How Do They Stand It?

Some study tries to explain how in the hell people can stay married 30, 40, 50, 60 or more years. Of course people surveyed are not going to talk about the drastic decline in the standard of living if they divorce (especially for women), religion, habit, or family pressures. That's the problem with surveys or studies, including long-range ones--nobody has to answer under penalty of perjury why they choose life without the possibility of parole.

As a lifelong single person, I can't even fathom what the hell it would be like to live with somebody year after year, decade after decade. It just boggles the mind. Not that I regret for one minute I didn't marry at all; you can't miss what you don't have.

The ONLY real advantages to being married and staying married are the higher standard of living and safety net if one becomes unemployed. Let me tell you, when you are single, over 50, and have your career kicked out from under you, it isn't fun to survive on next to nothing, marking time until you are 62 because there are NO job prospects.

However, the constant invasion of privacy, the constant give-and-take of living with somebody else, the possibility of living with somebody who is a cheater, a drunk, or an abuser, don't look good, either.

No thanks. Those couples can have their "happy" lifestyles.

I have to laugh at this study's quack theories about genetics and marriage stability, let alone theories about how the woman's emotions or whatever have an effect on a marriage's success or failure.