Do they? Most marriages end in divorce, and most people I know in long term relationships are miserable. I think most people don’t manage fine and keeping a relationship strong is a skill that takes practice and deliberate effort to master.
Sure, so in the USA slightly under half end in divorce, but I’d argue that the vast majority of ones that don’t are miserable and if ended both would be better off- the tragedy isn’t the divorces but the even more common unhappily married. I say that as someone that is in a happy long term relationship after many hard won lessons, but I see that a lot of people are not… but could be if they either left or learned some key skills: how to communicate, how to be emotionally vulnerable, how to deal with a crisis as a team, how to set boundaries, how to communicate assertively without emotional manipulation, how to keep a relationship exciting and valuable for both people. Our culture generally does not equip people with the tools to make a relationship work long term, and many people are blindsided by the fact that it does not happen automatically. I’ve met maybe 1 or 2 people ever in the USA from my parents generation- Baby Boomers that is married but not miserable due to basically being a fully grown adult with the emotional maturity and communication skills of a toddler. Perhaps other countries and cultures better equip people with the skills they need.
I’m not talking about relationships globally, but in the USA. I’m not sure why you would expect anyone to have global rather than local personal experience. However, in places where divorce rates are low, I wonder if it’s because people are happier and relationships are working, or if it is just legally and culturally more difficult to escape a bad relationship?
What specifically is warped about my view of relationships?
The app is not limited to the US, hence the absurdity of your comment.
> What specifically is warped about my view of relationships?
The idea that you are somehow more enlightened in your relationships while the majority of people wallow in misery is absurdly arrogant, bordering on delusional and narcissistic.
So the idea that there are skills that can be learned to improve relationships is fundamentally nonsense to you, without any curiosity or knowledge on your part about what specifically they might even be?
Calling someone delusional and narcissistic because they have a different viewpoint from you is a pretty tiring modern trend on the internet… it certainly lowers the quality, friendliness, and usefulness of a conversation. Ironically, that is itself a narcissistic conversation tactic, where you aren’t trying to understand or communicate but to make it appear that anyone who disagrees with you has an egregious personality flaw.
I have met plenty of people with actual narcissistic personality disorder, and the most common theme is an underlying inability to admit fault or work towards improving things like relationships- an inability to do what I am claiming here to be working on myself to improve my own relationships, and an aggressive dismissal of the idea that such things are possible when it is mentioned by other people. It requires admitting fault and being vulnerable and human enough to take responsibility and work to improve things.
