[manyoso]

"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."

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?

[zxcvvcxz]

Thanks, I've been working on my over-the-top writing style as it sparks discussion and draws attention.

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

According to [1], surveys show that 55% of people say infidelity is a contributing factor in the divorce. And that's probably just the ones that know (as it is often kept a secret), so we can take this number as a floor of the actual. "Lined up" - implying future relationship - doesn't matter so much as "other partner involved" which is to what this refers, and is my point. Even without infidelity, the exiting partner could have potentials "lined up" that they'd rather date (than stay married).

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

I don't know. I'm sure it's possible to be repulsed by someone you're married to without knowing exactly who you'd go out with next.

> 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?

Marriage is (was) a very hard contract to annul. That's the point of it. These people are often fighting these feelings for years: weighing their natural biological impulses against higher-level rational thought. Rational thought that has been crafted from the narratives of a culture, encouraging marriage as a virtue. The impulses come from diminished pair bonding chemicals and more enticing (and realistically accessible) mating opportunities.

> 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?

Of course. The key is that they don't know how they're operating. They don't understand that we've evolved multi-year chemical bonding capabilities to help us raise young children, and that after those fade, shit gets tough, and the lure of bonding with someone new/better (new is a form of better, genetic diversity and all that) becomes more attractive. The bond dies quicker if a better partner is easily accessible, btw. These types of mechanisms are necessary to help women select for better genes.

[1] - http://www.divorce.usu.edu/files/uploads/lesson3.pdf

[manyoso]

> "These people are often fighting these feelings for years: weighing their natural biological impulses against higher-level rational thought. Rational thought that has been crafted from the narratives of a culture, encouraging marriage as a virtue."

Ah, but I think this concedes too much! The thrust of your argument is basically that we can boil down this very complex web of variables that make up the decision tree to seek a divorce to a cold calculation of, "Can I do better?" Were you to model this behavior in some simulation you would see people exiting and entering relationships very quickly based upon the speed of calculation.

But the actual calculation of whether to seek a divorce is not so simple. It is a complex web of interacting considerations and "rationalizations" that do battle with the impulse you would boil it all down to.

Does this impulse exist? Absolutely. Does it win out in many circumstances? Absolutely. Is every divorce ultimately a simple case of this impulse winning out over other considerations? I think that goes too far. And what about all those cases where the impulse does not win out? Would you reduce all of those to the calculation returning, "No, I don't think I could do better!?"

Regardless, the story of why people divorce is much more complicated and rich than this simple impulse to look around and see greener grass.

[zxcvvcxz]

> The thrust of your argument is basically that we can boil down this very complex web of variables that make up the decision tree to seek a divorce to a cold calculation of, "Can I do better?" Were you to model this behavior in some simulation you would see people exiting and entering relationships very quickly based upon the speed of calculation.

Liquidity, my friend. It's not easy to end and start new contracts in this manner. Well, things like Tinder are making it easier. But remember why we have so much societal pressure not to bounce around from relationship to relationship. It would be chaos. It would create a terrible society where all human energy would be directed towards mate optimization.

That's why certain types of societies thrive and succeed: they stabilize these things, through marriage. Marriage is the ultimate destroyer of relationship liquidity.

Again, I must reference Unwin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Unwin

> And what about all those cases where the impulse does not win out? Would you reduce all of those to the calculation returning, "No, I don't think I could do better!?"

Correct.

> Regardless, the story of why people divorce is much more complicated and rich than this simple impulse to look around and see greener grass.

It's about optimization: getting what's best for you, given constraints. We come up with social constructs, like marriage and church and behavior shaming (constraints), to reduce chaos and direct our energies to building a better society.

Don't get me wrong, I really do like the idea of marriage. But let's be clear about what it is, what the trade-offs are, and what happens when such constraints start to erode. Hint: more women start initiating divorces, because constraints are lifted ("no fault divorce"). Then more children start growing up in single-mother families, an excellent predictor of poor academic achievement and crime involvement for the child.

Fascinating topic.

[aidenn0]

The feeling of "I can do better" doesn't necessarily mean they have someone lined up.

The rate of divorce for men is much higher when they have a job in which they regularly interact with attractive, or even just young, women even if they aren't engaging in romantic relationships with said women.