Tracy, a "happy marriage" as you define it is based more on selfishness than anything else. And it's ultimately self-defeating, since by bailing out on a marriage as soon as one is no longer "happy", one misses the opportunity to grow through adversity and learn how to stay true to the core of a marriage, and not adherence to some patriarchal idea of fidelity. (Really, I'm surprised at you defending such a thing!)

Life is hard, Tracy. Marriage isn't easy, either, and the more people understand that, the better they'll handle the challenges. Because believe it or not, the challenges are what make life worth struggling over. What the hell kind of challenge is it to say "you're mean and you cheated and I'm going HOME"?

At the risk of telling more about myself than people care to know, my wife and I went through a very rough patch in our marriage that included infidelity and a separation/near divorce. After deciding to work it out, we are actually happier than we ever were. I don't credit the turmoil for that, but the fact that it forced us to face up to stuff that we had been avoiding, and learn to communicate (with the help of a counselor). So, for what its worth not everyone who survives infidelity and moves on is miserable, and I don't think we are the only ones out there. We don't have decades to show for it, but four years after our meltdown we are doing well and the future looks bright!

Ultimately she was the one who decided to end it, not me. I wasn't happy about her cheating, obviously, but I was willing to deal with it. (Er, as long as she stopped doing it after she admitted what she'd done ...) Infidelity in this case was a symptom, not a cause -- she wasn't happy, and chose a rather dramatic means of demonstrating it -- and I suspect that's the case most of the time. Spouses who cheat do so for all kinds of reasons, but not being happy in the marriage is probably #1.

So a marriage has as good a chance of surviving infidelity as it does any other serious stressor -- and based on my observations of couples who have made it through a cheating episode (about equal numbers of men and women, by the way) the marriages which do survive are strong, good ones afterward. Note that I'm not saying that infidelity is good for a marriage, or that Everyone Learns An Important Lesson, or anything like that. Just that it's a test, and that the couples which make it through are the ones who really do belong together.

What an odd tone.

Whether or not those spouses are happier or more functional than they would be if they'd separated is a different study, but the results of this one seem to suggest, in part, that they at least perceive a choice in how they handle the situation. That's surely as positive as having choice in other unexpected or unwanted situations.

~till you get to the other side.

I didn't mean to suggest that couples who survive infidelity are unhappy. I just don't think that the percentage of marriages that are able to survive infidelity is a very good measure for the current state of matrimony.

Also, Serai1, I hardly find it selfish to commit to happiness within a marriage. By my personal definition, it doesn't mean bailing at the first sign of trouble, but rather being more committed to each other's happiness than to the legal document binding you together.

But perhaps I've been brainwashed by my rebellious hippie parents who made a similar commitment to honoring each other -- as friends and independent people -- over the marriage. They've been together, and happy, for 31 years.

Is it really so reckless to aim for a happy partnership, instead of a partnership that simply endures?

I thought your generation of feminists saw happiness as some dumb hippie idea, some conceit belonging to self-absorbed boomers.

So it's no longer self-absorbed or vapid to want to be happy?

Send out a memo, so we can be sure that we're all on the same page here.

Makes about as much sense as TCF on marriage.

Technically, it was TCF on an article on marriage, but her lack of life experience has clearly hamstrung her.

Aw come on, someone in high school is too young to get married.

Wouldn't it be grand if the republican governor of So. Carolina could be a modern day Hester Prynne, caring for the sick and troubled, raising up the downcast, feeling remorse for past sins and doing something about it?

Not gonna happen. Rather than wearing a scarlet letter A as a badge of honor and transforming into a compassionate human being, Mr Sanford seems a thick-headed, clay-footed Chillingsworth having learned nothing from the experience.

While it presumably would be grand if Sanford reconciled with his wife and boys, let's see some new found compassion toward the poor and dispossessed in his state that he so callously disabused of any stimulus funding in their time of need.

Otherwise, better he should just divorce himself from the governorship and disappear down south of the border in another hemisphere.

You can pretend it didn't happen;

you can split;

you can work it through;

you can try to work it through, and fail, and be miserably married until death releases you;

you can try to work it through, and fail, and split later.

If your husband or wife says, "I said I was sorry, now shut up," you leave right now.

The only thing I know for sure about marriage is that each couple defines its success differently. But your idea -- that celebrating more marriages surviving infidelity is "a sad defense" of the institution -- seems shallow: like teenage romanticism or, at the other extreme, a predisposition toward opposing any good news at all about marriage.

When a lifelong public commitment endures, surviving troubles, I think that's success ("from this day forward, for better or worse . . ."). As for "forsaking all others," most vows also include promises of honoring, cherishing, patience, etc., which are broken routinely! Why is infidelity the thing we're not supposed to be able to get past? I'm not defending anyone cheating on a spouse, but I do think we should celebrate couples who choose to overcome their problems by staying together. They're behaving like grown-ups.