1) In response to the "know yourself" bullet: I met my now wife at 15 - we learned a lot about ourselves between then and when we married at age 22. But we were pretty much committed to marrying by age 18, even though we learned a lot after. You can learn with another person.

2) Life pro tip on understanding other people (this is a quick reinforcement of a bunch of points in the article): if someone is behaving irrationally, 99% of the time its because they are subconciously insecure about something.

3) The odds of first marriage are better than 50/50. That statistic is for total marriages, but people who divorce once on average divorce multiple times. Success rate of first marriage is something like 65%. Also, that success rate goes higher if you're high income, like most of HN.

The fact of the matter is that women are primarily interested in a top smaller percentage of high value men (this is called hypergamy). This smaller group of desirable men would most like to have multiple mates (this is called polygamy). Marriage, and the accompanying culture and customs, 'corrects' this by trying to create a 1-to-1 mapping. Both extreme strategies described are traditionally shamed and discouraged.

Why? Because marriage (monogamous long-term bonding) is good for society. It incentivizes the largest amount of people to be productive, and reduces civil unrest by distributing sexual access to women across as many men as possible. For more on sex and society, check out J.D. Unwin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Unwin

Now, how this relates to the OP. The fact of the matter is that people become unhappy in a relationship of any kind when they think they are getting the short end of the stick, and could be doing better. They'll rationalize it six ways to Sunday, "my partner doesn't understand me", "my partner smothers me", "they don't do enough chores", "we don't understand ourselves", whatever, but at the end of the day they think they ought to have a better mate, and are fed up with their current one!

This is especially true of women, who, by pure numerical inevitability, largely marry below what they would prefer. We know that women initiate most divorces too, at ~70% (fun fact: among college-eduated couples, that number rises to 90%). A smaller amount of men end up locked to one person too, when they know in another world they could have more mates. Such are the sacrifices for the monogamous society (often referred to as patriarchal, because women are more sexually restricted).

So in conclusion, what bothers me about articles like this, who delve deep into rationalizations instead of simple mate value and attractiveness, is the implication of a 1-to-1 mapping between men and women. Is there a right person to marry, for most people? Probably not.

1. we don't understand ourselves. (check.. plus). At least not then. 2. we don't understand other people. (check). I interpreted them as what I wanted them to be, not as they were. Note: all the little foibles and peccadilloes will add up. 3. we aren't used to being happy. (check). I was driven then and had been for so long. Suffering to me was success so being with an extremely difficult person was actually 'comfortable'.. or at least familiar. 4. being single is so awful. (no check). Being single was great then and now. (but it's harder with three kids..) Looking back, I was single living in NY..and have absolutely no idea why I got married... But this leads to.. 5. Instinct has too much Prestige. (CHECK CHECK). Love this line (and maybe I'm just too stupid to really know what it means), but I interpret it as 'I know what's right' (ostensibly). I really thought I knew what I was doing.. I was always such a know-it-all, did absolutely no homework on what really binds two people together and.. there you go.

This would be equivalent of starting a business with someone not on the basis of the value proposition of the business, but based on how you emotionally like the idea, and then hiding all the losses and constantly trying to achieve the initial profit you saw.

1) Marriage is a contract, but unlike most contracts, its terms and conditions can change at any time without the consent or knowledge of either party. That is to say, politicians decide the terms and conditions, and your marriage isn't grandfathered through with the laws in place at the time it was consummated.

2) As of today, the outcome of divorce (how assets are distributed) is overwhelmingly in favor of the female, assuming a mixed-gender marriage. This is one of the reasons for the large gap in divorce initiations: women profit far more, and thus more often end the marriage.

There are a couple more conclusions you can draw about whether you should do more due diligence on the person you're about to marry.

1) If you're female, you can be far less concerned. If it turns out to be the wrong guy, just divorce him. If anything, you'll get assets and a livable wage for no effort for years.

2) If you're male, you should be far more concerned. You need to do 10-50x more work vetting your future partner than your parents and grandparents did.

3) The divorce laws in 5 years may be completely different than today. Be sure to plan for how the political climate will change in the future.

I have been married more than once, so as you can imagine, I've had to put a lot of thought into this matter. The marriage that ended is responsible for reducing my wages, which should lead me to living comfortably in San Francisco, to being required to live with roommates. There is a large amount of danger involved in marriage, so make sure you understand the dangers before pulling the trigger.

EDIT: The reduction in income also has prevented me from working at several really great startups and instead having to slave at more profitable companies like ad networks etc. These go against my moral compass, so for me, at least, divorce also led to me having to contribute to increasing evil in the world. This is a huge personal hit that is hard to understate.

Should there not be a very, very strong match - due to lack of shared values, mismatched libido, poor communication skills, whatever - then the appropriate thing to do is break it off, not limp along in an adequate-but-far-from-ideal state until length of tenure or the pressure of societal obligations compel you to the altar.

We've since had it framed.

Not mentioned in the post is the value that can only come from having a single mate for life and working through problems together (lightly mentioned as "growing together"). This idea became abhorrent in the 20th century, driven in large part by advertising but also the culture of the baby boomers.

Rock stars and groupies were glamorized. Men had immense media pressure on them to have multiple mates. Toward the end of the century women had the same pressure put on them with media like Sex and The City and Friends.

The documentary Century Of Self covers a lot of the root manipulation that created this situation, but the end result is a feeling of failure and shame for people with low partner counts.

However, denial was a HUGE part that doesn't come up here. Every time in the run-up to the wedding that I experienced something that made me want to call it off, I told myself it was just cold feet, that all guys think that stuff. Denial. But I suppose this is more or less covered by the part about not knowing oneself. Definitely learned a lot about myself since then.

Two more things:

1) It's really not hard to get laid in your 30s. I outright disagree with that part.

2) For me at least, the divorce itself was nowhere near the emotional blow of realizing that I was married to someone who was wrong for me. Carrying that burden inside was soul-destroying. Talking in counseling about what wasn't working, and then ultimately getting divorced, was nowhere near as bad as that. But, I was only married for two years. It probably sucks a lot worse when you've bought a house and had babies and stuff.

It still is for 80% of the world population.

> We are still traumatised by this.

I don't think that 80% of the world population would be traumatized. Arranged marriages work absolutely fine. It is rather the alternative that is in doubt.

My hypothesis is that libido mismatch and inability to reach consensus on household budgeting are the two strongest root causes for failed marriages.

Anyone giving out bullet points about marriage needs to back it up with some credentials - who are you to be making these statements?

This comes across a lot like self-help advice from someone needing some help.

'Learn by teaching' is a disaster in the making - you simply don't have the life experience to teach anyone anything but what a thousand thoughts going in a thousand different directions look like.

The heavy-intellectualizing of this post and the pomposity of 'book of life' - please take a look in the mirror and humble yourself, whoever the author may be :)

thanks.

- how can one raise children with them - how can one develop together

http://www.danoah.com/2012/10/16-ways-i-blew-my-marriage.htm...

Moral: I am not so special so as not to be able to accommodate another person !

What if we made a git-backed / wiki style site like this where anyone could contribute and the best "life advice" would rise to the top?

This is such a pithy statement, used with such simple compelling force, that I applaud it even while disagreeing. Some points that counter this message:

1) What percentage of partners that end up leaving the marriage do so with another partner lined up?

2) Of the percentage that do not - a sizable set I would assume - how many exited after long-term (years?) relationships?

3) Of the percentage that did - another sizable set I would assume - what caused the reasoning process to take so long? Why didn't they conclude they could do better earlier?

I would argue most people go into marriage with at least some amount of good faith effort to make it last. Why do they make such a good faith effort in the first place if they are operating as you would say?

I don't know if this is true across the board. I don't feel that way entirely, more along the lines of "I'm stuck in this situation; kids, a marriage where I get no real benefit, I just want to be free and do what I want and not have to bow to their whims."

I know several people, right now, that have been divorced for some time (5+ years, and in one case 10+ years) and don't even date or have interest in dating. Their motivations seem aligned more with mine than wanting a better mate - In fact, If I end up getting a divorce (we have agreed to try and work it out, again), I have no interest in dating again, at least not for a while.

FWIW, I'm 38, and the people I'm referencing are older than me, some as much as 12+ years older, so maybe it's an age thing.

Therefore it shouldn't be unexpected that women who didn't get to marry the alpha male, are unhappy and eventually want out.

If it was about access to better mates, you'd expect to see the disparity extend to non-marriage relationships too, but you don't.

There's too many contented or at least not actively dissatisfied people to support the idea you're discussing in practice, though I agree it's theoretically plausible.

Rather than a question of sexual access relative to resources, I'd reframe it for the 21st century as a mutual understanding of shared needs and shared solutions to those needs. Sure, not everyone can fill every need for every other person, but it's probably better than going without, which is why the pragmatic mate choice also provides genuine positive emotion, even if it's not the "maximum" need fulfillment possible.