I dreamed last night that a friend told me she was leaving her husband, which got me thinking on that topic this morning as I was doing all the boring getting-ready things. Specifically, I was thinking about how much of marital success is based on luck.
First, there’s the luck of choosing someone. The Love Feelings are classically difficult to THINK around.
Second, there’s the luck of time: it’s hard to know how someone might change over the next ten or twenty or forty years, or how YOU might change, and whether those changes can be made compatible. If one of you wants to ditch everything and move to another country to be a missionary, this may or may not be something the other one can change with. If one of you wants to start seeing other people, that may or may not be something the other one can change with. If one of you changes religion, if one of you wants a sex change, if one of you wants to quit a job unexpectedly and embark on a new career of smoking pot and playing video games, if one of you gambles away the house and the kids’ college funds, if one of you gets addicted to something, if one of you can’t be happy unless there’s a move to a place the other one won’t live—all of these things can be times that “grow TOGETHER” might not be useful advice. We can talk about being REALLY COMMITTED to a marriage, but that applies within a certain segment of the spectrum of possible changes.
Third, there’s the luck of opportunity. If I never meet someone who makes me feel like leaving Paul, I’m much more likely to stay; that sounds kind of icky, but it’s true. If Paul has a crush on someone at work but she doesn’t return it, or if the crush fades quickly because it wasn’t based on anything serious, he’s much more likely to stay than if he meets someone amazing who would actually be a better fit with him than I am AND she feels the same way about him.
And fourth, there’s the luck of circumstances. If I meet someone flirty when things are going well with Paul and me, I might have an invigorating conversation and then go on with my regular life feeling a bit cuter than before, but that’s it. If I meet someone right when I’m in one of those 3 percent times, I might start daydreaming about a different life, and that’s the kind of seed it’s best not to water. If it’s someone I see every day at work, and if the not-so-great time with Paul is more of a stage than a moment, things could get dicey. Commitment looks easy when it IS easy, which is unfortunately right around the time we’re making that commitment. It’s like signing up for a diet right after eating way too much.
You are good. All so true and very interesting to think about. The diet analogy is spot on.
hmm, well said.
This is so, so wise. And something everyone should read before making that commitment (and periodically after). I think people like to see it as black & white, but it’s usually not.
This might just be the wisest thing about marriage I’ve ever read.
Yes! I have an excellent example of “growing together” in my parents who will celebrate 45yr together next week. They have moved across the country multiple times following my dad’s job. He was drafted & sent to Vietnam just 6m after they were married. Mom completely changed her career, going back to school for more training/certification. Growing up, Mom wanted to attend church and Dad didn’t. Now (NOT related to church, just thinking chronologically) my dad has terminal cancer.
They have rolled with all these punches and there is a lot of hard work and dedication involved there.
BUT they also dodged lots of bullets. Their interests have grown together. Their values have stayed in line. They fully admit that luck has a lot to do with their success. Luck may favor the prepared, but good luck is still a gift.
This is a thing I like very much. “The Love Feelings are classically difficult to THINK around.” I’m stealing that for when my kids are teenagers.
So, so agree. I think about this often as I get older – especially the opportunity one. It sounds cynical, but I kind of think most married people could be swayed by meeting someone attractive, who is attracted to them and who works at winning them over. It’s just too flattering to resist. Not that I expect my husband to cheat or anything, but while I used to see cheating as a major character flaw, I now see it as something that could possibly happen to just about anyone under the right circumstances. So keeping my fingers crossed that Elisabeth Shue doesn’t take a job in his office any time soon :).
Yes. True love is largely timing and stubbornness, fortunately.
Oh my. This is all so wise and true. Totally spot on.
All the couples who I know, who have divorced (and have been open to sharing the reason for the split) have divorced for reason 2. One person has an addiction or depression they are unwilling/unable to treat, one person changes their mind on having children, one person joins a religion and gets really into it until it takes over every aspect of the shared life. These are things hard work, perseverance, not going to sleep mad etc cannot change. Thank you for stating this because it’s so true and it’s something you never hear in wedding or anniversary speeches.
This is all very good. And I love the 3 percent idea! I love my husband completely, except for the occasional times I want to killl him – so I relate.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Luck–YES. My husband and I married obscenely early in life and people occasionally ask how we have managed to stay married for so long considering the early entry into marriage–we always do side-cut eyes at each other and say–stupid, dumb luck.
I used to have very lofty ideas about why some marriages work and why some do not. This was earlier in marriage before I had some of the trials and tribulations I now see as a part of ANY relationship but most especially one intimately tied up in “feelings” and “emotions”. Now, I get about as lofty as “sometimes we stay married because it’s easier to do that until we like each other again.” I do, however, think it is most helpful to actually enjoy the other’s company.
“sometimes we stay married because it’s easier to do that until we like each other again.” I Love love love this.
I love this so much. I feel like in the current moment, my husband and I have a relationship many would envy – even my mother is quite certain I’ve picked a winner. It is 100 percent luck. I was in two relationships in the years prior to meeting my husband and I might have easily married either man at those times in my life, to varying degrees of success. And I always feel like we’ve yet to face any “real” challenges (aside from having kids, ha), so even though I FEEL like we’ll be together forever, I just don’t know what could come up.
And your point in number 3 might be icky to think about, but I’m very close to someone who married a woman I don’t think really suits him. He is very happy in his life with her, and I’ve always thought that he’ll continue to be … as long as he never meets a woman who suits him better. Yes, that’s true of all of us to some extent, but to varying degrees. I think some of us luck into spouses with whom we’re extremely well suited (like hitting 20 in BlackJack), while others end up with 16s or 17s. In those cases, a lasting marriage could simply be due to never meeting your 20.
I truly enjoy these moments of insight into thoughts on marriage. Mine is still young but the relationship is old. There is something about the addition of that layer of marriage that truly changes the idea of the relationship.
My mom always talks about when she went back to work – she started staying home in 1964 and went back to work full time, as a secretary, about ten years later. Mostly she talks about the changes to office stuff – there were Xerox machines and fancy electric typewriters!, but she also says that she was so happy, wearing new clothes and people being so nice to her. She said people would say thank you!, and this is wonderful!, about her work and literally no one (my siblings and I) had said that to her in her previous job as our sahm. She said that she could see so easily how someone could have their head turned, and that has really stayed with me. I worry that the first time I leave the house and someone recognizes a job well done I will run away with them and leave all these aholes behind. I am mostly kidding but seriously, you are right – luck and circumstances determine almost everything.
I’ve never had a marriage break down, but I had a serious relationship break down when it seemed like we were on our way to marriage, and do see some of what you say contributing to the breakdown.
After looking back at that failed relationship, and my now-10-year-plus-old marriage, I know that I’m extremely lucky that that previous relationship never made it to the altar (though it felt like the end of the world at the time) or I believe I’d now be divorced (indeed, I did not think well around the love feelings and ignored the signs that we were fundamentally incompatible). Instead, I dodged a bullet and ended with someone who is not much like me, but yet so extremely suited to me that my mom proclaimed that I should marry him after the first time she met him. I definitely had “the luck of choosing someone”.
In those 3 percent times, I actually find it helpful to let the daydreams run their full course. Let’s say this other person and I want to make a go of it. Do I leave my husband first, not knowing if we’re compatible or do I become a cheater? What about the kids, and getting a job, and a new place to live? If all that works out, eventually the new relationship will become old and experience it’s own issues. That pretty much takes care of it, and as an added bonus, I’m usually happier with my husband after a distracted day or two.
Very good points. I am now at the stage in life where I have friends who are getting divorced (this is a much less fun stage than the one in which I had lots of friends getting married, but I digress) and every one of them can be attributed to #2 or #3. In one case the husband worked a lot of hours and traveled often with a team that included the person he ended up leaving his wife for: it was pure awful luck for his family.
I think this post is a Swistle Classic. It needs a sidebar link.
Also, I’m in Maggie’s camp- I know way fewer people who are getting together now, and a lot more it’s people either trying to work through rough patches or people actually splitting up. Kind of depressing. And… cautionary, I guess. I feel suddenly on guard, against exactly the sort of bad timing and run in with a head turning kind of person you mentioned. A dangerous combination even for a solid relationship.
Best not to water… I love the way you put things.
As you can imagine, I have feeeeeelings about this. We just had our 5 year anniversary this week, and I can say with 100% certainty that we are not still together due to luck – it was more due to staying calm and rational when shit hit the fan. It’s really easy to freak out and say awful things when your partner makes awful choices. It’s much harder to think of the big picture and not say or do anything you can’t take back. Then again, you once said something along the lines of you being amazed at how different things would have turned out for me if one little thing went differently, so maybe it’s both :)
I think I’m thinking of the luck as applying more to the part that let the shit hit the fan (luck of opportunity, luck of circumstances). And the shit could have hit the fan and continued right on going that direction without being interested in what the response even WAS from the other person (luck in spouse-choosing, luck of opportunity, luck of circumstance). And there is yet another example of luck of spouse-selection: finding someone who would/could have a calm and rational response. The luck can sometimes be “Two people who are able to work through a shitty situation one of them caused”—similar to if a couple CAN get through one person’s addiction, or CAN figure out how to deal with one person’s wanting to move to another country to be a missionary. Other times, there’s no way to do that, even with hard work.
Since I am still thinking this through…character also plays into it. I can have the sheer dumb luck of running into my perfect match while I’m married with children, but that doesn’t mean I am obligated to act on it. I sort of think the REAL perfect matches are people who aren’t necessarily great on paper, but it’s more about willingness to be a team and work hard to make it work, even through shitty luck. Okay, I’m done now :)
I meant more like, if you DON’T run into your perfect match, it’s a WHOLE lot easier not to cheat. I think a lot of couples give themselves tons of credit for staying together/faithful when they never had the opportunity or temptation of anything else. It’s so easy to be faithful when you never meet anyone you’re even interested in (or anyone interested in you), let alone someone who would be fabulous with you AND is interested in you too.
Or any other test: Maybe it never happened to them that one of them couldn’t be happy without having a baby, while the other one couldn’t be happy having one. Maybe neither of them ever had to move somewhere the other one couldn’t move. Maybe neither of them ever had an addiction that destroyed everything. And so on. I think there are a lot of couples feeling judgy of other couples for “not being committed” or “allowing themselves to consider divorce an option” or whatever, when actually they’ve been very, very lucky not to have to have run into anything difficult, and are giving themselves credit for hard work when in their case it was actually nothing more than the luck of not encountering any of those problems.