As you know, I want to kick the butt of the person who made your marriage difficult and tortuous.

“The climate of replacement” – such a good phrase. As soon as that throw pillow gets a little wear, toss it! As soon as that marriage is a little rough around the edges, toss it!

I wonder what conditions would be needed that would make people actually put a ton of effort into working through problems in a marriage. The threat of how financially screwed someone will be after a divorce doesn’t seem to incentivize some to work really hard in the marriages to prevent that horrible consequence.

Maybe…on the flip side…instead of trying to prevent divorce by saying “You’ll have these horrible consequences if you get married or divorced” the system could make it so that it’s super, super, super hard to get married. A couple would have to jump through a ton of hoops and obstacles to finally be married, and only a few are allowed to be married. By the time they got the prize of marriage, perhaps they wouldn’t let go of that marriage easily.

Ahhh…great point about friends seeming to contribute to divorces in a sense. They’re on the sidelines saying, “You shouldn’t put up with that crap!” instead of saying “You’re my friend, but I think you need to work harder to get through this rough patch.”

As much as I tout “work through it!” in relationships, I have a list of things I wouldn’t be willing to ‘work through’ (e.g., infidelity, abuse). Some things I’ll work through but I completely, completely understand there’s a point where you’re just exhausted and it’s only fair to say, “You’ve done everything you could. It’s ok to quit now.” For me, I want to be able to be completely truthful if I say “I’ve done everything I could” before I quit. Some people have ‘endured’ problems for a long time which is different from actively working on problems, truly trying multiple solutions, problem-solving the hell out of the problems, really committing to a million ways of trying to solve the problems, even when sometimes the problem-solving effort is one-sided. I want to make sure I’m not saying “I hunkered down and tolerated the crap for years” before I quit. Of course, that’s going to make me an annoying partner—always trying so hard (too hard?) to fix stuff instead of just putting up with it:)