[russell]

50% of all US marriages end in divorce. I would say it's partly the poor judgment of youth; mine wasn't so good. Maybe it has always been true, but now it is easier to get out. Romance is a pretty poor basis for a marriage. With mutual respect comes love and a more lasting relationship. Consider all the other qualities needed for success.

Starting companies is a huge commitment and raising children is an unbelievable stress load. The combination is a marriage killer.

With all that said, a good mate is a good thing to have.

[DanielBMarkham]

Romance is a pretty poor basis for a marriage.

This is such a true statement, yet everything you see on TV, movies, the web, etc. ignores it.

Marriage is a lot of work. Fun work and worthwhile, but sometimes the person you love, well, you just don't like that much right now. You have to work through problems. You just can't ignore them and hope they go away. I wouldn't trade it for anything, and a good partner can change your universe. But it is nothing like mass media has prepared you for.

[jerf]

I would never tell my wife this, but I think it's important for other people to hear. I've never actually been "infatuated" with my wife. The only people I've actually been that sort of "in love" with were utterly unmarriable (and for that matter utterly un-relationshipable). That part of my brain really seems to like the cute, crazy chick, but the problem with the cute, crazy chick is that she's actually crazy. "Quirky" is cool and all, but the crazy that comes with it, not so much.

No, all I have with my wife is love, a deep agreement on many of the important issues (including how money should be spent), an agreement with how many children we should have (broadly) and when and broad agreement on how to raise them, the ability to be friends with each other and work through arguments, and other such things. And a commitment. Love is primarily a choice, not a feeling.

If there's a part of you rebelling and saying that sounds cold and unfeeling, kill that part. That's propaganda, bad social programming, and it will lead to exactly the sort of pain and failure you'd expect when you shut off your brain for the one of the most important decisions of your life.

It's not that feeling don't enter into it at all. I've got and had all kinds of other feelings. (You can't tell because this is a text message and it's too easy to read it as emotion-free.) I'm not saying that feelings or emotions are bad; I'm saying that this one particular feeling is treacherous beyond belief. If you are lucky enough to be infatuated with someone whom you can have a relationship with, more power to you, but consider it a bonus, not a prerequisite.

(I also think that if you do know what you are doing, some such things can be decided surprisingly quickly. Some "love at first sight" stuff does work out because it doesn't necessarily take two years to figure out whether you've got this sort of deep compatibility. Sometimes two days is enough. I don't recommend that approach, but it can work.)

[Radix]

There was a discussion on this 50% meme where tokenadult pointed out this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/health/19divo.html?_r=1 I believe the highest the divorce rate has ever climed was perhaps 43%. And as yummifajitas states here (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=548939) it's mostly divorcee's getting divorced. Repeating the "half end in divorce" statistic obscures the more interesting possibility, that some people aren't able to make a good spouse.

with edits: Took me too long to find it, I got beat.

[russell]

Guilty as charged, but it appears the statistics are all over the place. The census bureau claimed 50% in 2002. The 43% figure was for marriages under 15 years. By that statistic I'm still married.

http://www.divorcereform.org/rates.html

[whughes]

That's not true: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/health/19divo.html

Also, "all US marriages" is not the same thing as "all US first marriages." A person divorced twice and divorcing for the third time is different from a person divorcing for the first time. That has little to do with the poor judgment of youth.

[cnlwsu]

according to wolfram its ~49.8%

http://www42.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=united+states+annual+...

[whughes]

Did you read the article I posted? It pretty extensively explains why that statistic is useless. Number of divorces / number of marriages is not the same thing as the chance of a marriage ending in divorce.

[barry-cotter]

2/3 of marriages that are the first for both partners end in death.

[falien]

11 percent of murder victims were killed by an "intimate" http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/intimates.htm

[breck]

misleading. i'm guessing the number of murder victims is many orders of magnitude smaller than marriages, and is negligible.

[falien]

I like how I'm downvoted for a joke response to a worthless uncited statistic. If its because you think its not funny fine. I sincerely hope no readers of HN are dumb enough to actually be "mislead" by it.

[TriinT]

There's a lot of herd phenomena on HN. Humans are social animals, and animals are dumb by nature.

[gaius]

now it is easier to get out

Not as easy as you might think:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=610896