by Sam E. Jones

Created on: May 26, 2010   Last Updated: May 27, 2010

Marriages fail because the two people involved become self-involved; because life gets in the way and love goes with it. Marriages fail because people get angry and lose themselves in their own motives, because people are never what they seem to be until you see them up close over the span of many years.

Marriages fail because people quit trying; because people start lying; because people are human and human beings are selfish and cruel; because life is short and there’s always something or someone better.

Marriages fail because a lot of people who get married don’t bother to first find out if they truly like the person behind the mask of love. Because in life as you’re living it, like is a lot stronger than love, and is the one true lubricant of romance. Because if you don’t have like, love will not just fade away, but run away and hide in places that no one will ever bother looking.

Marriages fail because love is blind and never lingers past its expiration date; because life has a way of pulling people apart; because to be married is to be a part of something bigger than yourself, and some people find that too confining.

To ask why does a marriage fail, ignores the question of why didn’t the marriage survive? Or better yet, what do marriages that survive have, that marriages that don’t, don’t?

Which is ever so much easier to answer, because marriages that survive have people that like the heck out of one another, that look forward to seeing one another and find time apart difficult.

Because marriages that survive have people that are willing to put the other before them, so they don’t develop an overinflated opinion of themselves; and because marriages that survive have people that marry one another because the thought of being with anyone else ever is just ridiculous. Marriages that fail, do not.

And why do marriages fail? Because they’re made of people who can’t figure out why they got married in the first place, or believe that someone else could make them happier, or figure out that time spent alone is better than time spent with someone that lessons your happiness.

Because marriage is an institution for those that are in love, and stay that way because they get along so well that doing anything else, or being with anyone else doesn’t make sense.

Marriages fail because people give up on themselves as much as on their spouse, because they believe they can do better, or couldn’t possibly do worse.

Because they just don’t love one another anymore.

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