276444 · 2024-06-29T13:53:11+00:00

Loving parents raise the healthiest kids. Parents who are roommates tend to raise depressed kids.

tendrils87 · 2024-06-28T19:25:29+00:00

Most marriages fail for a few simple reasons. Many women marry to have their #BigDAY and many men marry to lock down a pussy. The problem is, one or both parties begins to coast thinking they reached the ultimate goal. Both parties need to 1) be responsible as it is a group unit now 2) maintain attraction whether it be physical or behavioral. When one or both of those things fall to the wayside, the marriage fails. You're misrepresenting your argument because your starting point of the purpose of marriage is false.

AnonishCath · 2024-06-28T20:45:18+00:00

You know you get to choose your spouse, right? You can pick someone you’re in love with and experience all those wonderful things with one person. What you’re describing is a miserable lifestyle. Why bother raising kids with someone you dislike that much in the first place? Or why bother getting married at all if you only want to knock up a woman and expect nothing else from her/give nothing in return? You claim love, exclusivity, sacrifice, security, etc are too big a burden, but the majority of married couples would disagree.

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624Seeds · 2024-06-28T21:19:50+00:00

Marriages fail because

One partner no longer depends 100% on the other to provide a life for them.
Women have more work opportunities and have the confidence that they can support themselves if they are no longer happy or in an abusive situation
Religious indoctrination is less and less a factor. People are waiting to marry for love, instead of rushing to marry just so they can have sex with their first partner and then staying because divorce is a sin.
Marriage is just a way to legalize a long term relationship to get benefits.

People have no problem believing their spouses should not only be their co-parents but also their best friends, and their passionate lovers, and their coaches and their cheerleaders, and their drinking buddies, and their therapists, and their biggest fans, and their trophies etc etc.

Sounds like a best friend to me. This is what marriage should be, not a contract or a job. You should absolutely be an equitable parent to your children, you should absolutely be your spouse's best friend, their lover, their buddy when they want to go out, their supporter. And obviously this means that they're doing the same for you.

Marriages fail because some people think human relationships should be just a contract with certain roles and duties for each person, and no love or passion or commitment.

I'm speaking as someone in a 10 year relationship with two kids with my best friend. No religion or set-in-stone gender roles to make it a transactional relationship.

VWGUYWV · 2024-06-28T21:43:58+00:00

Marriage and lifetime monogamy are a social technology independently invented in multiple places to create a more stable civilization where most men invest and to provide a stable unit for child rearing.

It was never had people’s happiness as a goal.

Now people think everything should be for their happiness. Hilarity ensues.

2024-06-28T22:29:20+00:00

I notice instead of you elaborating on reasons why marriages fail, you spend a lot of time speaking in anonolgies.

Marriage is a lot. It's the unity between 2 people, 2 self actualized adults who have their own world views, opinions, morals, values, interests, and ways of living. Take that, n morph it together into one shared life where where both ppl still value being their own person, but also must compromise a few things in the name of love n their spouse/family.

Are you someone who's ever experienced a failing marriage?

firefangled · 2024-06-28T22:36:13+00:00

Marriage was designed as a financial transaction to solidify the continuation of a family line and perpetuate the human race. The people who lived in community and not in a silo with a partner prospered because they realized a marriage is not enough to satisfy the soul and support the body.

tiddermacss · 2024-06-28T23:32:36+00:00

marriage is a legal/financial contract first and foremost.. wake up and smell the coffee

hearyoume14 · 2024-06-29T00:14:09+00:00

I was just watching that video OP. Marriage, for me, is a financial arrangement for the raising of kids. I'm infertile anyway and I have been on the side of getting rid of the legal arrangement as it is. To be fair I kind of forget that it exists as I only acknowledge it when I have no other choice.

The idea that a spouse has to be your everything gets toxic. In my experience, exclusivity goes beyond just being faithful to each other. All of the other traits switch from coming from the outside at all and go directly between the couple in my experience. I know married couples that just disappear until the divorce happens.

Apathy may be one of the four horsemen but not having a life outside of the relationship is certainly a footman.

Sure_Tourist1088 · 2024-06-29T00:18:52+00:00

Most marriages fail because they include one woman. Include two and they fail even quicker.

Modern women are largely unsatisfiable.

deedabs · 2024-06-29T00:32:41+00:00

You can’t turn a Lamborghini into a minivan… but if you nurture, enjoy, and put effort into it? You can treasure it for the entirety of its life. True Teamwork? True Partnership until the end for one of us? I’ll take it.

Stoic_Beau · 2024-06-29T01:43:49+00:00

Extremely well said. More people need to look within and internally realize this when they deliberately choose to have a marriage with someone. It's a partnership for two whole individuals.

jivesenior · 2024-06-29T02:22:41+00:00

Great post. You speak the truth. Great stuff.

thetruthishere_ · 2024-06-29T05:38:15+00:00

I think most fail as they failed to truly vet, family pressure, societal pressure, their own unresolved issues, etc.

I think most marry hoping it does last.

Pressures to marry and have babies like its the only way to have a good life is still very much alive today even though we have a choice. Its very alive in this sub.

ObviousRises · 2024-06-29T10:44:00+00:00

Marriage fail because people don't communicate or have enough sex. Also because no-fault divorce made it easy for women to divorce men and take EVERYTHING from them and ruin their lives. Divorce is $$$$ for women easily.

daddysgotanew · 2024-06-29T12:42:02+00:00

Yea no shit.

This is why you never get married. Ever.

ugohome · 2024-06-29T15:57:07+00:00

Marriages fail cuz human sexuality isn't for life

letstalk1st · 2024-06-29T18:23:06+00:00

The 4 horsemen. Gottman. Marriage and/or commitment isn't that complex to understand. Making it work is hard because we need to change and grow, and too often we don't. The problem is us, not them.

philseven12 · 2024-06-29T21:21:02+00:00

Most marriages fail cuz women get bored easily and blame their idle mind and lack of purpose on the man. Then they go seek out attention from other men

ProfessionalOld4596 · 2024-06-29T23:52:48+00:00

Is this Dr. Orion Teraban?

PapaiPapuda · 2024-06-30T03:49:29+00:00

This is some weird American Christian idiocy

Poor marriages fail at the highest rate. End thread

No-Rough-7390 · 2024-06-30T13:07:07+00:00

Marriage is, inherently, a duty based institution.

The definition and cultural meaning of it has strayed so far from what it was meant to be that it’s not really shocking it doesn’t function.

The number of people who go into it knowing the entailments and actually being prepared for a multitude of legitimately hard times that don’t necessarily just last a week or month but longer is minimal.

Bake into it an unconscionable contract for men where the other side can actually make out way better off should it fail, along with divorce or a shitty marriage being more of the norm than the inverse, and here we are.

nofaplove-it · 2024-06-30T15:58:05+00:00

Most marriages fail because of finances

Barneysparky · 2024-06-28T20:55:24+00:00

From the comments I see here I'd bet why most marriages fail is men thinking that having no standards expect for looks and degree of previous chasity is a virtue.

From the real world it's a variety of reasons, From family background (unstable homes) that lead to insecure attachment, to marrying to young and becoming very different people, to not getting to know each other because of a rushed marriage, to mental illness, to addiction, etc.

Some divorced couples have all those things!

SaBahRub · 2024-06-28T22:57:30+00:00

If you’re expecting a housewife to be a hoe, sure, you’re going to be disappointed

But nobody ever claimed marriage was the playboy mansion; the opposite, in fact

Don’t treat your partner like a parent or a servant and you should be pretty good

kvakerok_v2 · 2024-06-28T18:43:33+00:00

Women are extremely social and modern society is toxic as fuck. Passive diffusion effect at work.
Legacy Mass Media and social networks are geared to propagate a stereotype of a "stronk wahmen that don't need no man", poisoning the mind of every teenage girl tapped into that stream of bullshit.
Marriage today carries no value or meaning whatsoever.
Complete lack of accountability. Not a single woman out there divorced and went "what was my part in that marriage failing?" And sure as hell nobody in her family asked her that either.

Yeah, I know it doesn't address men's failings. Nobody gives a shit about failed men though, so... 🤷🏽‍♂️

BlueParsec · 2024-06-28T19:49:30+00:00

Totally agree, the expectation that people are not "happy" because of their partner not making an effort is just that. An expectation for losers and whiners that can't find their own happiness.

Left-Conclusion-8932 · 2024-06-28T21:44:04+00:00

The husband is a sub 7, case closed.

Alpha-As-Wolf · 2024-06-28T22:14:19+00:00

If you become fat, lazy, defer to her as the leader of the marriage, that marriage is not only going to fail, you are worthy of getting cheated on.

Title	Why most marriages fail
Author	unhingedtherapist254
Upvotes	56
Comments	226
Date	June 28, 2024 6:10 PM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1dqq7pu/why_most_marriages_fail/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/why-most-marriages-fail.1522690 https://theredarchive.com/post/1522690

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