And having an accurate headline wouldn't necessarily have improved your likes or audience engagement - that's why I just restricted these comments to my own blog, as you've obviously got a pretty good thing going on with your other readers uncritically "falcon-punch(ing)" the like button!
Most of the couples I know are quite happy. However, I know a lot of people who would cite the divorce rate of 50% for first marriages as evidence that there are many couples who are quite unhappy. I suspect that there is a fairly sizeable subset of people who are just not going to be happy in a relationship no matter who their partner is - apparently, the divorce rate for 2nd marriages is 67% and for third marriages 73%! My friend's dad is on his 4th divorce; so he's clearly one of those people.
> I know a lot of people who would cite the divorce rate of 50% for first marriages as evidence that there are many couples who are quite unhappy.
There's definitely an argument to be made! Personally the way I read the high divorce rate is that marriages start off happy, and are happy for a while, but then when they sour, people notice pretty quickly and jump ship. I think this is really why the "not too happy" category is only 3%; by the time people end up there, they are already looking for a way out. It's the same with the rising crime rate in the 80's and 90's followed by the skyrocketing incarceration rate in the 90's and 00's. All of this can be modeled using coupled differential equations, much like we see in the SIR model for disease epidemics where people are Susceptible to becoming Infected and then Recovered with immunity (or Removed because RIP) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-020-0822-z
> I suspect that there is a fairly sizeable subset of people who are just not going to be happy in a relationship no matter who their partner is
Your suspicion is very well supported by evidence! I didn't want to include a thorough literature review of these many side topics because the post would've rapidly ballooned past 5000 words, but:
"those whose first marriage ends in separation or divorce... differs significantly from the first marriage population as a whole in its selectivity – lower socioeconomic status and personality traits less conducive to marriage. The roots of prospective dissolution thus apparently lie in this group’s distinctive socioeconomic and personality traits, and not in a disparate course of life satisfaction in the first years of marriage."
It turns out psychological traits predict over 30% of the variance in divorce rates, with Honesty-Humility playing the largest role by far: https://tinyurl.com/ypzxwjn
In other words, your friend's dad seems like a lot of people I've known.
You are right: "Most couples just can't be happy" is an inaccurate headline.
Edit: "There will always be an unhappy minority" would have been a more accurate headline.
And having an accurate headline wouldn't necessarily have improved your likes or audience engagement - that's why I just restricted these comments to my own blog, as you've obviously got a pretty good thing going on with your other readers uncritically "falcon-punch(ing)" the like button!
Actually, it is good that people are vigilant. I should add it to my mistakes list (if I had one).
Most of the couples I know are quite happy. However, I know a lot of people who would cite the divorce rate of 50% for first marriages as evidence that there are many couples who are quite unhappy. I suspect that there is a fairly sizeable subset of people who are just not going to be happy in a relationship no matter who their partner is - apparently, the divorce rate for 2nd marriages is 67% and for third marriages 73%! My friend's dad is on his 4th divorce; so he's clearly one of those people.
> I know a lot of people who would cite the divorce rate of 50% for first marriages as evidence that there are many couples who are quite unhappy.
There's definitely an argument to be made! Personally the way I read the high divorce rate is that marriages start off happy, and are happy for a while, but then when they sour, people notice pretty quickly and jump ship. I think this is really why the "not too happy" category is only 3%; by the time people end up there, they are already looking for a way out. It's the same with the rising crime rate in the 80's and 90's followed by the skyrocketing incarceration rate in the 90's and 00's. All of this can be modeled using coupled differential equations, much like we see in the SIR model for disease epidemics where people are Susceptible to becoming Infected and then Recovered with immunity (or Removed because RIP) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-020-0822-z
> I suspect that there is a fairly sizeable subset of people who are just not going to be happy in a relationship no matter who their partner is
Your suspicion is very well supported by evidence! I didn't want to include a thorough literature review of these many side topics because the post would've rapidly ballooned past 5000 words, but:
https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/2556/3/
"those whose first marriage ends in separation or divorce... differs significantly from the first marriage population as a whole in its selectivity – lower socioeconomic status and personality traits less conducive to marriage. The roots of prospective dissolution thus apparently lie in this group’s distinctive socioeconomic and personality traits, and not in a disparate course of life satisfaction in the first years of marriage."
It turns out psychological traits predict over 30% of the variance in divorce rates, with Honesty-Humility playing the largest role by far: https://tinyurl.com/ypzxwjn
In other words, your friend's dad seems like a lot of people I've known.