Marriage can be a tool for healing from childhood wounds and personal development, but in order to get there a couple has to learn how to communicate honestly. This includes revealing the 'bad' parts of each partner, and learning to make space where each other can be real with each other without judgment.

To make marriage be just an endurance test of how long each person can follow a list of rules makes it impossible for it to become the powerful relationship that can transform both members.

It is crazy to think that our culture considers a couple who makes it to a 'golden' anniversary by impeccably following all of the rules without questioning them at all are better than a couple who has struggled through the tough issues of attractions to others and finding a place where each person can be true to who s/he truly is. Sometimes it takes something drastic like an affair for a couple to learn how to really communicate and learn to trust each other. So, it isn't surprising that there are many people who are more happily married after an affair than before.

Marriage is a relationship unlike any other a person can have. With the vows each person becomes accountable to his/her partner for every part of his/her life. This can cause partners to hide things from each other to protect the illusion that they are following all of the rules, but feeling the need to hide makes the relationship less intimate and thus more of a drag than a joy.

There are a couple of ways out of the trap that marriage can become. Divorce is one way out, and while there are situations where divorce may be the best option, it should not be chosen lightly. Communicating deeply can resolve the issues in many cases and make the relationship stronger than it was before. Of course communicating so honestly and hiding nothing is risky, but the risk of doing nothing and having a marriage that looks perfect on the outside, but is dead to the core is a very sad possibility.

...as the individuals who comprise them. I agree with those who have written here that the idea of some monolithic standard of how to relate to fidelity or infidelity, is ridiculous to imagine.

Consider: in some marriages or relationships, one partner cheats after a year or a few months, saying to the person they're cheating with, "don't worry, this idiot I'm with won't suspect a thing! Oops, there he is at the door! Hide!"

In others, one partner cheats after some years, and BS's both their partner and themselves with a story, or all kinds of stories, they use to pretend and rationalize the infidelity.

In yet others, one partner cheats because, God love 'em, they just like someone, and it's something their gut told them to do, or they're a very sexual and impulsive person, or were in a situation like a protracted absence from their partner, but still feel great concern for the partner they're cheating on, and feel the pain about it just as their partner does.

If I were married to the last type of person, I can well imagine working it out with them, if they actually did feel care and concern for me. If they were the first type, well--I hope I would know better than to marry someone so callous in the first place. Good luck johnvie, sounds like the two of you are among the more thoughtful types.

> "marriages today are more likely to weather such storms. At least for a little while."

Until wives learn about sexist, misandric laws that give them the car, kids, cash and castle.

> Is that the kind of marital strength we want to celebrate? Stamina rather than satisfaction?

Apparently. But only per female satisfaction. If the guy wants to jettison his anti-sex, wide-load, do-nothing wife it's deemed "terrible."

> "Nor is there any mention of whether these relationships ultimately recovered from the betrayal"

Does Broadsheet ('BS' for reasons too well known to men) even CARE that men are harmed by betrayal? If you think only women have feelings and men 'all the power,' what femthinkers'd give a hoot if men suffered? In fact, they orgasm knowing men suffered.

> "most couples manage to endure."

At whose expense?

What if men could divorce without cause, get custody, and dictate what the former wife should pay...and when she could visit her kiddies? Think divorce wouldn't sky-rocket if guys had equality?

> "Marriages are more likely to be egalitarian these days..."

According to whom? That's like saying dating is "equal" in 2009 when men must STILL make first moves, make dates, drive to and from same, pay for it all, and act like women are equal when they endlessly and openly CHOOSE not to be.

It'll be veddy-veddy interesting 20 years hence to hear how Tracy Hyphenated-Lastname fares. When her coochietude diminishes by time, I strongly suspect she'll sound like Maureen Dowd, another boner-killing bimbo who can't seem to understand that sane men don't want to date aged male-hating cows. To wit: Women who never risked anything in their "I need patriarchy to protect me from reality" gyno-gestalts.

>"the type of marital martyrdom that values sticking it out no matter what."

How cynical, coming from freedom-loving fembots who love raking men over the coals post-divorce, claiming "control" of kids.

> "these days people are far more clear eyed about the real cost of divorce..."

I strongly suspect those "people" are women who realize that if "winning" at divorce (which has meant their getting custody and cash claims) means a lesser lifestyle, they'll choose whoring in the name of marriage.

Watch what happens, though, when the economy continues to tank. Most ardent post-35-year-old fembots will willingly become Stepford Wives.

Only watch out for this: Guys will want 20-somethings. Because they ARE sexier, less "angry," and more amorously skilled...having learned to give "lewinskis" in junior highschool.

So when Clark-Flory complains that women are valued by vaginal odometry who will care?