This is the key to a healthy and long-lasting relationship. I didn't marry my wife just because I found her attractive. She was genuinely my best friend at the time, the person I turned to before anyone else.
During the pandemic, the divorce rate skyrocketed because so many people found themselves stuck at home with their spouses and realized they didn't like spending a lot of time around them. Going to work every day gave them time away, but being with their spouse 24/7 drove them nuts.
Not for my wife and I. We already spent every day hanging out together. Even if we were engaged in our own separate hobbies and interests, we were at least spending time in the same space together. So the pandemic was just more of our normal routine.
This was exactly my pandemic experience as well. "After" covid, I never went back to work in the office so on the rare occasion that I'd pop in, people would always ask how I can stand being home all the time and lament that they'd never get a moment's peace if they "had to" stay home.
Given that I’m a fresh high school graduate I’m not looking to get married any time soon, but my girlfriend was my best friend first and the two of us have been together nearly three years now and still love each others’ company. I would have to say that it’s how we’ve managed to stay together through high school, we actually just enjoy getting to see each other in any context. She’s equally as much of a nerd as me and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I can’t imagine getting together with someone who I don’t already love hanging out with first.
Gotta wonder how much of this is the result of getting married in high school, when you're immature and horny and press ganged into the first person you sleep with.
In my experience, people who date around in their teens/twenties and find someone later in life tend to feel happier and more settled. By contrast, folks married at adolescence grow out of love, get divorced, and then do crazy rumspringa stuff into their 30s/40s in an attempt to recapture their youth.
The rate of divorce is strongly associated with the age the relationship started at.
Two 18-20 year olds while still barely adults have a very low chance of being successful. Once they reach 24-25 the rate of divorce declines dramatically. By then they are usually making adult-ish decisions.
I feel like kids are pressured to much to find love and get married before they're even sure what love is. Not sure if this is an unpopular opinion, but we gotta stop telling kids that true love is a feeling or that "they'll know it when they find it."
In actuality, you can never be sure a relationship will succeed or if it's "true" love. Real "true" love isn't just a feeling, is the result of an already successful relationship. It's when you make it for years and years and have had time to grow together and you find that you've been able to grow with each other enough to have confidence that it's going to continue to work.
When you teach kids to rely only on their feelings and not look at things objectively, every love starts to look like true love to them, trapping themself in a relationship, even when they end up hating their partner, which when everyone's doing it just becomes the norm, never questioning if things could be better.
I work in IT and the amount of divorced, bitter white dudes is off the charts. Those who are married complain all the time or make jokes about their wives holding them back from doing things like dropping money on Top golf or computer stuff.
What's that Think You Should Leave sketch?
Some guy is playing cards with his friends bantering about their wives, then he flashbacks to his wife being supportive when he does community theatre
I'd find it and link it if I was less lazy
Jamie Taco keeps stealing his lines!
I always just say I feel bad for you guys, I married my best friend.
I also married my best friend. My girlfriend was furious, but Dave and I thought it was hilarious.
I wish you and Dave the best
He knew there was an informant in the room
I have something similar with mothers-in-law. My wife gets along with my mother fine and vice versa. It's all good. I feel like there are just generations out there that are hell-bent on being antagonistic because they think they're the best thing to happen to society.
