If people could accurately judge character they wouldn't be getting divorced.

Nobody enters a relationship thinking their partner will cheat yet it happens all the time.

ITT: parent poster is an unlikable jerk. or thinks they are, anyway.

But you can marry someone you like, and courtship periods -- plus the modern "live together for a while and try it out" thing -- means you can find someone you like.

Plus they're your spouse; your job is to try to keep them (sorta) happy.

This person dated someone who was "emotionally abusive, hypersensitive, and disrespectful". Umm, it IS possible to just say, hey, I don't think this is going to work out. Then just move on. Back in the craigslist dating days dates could be seriously wild for those old enough to remember that. I never felt the urge to post a substack blog about any of it.

Every time I read these things I'm so thankful for my partner who is practical and grounded and I've never heard talk like this. We have 2 kids and it's a job and I can't even imagine doing it with someone who was constantly evaluating the other person for deficiencies. We both cut each other a lot of slack and it really works out for us.

When you find yourself diagnosing the world with various problems, a bit of introspection might be helpful. You may be projecting some internal dysfunction, and even if not, it's MUCH easier to address things with respect to yourself then to "address rampant narcissism".

"toxic behaviors repeatedly observed over an extended period with no apparent willingness for the perpetrator to change, lead to legitimate questioning." - Just the language here - "perpetrator" etc. Most people are just trying to make it through life in one piece. The language in this is throwing up my own pink and red flags.

Is this such good advice? Relationships are hard work, and can be made (or mended) given sufficient effort. But sometimes, it just doesn't work and can't be made to.

Relationship counseling is delegating responsibility for your relationship to a third party. Or, in most cases, transferring blame for your psychological shortcomings to your spouse via a faux neutral third party.

(I don't doubt that there are good counselor, but they are probably even rarer than good psychologists.)

While there may be some people like you enjoying maxed up romantic relationships I would run away in no time from a partner just trying to hard. Imagine getting home everyday to be greeted with a "gift of a day", 10 bullet points in refined calligraphy how much he/she loves me, new scent, yet another laborious make up etc.

Most of us will never be able to match that, be it because of no time/energy or a simple "let me rest after work, read a book/go for a walk". Relationship imho is not an attempt to create a Siamese twins in a mental space. Satisfy the needs of your partner, top it with extra stuff, but do not try to kill it drowning him/her in a waterfall of attention, gifts, questions about everything, etc.

[1] "That’s a pretty jaded response", "this a overtly negative view of life itself", "How many of these relationships are you personally involved in such that you'd know that?"

[2] "I told her, If my wife asked me for a divorce because our marriage was negatively impacting her life, of course I'd say no problem, if she was to be more happy and fulfilled in that reality, I'd do it in a heartbeat, I love her! It would hurt, and I would be hurt, but ultimately I'd be fine because I trust and love myself, and eventually, even more happy if it meant she was happy. I love her because of who she is, and she loves me because of who I am, we both love ourselves and share love together."

Similarly ridiculous, couples going through a relationship crisis often receive this kind of “advice” to “fix their relationship”.

The only people who might think this is a great idea probably don’t have kids…

To raise kids (in a responsible good manner), you need a long-lasting stable relationship with parents that are trustworthy and on the same wavelength.

OP is currently in a relationship with his wife whom he loves dearly. But regarding kids they don't seem to be on the same wavelength (on one particular topic, they probably agree on many other things), because he regrets decisions they made in the past.

Why will his situation improve by giving up the relationship and becoming less trustworthy? 5 years down the roads, in a new relationship, he or his new wife will decide their wavelengths changed, and it's time to look for someone else. And then 2 small kids will have to cope with the fall-out.

Divorcing someone you love, with the intents of starting a stable relationship with someone else is self-deceit. Kids deserve better than that.

I've yet to see a relationships advice thread where the top comment isn't "get divorced immediately"

Which is scary, because these people are taking OP's comment at face value and only hearing one side of the story.

That's pretty much never good advice; you should always talk to your wife, that's what a relationship is. If you aren't, your marriage is dysfunctional.

That it's not generally a good idea is inherent in the "sometime it doesn't work out well" (the complamentary to "it sometimes works out well"). But that's also true for most affairs/relationships, and according to statistics, marriages (if we consider a divorce as "the marriage not working out well"). And it can be awkward, like those.

But my point was, it's human, and not some moral issue to condemn a person or a writer's writing for.

And I was responding to the question of how I came to believe that the husband might be the better partner.

Very few relationships are exactly 50/50 but if you aren't concerned with trying to be an equal partner (which requires some level of scoring) then you're probably the worse partner.

The wife's role? This is what I mean about seeing relationships as business arrangements. If that's how you want your relationships to be, that's fine with me, go for it, but that's not what I'm interested in. To me, when you strip away everything around it to get to the core, a relationship is about spending more time with someone you enjoy spending time with. People are complex, if you can only enjoy a fake role-based version of them you're missing the bigger picture.

As for one-sided relationships, they aren't healthy, but I really think you're stretching what you found in the article in order to suggest that this is what's being written about. As I said before, you'll not understand it if you look at relationships as point-scoring. Plus, the article wasn't meant to be '10 point plan' kind of article, it was about painting a picture of how romance evolves as time goes on, it's a narrative-style piece rather than a do's and don'ts of relationships.

>"Very few relationships are exactly 50/50 but if you aren't concerned with trying to be an equal partner (which requires some level of scoring) then you're probably the worse partner."

If scoring works for you, fine, but I prefer to give without expecting something in return, which I can do most easily with people I trust.