about archive minis the shed dinner table store support wbw Search  

Join 451,000 other humans and

The Marriage Decision: Everything
have new posts emailed to you

Forever or Nothing Ever Again
 Email Address

SEND ME NEW POSTS

By Tim Urban 
Follow these special men
There’s not really any normal way to start a relationship. Some people go on a date, and then another 26,792
374,382 94,534
date, and then another, and one day it’s just clear to both of them that they’re in a relationship. Some
people start seeing each other, but they keep things black and white until a “So are we doing this?”
conversation makes it official. Sometimes a platonic friendship forms first and tension builds under the
surface until an unexpected kiss lights the friendship on fire.

But there’s usually some first time that this happens:

Popular Posts

The Fermi Paradox

 856
     
And suddenly, you’re here:
Why Procrastinators
Procrastinate

 336
     

The AI Revolution

 835
     

The Elon Musk Series

 389
     

How to Pick a Life Partner
  140
     

Why Gen Y Yuppies Are
Unhappy

 983
     

7 Ways to be Insufferable
on Facebook

 671
     

Putting Time In
Perspective

 454
     

How to Name a Baby

 240
     

Why You Should Stop
Caring What Other
People Think
Your new relationship is with you all the time, even when you’re not together.
 184
     

Religion for the
Nonreligious

 501
     

10 Types of Odd
Friendships You’re
Probably Part Of

 198
     

Your Life in Weeks

 88
     

You’ve left the rest of shitty humanity behind, and it feels great. Then this happens:
And all the song lyrics make sense.

It goes on like this for a while, but as the months pass, you notice things changing. The unicorns turn
into horses and then bikes and then one day, you’re not riding anything at all. The perfect person you
found starts to say and do imperfect things. Some of those funny quirks you adored early on seem to
be striking you as more annoying than funny. And it starts to dawn on you that you might be dating a
fucking dick.

Sometimes things go further south, as butterflies and rainbows turn into frustration and
disillusionment, and the relationship that used to lift you up seems to now be boxing you in.
All of the negative qualities you couldn’t see in the fog of love are suddenly right in your face, like a
weight that’s dragging you down.

A lot of relationships end right about here.

But maybe, having seen the dark side of your partner, you step back and take a long look at both the
good and bad together. You put away both the rose-colored glasses and the shit-colored glasses and
see who you’re really dating: a three-dimensional, one-of-a-kind, beautiful, piece-of-shit human being.

Who’s the best.

And the worst.

And your teammate.
And your rock.

And you decide you like what you’ve got.

And your lives go on together.

But just when things get simple, something else starts to happen:
 

Society, in most parts of the world, doesn’t like when a relationship lasts too long. To society, a
relationship is simply a testing ground—an incubator that prepares you for The Decision. And if too
many years go by in a relationship without The Decision being made, society decides that something
must be wrong. To help right the wrong, society will begin to apply pressure on the couple, from all
angles.

Some people are bigger than society. Most of us are not. For most of us, society’s rules are our rules,
and as you and your person walk down your blue balance beam, you can feel the walking space melt
away around you. It’s time to make The Decision.

Your relationship needs to be converted into Everything Forever or Nothing Ever Again. Soon.

The typical human isn’t really equipped to make The Decision. We evolved to live short lives, during
which life-altering 60-year commitments weren’t a thing. We evolved in small communities without
nearly as many available options. And most of us, when presented with The Decision, have relatively
little relationship experience and an incomplete understanding of our own adult selves—selves that in
many cases only recently started existing.

But society doesn’t care. So you decide.

Humans have come up with four main methods to make The Decision:

Method 1) Let the other person decide
The easiest way to handle The Decision is to just not really handle it. You take a passive approach, as if
you’re on a raft, going down a river, and you have no control over where the current leads you—you’re
in the hands of momentum and inertia. Once you hit your mid-20s, you just wait until you get into
your next relationship and then marry whoever that person happens to be, whenever/if-ever that
person decides it’s time, regardless of how right or wrong the relationship is for you. 

Method 2) Let your primal forces battle it out
For people determined to more actively make The Decision, the next easiest way to go is to let your
emotions and primal forces figure it out. Making The Decision provides a reminder that “you” is
actually a collection of voices, each weighing in from different parts of evolutionary history. Each voice
has its role in the homeostasis of our normal lives, but when it’s time for something as rare and
important as The Decision, there’s suddenly a brawl in your head for influence—and no one brawls
harder than your primal forces. Some of the major players:

Love

Deep down, most people are sympathetic characters. And when you’re in a relationship for enough
time, you’ll usually end up loving the person—even if you don’t like them. You know their whole story,
which makes you care about them and the fact that they rely on you makes you feel a tremendous
loyalty to them. This is the kind of love you feel for your family and closest friends, and it can exist in full
force even after the feeling of being “in love” has faded. And for many people, this deep emotional
connection makes it basically inconceivable to ever break up with their partner. This is a beautiful way
to make The Decision when you’re in a strong, healthy relationship, and a tragedy when you’re not.

Fear

Humans specialize in making critical life decisions based on fear, and when it comes to The Decision,
there’s a lot to be afraid of.

When a fearful person takes a look to the left side of the balance beam, they might see all kinds of
things:
The right side of the beam isn’t much better.

Different people feel these fears at different levels of intensity, and for someone whose fear tends to
run their life, it’s usually pretty simple: the particular fear that grabs them hardest by the collar ends up
making The Decision.

Ego

Your ego, meanwhile, is busy staring down at a clipboard. Depending on what your ego values, that
clipboard might display a checklist describing your ideal partner—their appearance, age, family
background, intelligence, job, wealth, general personality type, etc. Or maybe the clipboard has a story
written on it, one that was written long ago about how your life should go. Your ego will examine your
current situation and see how it measures up to what’s written on the clipboard, and it’ll base The
Decision on its findings.

While all of this analysis is going on, your ego sometimes also finds itself getting very hungry—for
admiration, attention, and conquest. If this hunger gets too intense, it can overwhelm an ego to the
point where it may sway its vote, no matter what the clipboard says.

Sex Drive

Your sex drive is not a complicated character. If it has a grilled cheese sandwich every day for lunch and
then one day, you ask it if it would like to try the buffet, it’s going to say yes. Unless, of course, the
grilled cheese is super fucking incredible.

So these four primal forces, along with a few others, all voice their opinion at the same time. In some
people, all of the voices are in agreement about the verdict. In others, the voices disagree, but one of
the voices is so loud that it drowns out the others. In both of those cases, The Decision is pretty easy.

But what happens when your primal forces provide no clear answer?

Method 3) Turn to your gut
For some reason, we have wise stomachs, and when The Decision isn’t obvious, sometimes asking your
gut can do the trick.

Your gut relies on your intuition and asks one simple question:

And what makes your gut your gut is that when it answers that question, it doesn’t deliberate—it just
knows the answer: a simple yes or a simple no. The gut doesn’t deal with nuance, which makes it a
good match for something big and binary, like The Decision.

And for a lot of people, this works.

But there are some people who won’t end up being passive Deciders, or emotional Deciders, or gut
Deciders—who won’t turn to any primal or instinctual voice when it comes to this particular decision.
They’ll get to the bottom of this in spite of those voices—based on experience and evidence and data
and facts. They won’t be instinct-driven or fear-driven or ego-driven or sex-driven—they’ll be guided by
rationality.

The brain Deciders.

And when it comes time for them to make The Decision, they’re in big trouble.

Method 4) Figure it out in your brain
The prefrontal cortex is kind of like the brain’s brain. It’s the part of you that sorts through information
and makes plans and predictions and weighs evidence. It’s great at using what it learns to draw
conclusions about how to act or what to do—as long as it knows the rules of the game and has access
to the right information. And when it’s time for The Decision, your brain will do what it always does
when confronted by a fork in the road—it’ll attempt to think and assess and analyze its way to the
optimal rational answer.

Something as important and permanent as The Decision requires conviction, and conviction requires a
source. No source of conviction, no Decision.

The source of the heart’s conviction is its love and care for the other person. The source of the ego’s
conviction is its belief in its clipboard. Fear and sex drive derive their conviction from the obvious—fear
and sex. The source of the gut’s conviction is an instinctive feeling that emerges from experience.
And an inertia-y person gets their conviction from the conviction of someone else. Those sources are
what allow people to make The Decision with relative ease.

The brain hears these voices, but it discredits their conviction in each case because the certainty
emerges from what the brain sees as an irrational place. For the brain, the only respectable source of
conviction is sound evidence.

And good luck with that.

If you’re typically a brain person, when it comes to The Decision, you want to try to not be you.
Because the brain, for all its merits, does not do well in this situation, where the outcome is critical and
evidence is hard to come by. Let’s look at how it might go:

Maybe you start by looking over to the marriage side of the balance beam—where you see a house.

That’s the house of the life you’re about to sign up for. You really enjoy your relationship, so you’re
excited about what might be inside that house. But the house is also mysterious, because you don’t
really know what either you or your partner will be like as a spouse or how either of you will grow or
change in the future. Not much concrete evidence there.

So you turn and look over at the breakup side of the beam. You see a path, and a couple walking down
it.

That road is whatever life you’d end up living if you were to move on from your relationship, and that’s
the marriage you’d end up in. The marriage that might have been.

What kind of marriage would that be, and what adventures lie down that road? Maybe your life on that
road would be much happier than whatever’s in that house on the other side, and maybe your current
partner would end up happier somewhere else too. Or maybe you’d look back and realize that you
made the biggest mistake of your life. Without knowing anything about that other path, there’s no way
to compare it to the house on the other side. Again, no real evidence.

So you take a closer look at the one thing you have actual information about: your current relationship.

You decide to make a big chart where you list all the things you like and don’t like about your
relationship—a relationship-assessment chart. You end up here:

Fucking great—now what? All relationships—the good ones and the bad ones—have a chart that looks
like that, with things in all four of those zones: blue, green, yellow, and red. And without much
relationship experience or marriage expertise, you have no good way to evaluate whether your
particular diagram looks as promising as you hope it does or whether there are red flags in it that
you’re not seeing that will lead to major issues later. You try comparing your relationship to those
that your friends are in—but it’s hard to know what really goes on in other relationships, and each one
is so complicated and unique anyway that it’s mostly apples and oranges.

Without any way to construct an airtight argument in either direction, you’re left feeling very little
conviction about the situation. Because the stakes are so high, you become paranoid about making the
wrong choice, and every time you think you might have an answer, you second-guess yourself.

The whole thing quickly becomes a mindfuck. You try talking yourself into feeling good about marriage
by reminding yourself that every relationship has flaws and that marriage is all about acceptance—but
then you realize that that’s also exactly how someone sounds when they’re talking themselves into
settling for the wrong person. In both of those cases, the green and red zones of the diagram provide
more than enough material to construct a full “why this is a great decision” argument. Likewise, if
you wanted to play devil’s advocate and look at the reasons this might not be the right marriage for
you, the blue and yellow sections of the diagram would make it easy—whether breaking up is a wise
move or a foolish one.

And because the diagram and its four zones allow you to so effortlessly construct whatever convincing
narrative you want to about your relationship and The Decision, you worry that anything that feels like
conviction is just you falling for a narrative created by fear or ego or some other deep-down motivation.

Unable to come to a trustworthy conclusion, the brain person becomes a Paralyzed Pre-Marriage
Relationship Person. A PPMRP has three options:

1) Procrastinate. Until you die, until your partner dies, or until your partner breaks up with you.

2) Turn back around and succumb to one of the primal forces. Maybe if you wait for a while, your
fear of being single at 36 will overpower your dedication to rationality?

3) Come up with a decision-making litmus test that actually works.

Assuming you don’t find the first two options ideal, let’s talk about litmus tests.
The “actually works” part of option 3 is important, because people often come up with decision-making
litmus tests that don’t actually tell you anything. For example:

An overly-broad, one-size-fits-all litmus test is a bad litmus test. 

Like, “If I’m still toiling over this three years in, that’s probably a sign this isn’t the right thing for me.”
Or, “I’m sure if we’ve been together this long, there’s a good reason for that.” Or, “If I still have the
desire to sleep with other people, it must mean my heart’s not in this.”

Litmus tests like those suggest that everyone who toils over the marriage decision should break up or
that every couple who’s together for a long time should get married or that no one in a great
relationship still wants to sleep with other people. Different people do things like toil or stay together or
feel promiscuous—or 100 other things—for totally different reasons, so broad statements like those
don’t help with anything.

A litmus test that always yields the answer “We should get married” is a bad
litmus test. 

Like, “When I picture them standing on the altar with someone else, it’s a horrible thought—that must
mean it’s the right move to marry them.” Or, “When we broke up for three days last month, I missed
them unbearably—and it told me all I need to know.” Or, “I care about them more than anything and
really want the best for them—that’s how I know I want to be with them.”

All these litmus tests tell you is that you A) feel possessive, B) feel attached, and C) love the person.
In most long relationships—good and bad—the people in them feel all three of these things. The only
real information you learn with tests like these is that you are, in fact, in a relationship.

A litmus test that always yields the answer “We should break up” is a bad litmus
test.

Any version of the question, “Is this person a great match for me in every important way?” or “Is this
person the best person for me?”

No, the person isn’t a great match for you in every important way. That has never happened before in
our species. Likewise, there are at least a few hundred million people in the world that match your
sexual preference. Only one of them is the best possible person for you. The chances that you were
ever in the same square mile as that person are tiny, and the chances that you’re currently dating them
are you’re not currently dating them. Litmus tests like these either require you to have a delusional
view of your partner or the world, or they’re pretty much guaranteed to yield the conclusion that you
need to break up and continue your quest for The One.

People struggling with The Decision crave guidance, and while statements like all of these can feel like a
rescue line out of the PPMRP quagmire in the form of some larger wisdom, they don’t actually tell you
anything about what you should do.

A good system for tortured brain people
I’m not an expert on this, nor am I married—but I’ve read a lot about it, and I’ve had a front row seat
for a large handful of case studies, watching friends go through The Decision and talking to them about
it while it was happening. And I think if we just use common sense, we can probably figure out what a
hopeless brain person can do in this situation—so let’s give it a try.

To me, a good system might be as simple as these two steps:

Step 1) Find out where your gut is leaning, using thought experiments.

The gut is a real thing. And for our purposes here, your gut is the little kid in you who just wants one
outcome more than the other.

The problem for brain people is that they’re by definition not gut people. The gut draws its wisdom
from a mysterious place the prefrontal cortex does not understand, which makes brain people
suspicious of the gut’s conclusions.

And suspicion is fine here, since your gut’s wisdom is limited by your experience and guts are often
proven wrong with time—but the gut’s opinion is still important information.
Gut people have good practice at communicating with their gut about important decisions. Brain
people do not—and the usual gut question—”does this feel right?”—won’t work. So we need to use
thought experiments to isolate the gut’s voice amongst the cacophony in your head. Exercises like
these are best designed by you, for you, since only you know you. But here are some ideas:

One kind of thought experiment creates a simulation in your head, which acts like a fishing fly, and our
goal is to try to get the gut to be fooled by the simulation for a moment and jump at the bait, revealing
what it really wants.

Something like: “Imagine you were being arranged married by the town matchmaker and she handed
you an envelope with your to-be spouse’s name written inside. You open the envelope and it’s the
name of your current partner.” This image might just make your gut jump up for a second and say,
“Phew!” Or maybe instead, it would deflate just a little, just for a moment. If either happens, that’s
good information.

Another type of thought experiment tries to get at the general yes or no feeling the question “does this
feel right?” is supposed to reveal, but with some real on-the-nose imagery.

Like: “Picture two gravestones next to each other—yours and your partners. Does that feel right?”

Some of the most telling thought experiments help hear what the gut’s saying by trying to remove the
often deafening voice of fear from the question and seeing if that changes anything.

For example, to test whether a resistance to breaking up is just a dread of the actual breakup itself, you
could ask: “If there were a big green button in front of me that, if pressed, would make me fully single,
where everything has been worked out with getting our things from each other’s apartments, where
everyone in my life already knows, and where I’m totally emotionally recovered and moving on—in fact,
I have a date tonight—would I press the button?”

Or if the real fear is of being single for years and years and never finding a new relationship, the button
could do all of those things but also include “and I’m immersed in a new relationship.”

A fear of eternal commitment could be sussed out with a question like, “What if The Decision weren’t
between breaking up and marriage, but only between breaking up and committing to the relationship
for the next five years?”

If thought exercises like these leave you with the feeling that your inner inner self is “pulling” for the
relationship, that’s promising.

But it’s not enough.

Step 2) Figure out what your deal-breakers are.

Let’s bring back our relationship assessment chart:
As we established earlier, this chart doesn’t provide much insight into how The Decision should go,
because almost every relationship—the good and the bad, the healthy and the harmful, those built to
last and those doomed to fail—has a chart like this, where it checks some of the right boxes and some
of the wrong boxes, and also misses some of each. And yet, certain charts map out happy couples and
others do not. So what’s the difference?

Deal-breakers.

Even though these charts show that there are many, many things we want from a relationship, our
ability to be happy only depends on a small percentage of them.

Our relationship chart is like a happiness puzzle, and the items in the green and yellow zones are the
pieces. The right question to ask about the chart isn’t, “Is this perfect for me?” or, “Will I automatically
be happy if this is my chart?” The right question is, “How can I work with these pieces to figure out how
to make myself and my partner happy?” If you’re a good puzzler, with some work and compromise—
i.e. some adultness—you’ll probably be able to figure it out.

Unless the chart is missing one of your deal-breakers.

Your deal-breakers are the things that, if not part of your relationship, will guarantee your unhappiness.
They’re things that no amount of hard work or compromise or maturity can fix. Your must-haves—and
your must-not-haves.

A deal-breaker usually comes in the format:

There’s no way I can figure out how to be happy with someone who is / isn’t  ____.

There’s no way I can figure out how to be happy with someone who does / doesn’t ____.

There’s no way I can figure out how to be happy with someone who values / doesn’t value  ____.

There’s no way I can figure out how to be happy with someone who treats me / doesn’t treat me ____.

There’s no way I can figure out how to be happy with someone who believes / doesn’t believe  ____.
21.5k
Or maybe:
Shares
21.2k

Out of principle, I will only be with / will not be with someone who ____.

Most real deal-breakers will be broad—e.g. “I may be able to fall in love with a negative person, but I
could never be happy with that person.” Or, “I will never be with someone who makes my self-esteem
lower.” Or, “I could never be happy with someone who isn’t intellectually curious.” Or something clean-
cut like, “I could never be happy with someone who refused to have children.”

Deal-breakers that are more specific in nature can in some cases make sense—maybe you love dogs so
much that it would truly impede you from being a happy person if you ended up with someone who
didn’t want to own a dog—but they should be rare.

The key with all of these is that there are very few. These aren’t wants—these are needs. Your wants
are important, but remember, the only people even eligible for the deal-breaker test are those who
have already passed the gut test—plenty of your wants have already been taken care of in step 1 of our
system.

Knowing your deal-breakers can help you know the right relationship when you see it, but it can also go
a long way for anyone already in a relationship, because it lends insight into one of the trickiest aspects
of a relationship: compromise. A great way to be unhappy is to refuse to compromise on things you
wish were true about your relationship that aren’t. But another great way to be unhappy is to be too
willing to compromise on your deal-breakers. That’s why this is so important—deal-breakers not only
help Deciders and single people figure out what should be unacceptable in a relationship, they also
remind already-Decided people that most of the problems in their relationship are probably non-deal-
breakers that it’s okay to chill out about. Because so many relationship problems boil down to one or
both members treating non-deal-breakers like deal-breakers—or vice versa.

And that’s really it. This gut check / deal-breakers system suggests that the mindfuck of The Decision is
actually pretty simple—if a relationship successfully makes it through both steps 1 and 2, get married. If
it doesn’t, don’t.

At least that’s what the system says.
But who knows. Relationships are impossibly complicated. And making a black-and-white binary
decision about something that’s anything but black-and-white is kind of an insane thing to do.

And of course, even if it’s the right system, it’s not actually easy because assessing step 1 and step 2
isn’t easy. Getting a reading from your gut that you can trust is no small task for someone who typically
lives in their brain—and figuring out what your deal-breakers are requires a serious deep-dive into your
soul.

But for now, at least it’s a system—and a system you can hang on to. Which is just what some of
us need.

___________

If you’re into Wait But Why, sign up for the Wait But Why email list and we’ll send you the new posts
right when they come out. It’s a very unannoying list, don’t worry.

If you’d like to support Wait But Why, here’s our Patreon.

___________

If you liked this:

Another Wait But Why deep dive into the quandaries of figuring out who to marry: How to Pick a
Life Partner
21.5k
Shares
21.2k

Some further issues, over in the world of single men: 10 Types of 30-Year-Old Single Guys

Once you finally make The Decision, you go straight into another Decision: How to Name a Baby

Like 21K Share Tweet 3 points 99 10,075

StumbleUpon

Join 451,000 others and have our LOOK AT THIS BIG BUTTON WE MADE
posts delivered to you by email.

Email Address Submit

(No spam, ever. We promise.)
375,444

 Previous Post Next Post 

RECOMMENDED POSTS
Clueyness: A Weird Kind of Sad The Tail End The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret
Sauce

145 Comments Sort by Top

Add a comment...

Ali John
No mention of the good old fashioned, I got her pregnant so I have to marry her Decision.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 183 · Sep 1, 2016 10:30pm

Paola Moreira Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

I suppose because it sounds so obviously wrong
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 30 · Sep 2, 2016 12:09am

Amanda Kirk Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Because it is outdated. That doesn't happen in the 21st century.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 2 · Sep 2, 2016 1:38am

Jayden Lawson
Amanda Kirk Yes, yes it does.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 54 · Sep 2, 2016 2:04am

21.5k Show 9 more replies in this thread

Shares
21.2k

Laurent Breillat Lille, France

Excellent post. But I'm just disappointed by one thing : you're assuming monogamy is the only option here.
"making a black-and-white binary decision about something that’s anything but black-and-white is kind of an
insane thing to do."
Yes it is. Hence polyamory. It might not be the right thing for everyone, but at least it's worth considering
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 63 · Sep 1, 2016 11:07pm

Christina Santini
you know, i really find that hard to believe. on the contrary, people w commitment issues and into serial
monogamy, polygami and so forth strike me as not being able to deal with difficult feelings. an infantile
approach to life in search of forever rainbows and no strings attached. as if scared of missing out, of
making the wrong decision, so they never make any. a disgrace.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 11 · Sep 3, 2016 1:10am

Casey Kami Wellington, New Zealand

Christina Santini First off, please don't compare polyamory to polygamy. The words sound similar but
thats where the similarity ends - polyamory is built on consent of all parties, polygamy (at least the type I
imagine you're referring to) is a religious fundamentalist practice which treats women as objects.

I've never understood why people associate polyamory with "commitment issues". My personal
polyamory involves not only long-term commitment, but also long-term commitment with multiple people.
Extra extra commitment, if you will.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 32 · Sep 3, 2016 3:51am

Evan Rose HNIC at GFY INC

I have come to understand that people need to talk about the possibility of infidelity before marriage.
Arrangement and forgiveness are both possible with honesty and communication.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 3 · Sep 4, 2016 2:26am

Show 5 more replies in this thread

Andy Brennan Works at Gluten Free Miracles

Not to mention the fact that marriage and monogamy in general may be an outdated cultural relic.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 71 · Sep 1, 2016 11:06pm
 Martin Dibďoo Dibdiak Volunteer at CSDS VN
check blackdragons blog
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 2 · Sep 2, 2016 3:55am

Brian Harries
Here in Quebec, many couples never get married as a protest to the legacy of the Catholic Church
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 17 · Sep 2, 2016 3:58am

Evan Rose HNIC at GFY INC

Brian Harries that'll show 'em!
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 8 · Sep 4, 2016 2:24am

Show 5 more replies in this thread

James Perly York University

It's been shown that exactly what attracts you to someone becomes what most annoys you about them about
three months in.
i.e. 'He is so exciting and spontaneous' becomes 'he's so directionless and unfocused', or 'she's so close with her
family' becomes 'we spend way too much time at her stupid family events'.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 33 · Sep 1, 2016 10:49pm

McKee Job
Source?
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 18 · Sep 1, 2016 11:10pm

Katharine Brownshire Pennsylvania State University

I keep reading this, but I was as crystal clear about my relationship in the beginning as I am now. The
things that bothered me then, bother me now. The things that I appreciated about my SO, I continue to
appreciate.

Now that I've thought about it for a second, I think this mostly applies to people who are attracted to
people very different from themselves. At first the difference is exciting, and later annoying. I'm attracted
to people pretty similar to myself, so I understand both their strengths and their weaknesses pretty
immediately.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 32 · Sep 2, 2016 3:43am
21.5k
Shares Gideon King University of Otago
21.2k
Why would you even be considering The Decision after only 3 months?
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 7 · Sep 2, 2016 5:49pm

Andy Mather
Life is short, uncertain, and so deliciously sweet. If you are are lucky enough to find someone who fits, who really
listens to you and treats you well and makes you laugh, invite them to share your life. Will it work? Only one way to
find out. My first try didn't go well; I wasn't mature enough. Later, once I felt comfortable in my own skin, I made a
much better choice. That was twenty years ago, and it's been great.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 26 · Sep 1, 2016 11:16pm

Vickiann Vachula
I like this. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith. Life has no guarantees.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 11 · Sep 1, 2016 11:54pm

Richard Farrer
My favourite method to get a gut answer when you are a brain person (hmm - think we need a snappier
description for that) is to take a perfectly ordinary imaginary coin, decide which answer to The Decision is heads
and then toss the coin and look at the result.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 29 · Sep 1, 2016 10:42pm

Mac Chiulli New York, New York

Some say it's always best to flip a coin, because the minute the coin is in the air, you know what the
answer you want is - go with that.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 94 · Sep 1, 2016 11:32pm

Harry Kikstra Owner-operator at ExposedPlanet

Mac Chiulli you still might want to be careful with that, before you know it, you might have Brexited.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 59 · Sep 1, 2016 11:48pm

Vicky Cohn London, United Kingdom

Mac Chiulli haha, hilarious!
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · Sep 2, 2016 3:13am

Show 7 more replies in this thread

Jonathan Howard Inglewood, California

 Jonathan Howard Inglewood, California
It's incredible to me that you managed to make it through an entire article about marriage without discussing kids
once. Like it or not it's a major part of The Decision and, historically - in both politics and evolution - is the #1
reason to form a lifelong bond with a mate. Desmond Morris argues in "The Naked Ape," pretty convincingly, that a
number of our physical traits evolved to strengthen the attraction between a male and female pair to ensure they'd
both be around to participate in child-rearing, which for homo sapiens takes longer than with any other species.
This provides for a longe... See More
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 17 · Sep 1, 2016 11:08pm

Brian Lichtman Culver City High School

He does cover kids in the "deal-breakers" section. He also openly admitted that The Decision is a
hopelessly nuanced thing that is not best done by brain decision makers.

I would argue that the question of having kids is really about that, and less about marriage. Marriage is
about "Do I do the rest of my life with this person and only this person no matter what may come," of
which, children is a subsection (a big subsection, but a subsection nonetheless). Perhaps you'd be more
satisified by the "Should I/We have children" article. That's a different article. And it's definitely an article.
"Should I" have kids is different from "should we" have kids. It certainly isn't the same as "Should we get
married." It represented rightly as a deal-breaker in the article.

Maybe you didn't read it as closely as you could have?

Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 14 · Sep 1, 2016 11:44pm

Charlie Lian
You're thinking with your brain...
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 2 · Sep 2, 2016 3:48am

Jonathan Howard Inglewood, California

Brian Lichtman True enough!
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 1 · Sep 2, 2016 4:40am

Show 5 more replies in this thread

Nora Qudus Saint Petersburg, Russia

We were both over the age when people stopped asking when we would get married when we first met, We met,
after a brief letter wiritng after answereing an ad, on Thanksgiving and married 2 days after Christmas. 29 years
ago. It has had its ups and it has had its got to hell downs. But we are still together and we are glad we stayed
21.5k
Shares
together during the rough parts.
21.2k
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 21 · Sep 1, 2016 10:57pm · Edited

Daniel Archer
Sometimes it just works out, even if the circumstances look wrong. I'm probably a lot older than many of your
readers (about to hit 70); back in 1968 at the tender age of 21 I went on an overland trip from England (I'm English)
to India, in a Ford Transit van, with seven other people, three men and four women. We'd only met a couple of
times before this three month trip in an enclosed tin box. Halfway through the trip in Kashmir I began to fancy one
of the men, not for his looks but for his character. And we fell in love. And stayed in love for the rest of the trip to
the Taj Mahal and Golden ... See More
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 21 · Sep 1, 2016 11:08pm

Amy Sechrist Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Hmmm. As someone in a happy 8-year non-marriage relationship, why put aaalllllll this effort into deciding
between marriage vs. breakup- why not more deliberation about why "Some of us are not" (ok w/out deciding). It's
2016, folks!!
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 10 · Sep 1, 2016 11:26pm

Brian Lichtman Culver City High School

I disagree - I think he covers this quite well. When talking about the societal pressures and how people
respond to these pressures the author openly states that for MOST PEOPLE societal rules are their rules.
But not for all. It's definitely a nuance, but incredibly insightful. I admire people who don't make all
societies' rules their rules. For those who don't accept the society rule of "The Decision," this article has
little merit.

It makes it (probably) no less interesting to examine.

Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 10 · Sep 1, 2016 11:48pm

Rachel Ingrid Robbins

Amy....me, too! In year seven of a happy cohabitation, and both my not-husband and I have no intention of
ever marrying. We each did that once, and once was more than enough. Takes a lot of the pressure off.
Plus you get to wake up daily knowing that you're CHOOSING to be there, rather than swore an oath.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 5 · Sep 2, 2016 11:39am

Shafey Danish
Rachel Ingrid Robbins So you would be fine if, one day, he chose not to be there? Because, say, he met
someone else? Or for some other reason that he fancies? You are fine with invesitng in a relationship
which lacks commitment?
 Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 1 · Sep 3, 2016 2:59am

Show 3 more replies in this thread

Load 10 more comments

Facebook Comments Plugin

21.5k
Shares
21.2k
21.5k
Shares
21.2k
306 Comments Wait But Why 
1 Login

Sort by Newest
 Recommend 22 ⤤ Share

Join the discussion…

This comment is awaiting moderation. Show comment. −

Ben Richter > Adi
a month ago
− ⚑

For me it felt short and therefore fall short. Wasn't as elaborate as other posts...
△
21.5k▽
Reply
Shares
21.2k

Lol > Adi

2 months ago
− ⚑

Too long? Nah. Just because your mind couldn't stand to read a few extra pages, doesn't mean there wasn't
anything to gain from them. Long-form blog posts are for people that like to learn things in-depth anyway, rather
than just a short-post that just barely scratch the surface of a topic. But to each his own? :)
3△ ▽ Reply

boko haram = hómo barak > Lol

20 days ago
− ⚑

Monogamy is a hackneyed tenet of religion... Religious fággotry is insane.

△ ▽ Reply

Sascha Erni, .rb

22 days ago
− ⚑

Tim, don’t get my question wrong. But why the focus on marriage in some of your postings?

I don’t know whether it’s an American thing, but at least here in Switzerland, all is dandy if you “just” live in a
relationship, without either the state or the church giving their blessings. Right now, we’re seven years in, No.8
creeping up, and “The Decision” hasn’t been on our minds and hasn’t been pushed by relatives or society in the least.
In my personal life, I only know two kinds of persons who get married: those with kids (as it makes things easier for
the children if you’re married), and those with a religious background.

Is The Decision about “commitment”, or is it about “marriage”? If the former, why bring up marriage at all, and if the
latter, is this an American thing?
8△ ▽ Reply

raizelmik > Sascha Erni, .rb

10 days ago
− ⚑

It may well be "an American thing". In my experience as an American, marriage does tend to be generally pushed
by society as the end-goal of dating, and as the manifestation of a committed relationship. This may also be
correlated to the high incidence of religiosity in Americans, as religions tend to endorse the institution of marriage
as an end-goal.
△ ▽ Reply
 Earmuffs
23 days ago
− ⚑

Got to love the people who comment here about how "We need to abandon the institution of marriage!" or "It's an
outdated dogma of a patriarchy that is evil!" or "I don't like (insert religion or governmental organization here) putting
their nose in my business!"

We get it, you vape.

How about if you aren't ready to get married, then don't. Nothing is "forcing" you to get married except for the
delusions you create in your own mind. If someone else wants to get married and feels they are ready then good for
them! Lots of people have gotten out there and opened themselves to the world and found the one who compliments
them completely. It isn't "marriage's fault" if you haven't.
4△ ▽ Reply

the_caretaker
a month ago
− ⚑

I think the urge to decide (one way or another) has more to do with human nature than societal pressure. We start to
feel restless when there's progress (some "next step" to look forward to) in our lives.
△ ▽ Reply

the_caretaker > the_caretaker

a month ago
− ⚑

Sorry, I meant to say "no progress".

△ ▽ Reply

Kelly
− ⚑
a month ago
I wish marriage was not the social norm. I hope someday we get to that point. I stopped being excited about marriage
a couple years after graduating from college. I'm 29 now and have no interest in marriage, but my long-term boyfriend
does want to get married. Frankly, I'll probably end up doing it eventually, for him, but it will not bring me any more joy
than what I feel just being with him. I just don't think the government belongs in our personal relationships like that.

Anyway, thanks Tim, for explaining to me why I have always had such a hard time with decisions about relationships.
I never really understood why it was so hard for me to make "The Decision," but now I understand it's because I'm as
close to a full-on, 100% brain person as they come. You are so insightful, as always. I'm not sure your decision-
21.5k
Shares
making framework 21.2k
will work for me (maybe with practice?), but becoming more self-aware is always helpful, either
way.
1△ ▽ Reply

bradwagon
a month ago
− ⚑

Once again a post that primarily focuses on the selfishness of personal happiness in a relationship.

Marriage is about promising to help someone else and the understanding that they will help you back. Both of your
lives will be better because of this decision to help the other. Being attracted to the other person and having pleasant
emotions about that person makes this decision easier at times but ultimately is not a reliable source of motivation
or personal happiness.

Get married when you feel you are ready to help someone the rest of your life and are confident that person will do
their best to help you. Personal happiness, sadness and everything in between are accessories to that commitment
that can be altered by means less drastic than the ending of the relationship. A relationship in which this commitment
isn't made (marriage or otherwise) that relies on the personal emotion of either party to continue is not stable and will
not contribute to any long term progress personally or as a couple.
7△ ▽ Reply

You're full of shít > bradwagon

20 days ago
− ⚑

Monogamy is a hackneyed tenet of religion.

Mammalian evolution is heterosexual.

△ ▽ Reply

bradwagon > You're full of shít

18 days ago
− ⚑

Did I say monogamy was necessarily better or right? If you don't want that commitment then don't worry about
having it, but don't want it for the wrong reasons...
△ ▽ Reply

Beth
a month ago
− ⚑
 a month ago

We need an article about the partners of the people who can't decide....I volunteer for an interview!
2△ ▽ Reply

Andaco
a month ago
− ⚑

What happned to the progress noodle?

1△ ▽ Reply

James
a month ago
− ⚑

I've come very close to being married a couple times, at this point I think I've decided marriage is an outdated social
practice that isn't necessary in the modern world. There is no need to get married, unless you want the tax benefits.
You can live happily with your partner, have kids, do everything a married couple would do without the unnecessary
label or unrealistic lifetime commitment. I've come to accept that monogamy isn't for me either but that's another
discussion
5△ ▽ Reply

Jack > James

a month ago
− ⚑

No, please discuss. I'm divorced with kids and now in my late 30s. I have also accepted that monogamy isn't for
me. Polyamory and ethical non-monogamy is the way to go. I've found it more challenging being a straight male
than a swinging couple or bisexual, but I'm all for sex positive relationships. End of the day, having open
relationships is liberating like nothing else and the support network is amazing.
1△ ▽ Reply

James > Jack

a month ago
− ⚑

I agree, this is the same conclusion I've come to. Although I haven't been in one yet, if I was going to enter
another relationship it would be a polyamorous one. Right now I have several partners but they aren't serious.
However, I do communicate honestly and they are aware that they aren't the only person I spend time with. The
mistakes and lessons I learned from them in my last relationship is what has led me to this.
1△ ▽ Reply

danarana
21.5k
Shares
a month ago
21.2k
− ⚑

I was more old-fashioned and entered into dating with the intention of finding someone to marry. That meant that as
soon as I realized someone wasn't the sort of person I wanted for a spouse, I stopped dating them. It also meant I
didn't have sex until after I'd already been convinced that this person had all the traits I wanted in a life partner and
was personally compatible with me in all the other ways--because having sex early on is a great way to end up with
really strong feelings for someone who isn't right for you, which is a great way to end up in an unhappy marriage, or at
least to waste several years when you could have been finding someone better.

If you date more intentionally *from the beginning*, "The Decision" isn't some awful anxious thing. The decision made
itself. We've been very happy for 12 years now.
7△ ▽ Reply

ramblinjd > danarana

a month ago
− ⚑

I treated dating the same way - the first relationship I had that lasted over a year was with my current wife. I don't
understand people who spent all of high school or all of college in the same relationship (especially an unhappy
one) just to break up when they finally had the excuse of moving or graduation or something to make the change.

My thresholds were:
After 1 date I could know pretty certainly if this person should be my girlfriend at all.
After 1 month I could know pretty certainly if this person would be a long term girlfriend or not.
After 6-9 months I could know pretty certainly if this person would be marriage quality.

I had lots of dates, tens of girlfriends or girls I went out with repeatedly for up to a month, and 5 girls make it past a
month, 4 of whom I knew weren't the one after 6-9 months who I then proceeded to break up with (it got
increasingly difficult as I got older and, to your point, sex complicated things, but they were also increasingly
compatible with me as I started catching warning signs earlier and earlier and so the last 2-3 were all *almost*
marriage quality). Last one I knew I wanted to marry after about 4 months, but I waited till she broke the 1 year
mark to propose. Now we've been married almost 3 years.

see more

2△ ▽ Reply
 △ ▽ Reply

Load more comments

ALSO ON WAIT BUT WHY

Who is the most powerful person on the planet? What was the last thing you Googled?
219 comments • 5 days ago• 400 comments • 5 months ago•

Does Monogamy Work? Is there a ceiling on what our brains can

1052 comments • 6 months ago• understand?
298 comments • a month ago•

✉ Subscribe d Add Disqus to your site Add Disqus Add ὑ Privacy

21.5k
Shares
21.2k
21.5k
Shares
21.2k

Home Archive

Contact Partner With Us
© WaitButWhy 2016 
Privacy Policy