
Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person - FuNe
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/opinion/sunday/why-you-will-marry-the-wrong-person.html?_r=0
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fahrradflucht
This was posted to HN when it was new. (This is non-judgemental)

Link to the discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11809381](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11809381)

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zaque1213
Interesting conclusion. I agree that we need to let go of the notion that
there is someone "perfect" for us. That person doesn't exist. True, lasting
happiness in marriage is possible. Joy in marriage occurs when we seek the
highest good of the other through unselfish sacrifice and compromise, and the
other does the same toward us. That isn't easy, and could take years of
discipline and failure. I've seen couples that I knew were heading for divorce
grasp this and are now the happiest people I know. Of course, sometimes
divorce is inevitable, but I think some could be avoided if each recommitted
themselves to the higher good of the other.

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SCHiM
Your post contains a contradiction, at least it appears to me to be so.

If something is countable or quantifiable, like 'True, lasting happiness'.
Isn't the partner that is capable of providing the 'True, lasting happiness'
the perfect match for you? There might be multiple potential partners that
will provide lasting happiness, and the one that does this in the most
expedient fashion (or perhaps the result of doing happinessp1 * happinessp2)
is the 'perfect' partner. My understanding of what you wrote is that you mean
to say that there is no Disney prince/princess waiting for anyone out there. I
can agree with that, but certainly there is a match somewhere that is
maximally mutually compatible (perfect??)?

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mannykannot
If you want to make a formal argument, I think you will need a formal
definition of 'true, lasting happiness' and of expediency in its provision.

~~~
zaque1213
Agreed, I've admitted in another comment that this was an inexact term. I'm
not a happiness expert, so I'm open to suggestions!

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sowbug
My dad, who is divorced, tried to sum up his marriage advice for me: "Marriage
can work if each person is willing to contribute more than half to the
relationship."

Now that I'm married with three kids (one a teenager), I think he might
actually have been on to something. Life isn't fair, things probably won't
even out in the end, and nobody will ever fully appreciate the thousand
invisible things you do to make your family work. If your belief system
expects the opposite of those statements to be true, then you might not allow
yourself the emotional slack to buffer the incredible variance of a marriage
that lasts long enough to cover the normal trials of real life (illness,
death, job change, envy, jealousy, in-laws, travel, aging, boredom, financial
trouble, etc.).

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abraae
Reminds me of Mark Twain:

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to
have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much
the old man had learned in seven years.”

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furyofantares
I get the intended meaning, and also I will be sorely disappointed in myself
if I don't learn a hell of a lot between my kid turning 14 and 21.

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tyingq
_" The person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every
taste...but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently"_

I do agree with this bit. It's confusing to me that many of the online dating
sites are trying to pair people based on how alike they are.

Is there any real research that this is somehow the key to marital bliss?
Anecdotal, but most of the long married couples I know aren't very alike, and
don't share the same interests...other than things like grandchildren, etc.

~~~
solatic
Remember that we're still talking about a life partner here, which is very
different from, say, a roommate. As long as you and a roommate are respectful
of each other's sleep, possessions, ability to host friends at least
occasionally, and mutually agreed levels of general cleanliness, you'll
probably get along just fine, even if you're different in almost every other
way. You're two different people in different places in life with different
goals and ideologies and you just happen to live with each other for now. It's
perfunctory and emotionally cold, but that's OK, because that fits within both
you and your roommate's expectations, given that the rent needs to be paid and
you only have so much time to find someone to help you pay it.

Of course it's possible to be wonderful friends with your roommate, but the
point to be made is that if that's your grand sum of what you expect out of a
relationship, you're going to feel profoundly lonely, unsupported, and
unloved. Fulfilling our emotional needs is also important, and dating sites
that focus on finding people who are similar to each other are sites which
understand that people will build that relationship of love, trust, and
understanding on a foundation of what they have in common.

What the author is trying to remind us is that no matter who much in common we
have with someone, and thus no matter who we marry, there will be areas in
which we will differ from and disagree with our partners. As such, healthy
dating requires you to find not only that base of similarity but also that
ability to disagree without a sense of disappointment that you disagree with
The One on something.

So the article isn't meant for people in healthy marriages. They already
understand that. It's written for the serial daters who reject suitors for
ultimately irrelevant reasons.

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cushychicken
I logged in just to say that I think this is an _excellent_ answer. But since
I'm already here...

> It's written for the serial daters who reject suitors for ultimately
> irrelevant reasons.

Do you feel that dating sites help cultivate a mindset in people that
predisposes them to doing this? I do - I think many dating sites (OKCupid in
particular) swamp you with irrelevant information. In my experience, it seems
like people are perfectly willing to use superficial reasons to say "no" to
potential partners. I'm not talking things like political views or religious
beliefs; I'm talking about things like weightlifting or liking Taylor Swift.
Is it the perception that these sorts of things go hand in hand with other
behaviors, or fit into a preconceived notion of "what kind" of people like
this sort of thing? I'm inclined to believe so.

Just a mild rant. I liked this article a lot when it first came out and I'm
happy to see it pop up again.

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trump2016
> The marriage of reason was not, in hindsight, reasonable at all; it was
> often expedient, narrow-minded, snobbish and exploitative.

Is this actually true? I've heard it repeated over and over again, but is
there any real evidence that a larger percentage people in "marriages of
reason" felt dissatisfied when compared to marriages today? Considering the
50% divorce rate I'd be extremely surprised if the dissatisfaction rate of
matches made in days gone by was much higher.

~~~
mratzloff
There is no 50% divorce rate, but it used to approach that 40 years ago.

[http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/upshot/the-divorce-
surg...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/upshot/the-divorce-surge-is-
over-but-the-myth-lives-on.html)

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carsongross
The lead image for the article contains deeper insight into the state of
modern marriage than all the words following.

~~~
trump2016
What are you trying to say?

~~~
abledon
They are referencing what the image portrays, which is quite funny. Here is my
take in describing it if the image was not clear for you:

1.the woman paints a perfect picture of how her partner should be

2.then she marries the fake 'image' of that person. The illusion she has built
up inside her head.

3\. She discovers the true person behind her false image.

4\. She cries in disappointment that the true person behind her built up fake
image is not what she expected.

~~~
falcolas
Oddly enough, I feel that there is a positive spin to the last image: the man
is holding the woman, who trusts him enough to be vulnerable in his arms. It
speaks of the potential for the relationship to still work.

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JofArnold
I've successfully applied the following simplified criterion "am I likely to
still enjoy this person's company when I'm 80"

~~~
praptak
The point of the article is that this is impossible to tell.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Unlikely. We hear endlessly about how you can't change a person. Then when we
assert "This person is unlikely to change substantially over their lifetime"
then that gets shot down? I call foul.

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coldtea
> _And from such reasonable marriages, there flowed loneliness, infidelity,
> abuse, hardness of heart and screams heard through the nursery doors._

That's not a historically accurate description. In some cases it lead to that
(but so did the "modern" idea of marriage as based on passion). It also lead
to countless totally normal and stable marriages.

People weren't even unhappy about not marrying someone they are passionate
about, because that was not in the "idea horizon". You don't miss what you
don't expect.

Ask Indian people (that have not been westernized) for their arranged
marriages, for example, and you'll get the idea. They don't find the appalling
or alien in the least, and can be as tender and lovable between them as any
couple.

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mratzloff
Like with many things in life, success requires failure, even though failure
can be devastating. In my experience, having gone through both, failure in a
marriage is different from a breakup. It's a deeper, more public, longer-
lasting kind of failure. But the depth of the failure opens up access to a
corresponding growth, and the personal awakening that I've gone through
following my divorce has made me a better partner and person in every way.

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Elizer0x0309
Divorce has become too easy and men face too many risks: alimony, children are
taken and assets for marriage to make any sense.

70%+ of divorce is by women and men pay 98%+ of alimony.

No thanks

~~~
synicalx
Amen.

Not sure if it's the same in the US, but in Australia women can nick half or
more (tends to be 60%) of your stuff (including superannuation) even if you're
NOT married through the joys and wonders of a de facto relationship.

I've got a mate going through this exact scenario right now, never married,
lived with this woman for two years. She decides she wants to move back to
England and sends the lawyers after him for a large slice of his
superannuation.

~~~
Elizer0x0309
There are personally no advantages to marriage for me.

I can't find an "equal" in real life. I'm very successful play music, draw and
research and I can't find a woman that genuinely is interested and excels in
these unless it's for some superficial value.

It's like we're biological different.

All well and good, but when the system itself becomes unfair, I just can't get
myself to swallow the pill.

Sayonara mofos.

My career, surrogacy or have family in a less misandrist society.

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yason
That's how life works anyway: what you get mirrors what you know about
yourself, then you learn and move on.

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eevilspock
Great article. But it seems like it was cribbed from
[http://www.thebookoflife.org/how-we-end-up-marrying-the-
wron...](http://www.thebookoflife.org/how-we-end-up-marrying-the-wrong-
people/), even though they come to different conclusions.

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synicalx
Does make me wonder why people ever bother to get married. I mean it makes
sense if you want/have kids I suppose, but if you don't then marriage really
doesn't offer any benefit and winds up being a HUGE financial disadvantage for
men when the marriage inevitably ends.

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dragonwriter
> winds up being a HUGE financial disadvantage for men when the marriage
> inevitably ends.

Marriage doesn't inevitably end (other than by death of a partner, which this
isn't referring to); less than half of first marriages, in fact, do.

~~~
dllthomas
I wonder what the statistics are for "first marriages that don't want kids".
Still not inevitable, I assume...

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marmaduke
Nugget of wisdom regarding picking partners (in love or other adventures):

> the person who is good at disagreement

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drallison
This article dates from May 28, 2016.It has been cited on HN many times in the
past. Use the search facility to find comments. Nevertheless, it is worth a
read.

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andrewclunn
Wouldn't this bring up one very glaring reason not to marry someone though?
They have a completely unrealistic view of marriage.

