SOFA - Start Often Finish rArely

> Traditional marriage is the ultimate form of this ideal. You're supposed to stick to it until you die, no matter what, come hell or high water, even if it makes you and everybody around you miserable. That is neither sane nor healthy!

An interesting philosophy, but I don’t think marriage is the best place to apply it. Writing a README and then never starting a project has practically no consequences. Same for picking up a book and then ditching it after a few minutes. Marriage? That’s a whole different ball game, especially when children are involved.

SOFA works great for marriage, if you tweak the params a little. Most secular people arrive at this by default: You marry your 3rd serious partner sometime in your late 20’s.

Start a lot of long term relationships, finish the one that sticks when both partners are mature and more or less done growing up.

I think there’s another shakeup period (statistically) in your mid to late 40’s. That seems related to when kids start being old enough that they don’t act as a forcing function as much.

And that's when those couples often get divorced.

There's strong value in staying with a first partner, like a high school sweetheart. Growing together through life's challenges creates deep emotional bonds and shared experiences. Long-term stability comes from building trust over time and avoiding the emotional toll of repeated breakups.

Couples who navigate growth together often develop stronger, more resilient partnerships.

I highly censor myself on HN as I know most of my views are in the minority, but I'm happy to see your response.

To add to your point, I've also found that developing the relational skills necessary to bring a marriage relationship through tricky waters often leads to success in similar, but perhaps not so dire, circumstances.

It's also been common knowledge for some time now that children tend to do much better when stability is present in the home. If a child always thinks one of their parents might just up and leave one day, they tend to act accordingly (read: exhibit undesired behaviors).

I understand marriage isn't for everyone, and I certainly don't promote it as such, but I also wouldn't advise people to treat marriage as no more than something that can start today and end tomorrow, on a whim.

> Couples who navigate growth together often develop stronger, more resilient partnerships.

Nowhere in that wisdom did the word “first” appear.

If at “first” you don’t succeed, keep looking for that partner who, by character, and suitability to you, who will “ navigate growth together”.

——

I feel like there is a stay-with-your-first crowd that has a lot of wisdom to share, but logically needs to recognize that commitment to an unworkable situation isn’t really what they are trying to promote.

Props to those that find that person, who will co-invest, can be co-patient, co-flexible, co-loyal, co-appreciative, co-vision the first time.

But those things are just as great, and important to find, regardless of the ordinal.

—

I think I have that! Number 3. Wish me luck for the future, but 8 years in I am very and honored happy now.

To add to this—most of the marriages I've seen that have come after multiple serious relationships struggle with baggage from those previous relationships.

Often it's obvious things like kids, but it's also more pernicious things like expectations, comparisons, and even just different worldviews. A couple that grows up together can end up substantially more unified than is possible when you're joining lives after a decade of adulthood shaped by multiple partners.

There are obviously exceptions on both sides—first-timers that were toxic and 'experienced' partners who work well—but I certainly haven't seen an unqualified series of successes in the pattern described by OP.

I haven’t seen any patterns, and I’m wondering where people are getting these kinds of insights.

Like I have 1 friend that married somebody who could reasonably be described as like a first serious relationship. Other than that… everybody tended to settle down after college, after a few more serious relationships. Nobody has gotten divorced yet (late 30’s). But (and this is being generous to myself), I’ll say I probably only have like 5 friends who I’d really be confident in saying much about the health of their relationships.

I think everybody in this thread is just making things up, tbh.

> children tend to do much better when stability is present in the home

Encouraging relation instability creates children which don’t have the funding on their own to be students. It makes them great candidates for both student loans (US) and subsidies (EU). As a society, that’s what we want; It’s makes every individual miserable, but it fuels the need for public funding.

> Props to those that find that person, who will co-invest, can be co-patient, co-flexible, co-loyal, co-appreciative, co-vision the first time.

That's what dating is for. It's not magic if you've got your priorities figured out.

> It's not magic if you've got your priorities figured out.

I doubt most people have their priorities figured out before their 30s. I envy those who do.

Strong disagree on the "childhood sweetheart" thing.

In my experience / opinion there is more to be said for a (gentle) bit of "playing the field" when you're in your teens and early twenties. Get that stuff out of the way - get to know some different people, different ways of being, different dynamics in sex / friendship / beliefs. Get to know yourself, mainly - figure out the person you are. Because you sure as shit don't know when you're 16, and you probably don't really know until you're 20 or probably even 25.

I'd say the same about getting out there and socialising - drink some drink, smoke some weed, take some mushrooms, travel the world. Don't get stuck in one thing straight away - in any direction, whether that's location or relationship or job or misc life situation.

Obviously everyone's MMV and there may be some people who do find that person when they're 16, but even then you've got to ask "how do you actually know that's the right person if you've never experienced any other kind of people?".

It's like travelling - say you got on a plane to an island on your first day of your first expedition away from home and had such a great time that you just stopped there, cancelling your future travel plans. Seems foolish and small minded to me.

Obviously long and beautiful and balanced relationships are what most of us aim for - and that's great and a brilliant thing if you find it (I'm ~25 years into the best possible relationship and marriage I could possibly have hoped for) - but I (and my wife) got here via a whole bunch of teen and early 20s relationships - some brilliant, some silly, some deeply hurtful, some short, some long, some with people that really suited us, some with complete howlers that were destined for disaster from day one. And that whole journey enabled us to discover who we were individually - and then when we met in our mid 20s we had a much better understanding of who and where we wanted to be, both individually and as a couple.

I've been immensely lucky in my journey but it's because of that journey, and it's because quite a lot of that journey was sometimes hard. Breakups and dating the wrong person and getting it wrong are part of that journey, and it sometimes hurts. So does life, and to expect otherwise is deeply unrealistic.

I'm already fascinated as my two kids (20/17) do this themselves - but my strong advice to them and to anyone else is that getting to know who you are involves bashing into the world a whole bunch - it can be painful and difficult but that's what a satisfying and realistic life looks like.

I think this take is weird in many ways, but I wanted to focus especially on the fact that in the EU where its free it costs the exact same to fund a student regardless of if parents are divorced.

Religion seems to help a lot with figuring out a purpose in life at a young age, too

There is a strong winners history effect driving your thinking here.

Marrying the wrong person and sticking with them does not make anyone happy. Some of us resist SOFA as late as our mid 40s on the basis that we made a promise, marriage is forever etc. it’s a massive mistake in almost every case. I know nobody who regrets a divorce and isn’t substantially happier after it.

If you have kids don’t blow up a relationship on a whim. But at the same time know that divorcing when kids are in their teens is absolutely no easier on them then when they are younger. In many ways my perspective is that it only makes life for the adults easier.

There is massive confounding here. Think of the counterfactual — kids who live in a house with a failing relationship, or one where the adults can’t meet each other’s needs.

It’s not at all obvious this would be better, and none of the research suggests it’s better for kids for adults to stay in a troubled relationship. In fact the reverse - conflict in the home is a much stronger predictor of poor outcomes than divorce per se.

Provided you don’t later conclude it’s an unsatisfying account of many fundamental questions for modern humans, and then need to leave a community or repress interesting and valid ideas.

Honestly, I don't get it how people find relationships in the first place. I feel like at this point of my life I have developed my own personality and lifestyle which don't match other people, and therefore I can't really connect with anyone.

The impression I get—without being too dismissive—is that it gives you the opportunity to not bother figuring it out.

>SOFA works great for marriage, if you tweak the params a little. Most secular people arrive at this by default: You marry your 3rd serious partner sometime in your late 20’s.

This doesn't really work great:

* Some people get really good at starting and not so good at finishing. They hurt a lot of people, eventually including themselves.

* Many people find it is too late to have the number of children they would have liked, or any children at all. This causes a lot of personal tragedy.

* Birth rates are well below replacement everywhere in the developed world, which is causing serious social problems.

> mature and more or less done growing up.

People finish growing up?

Use to do SOFA without knowing about it. Then marriage came, then children and boom, collapse of the wave function.

> Couples who navigate growth together often develop stronger, more resilient partnerships.

Thinking of someone I used to know who sarcastically referred to her many relationship blowups as "another fucking 'opportunity for growth'".

I see a lot of people talking past each other in this thread. There's several layers at work:

- "marriage is good"

- "people should make an effort to keep their relationship together"

- "people should make an effort to keep their relationship together, even at the cost of their own happiness, regardless of whether their partner is also doing the work"

- "marriage should be socially encouraged"

- "marriage should be socially enforced with censure of the unmarried"

- "marriage and its permanency should be legally enforced, regardless of harm including rape and domestic violence" (the pre-1950ish position)

You can see poster A making one of these statements and another poster B replying as if they'd said another one down the slippery slope.

Our sample sizes are small, our circumstances vary, and people are too unique.

I think that is just a cop-out born out of fear of rejection. If you don't want to connect with anyone, that is fine. I doubt that you can't.

What about the "hey, marriage is just not for everybody" position? I did not get married until my very late 30's, having spend enough time with my partner to have built something worth keeping, but at least two of my friends have been married so many times that it seems like an occasional hobby they indulge in. The idea works for some people, but not all, and that's just fine. The arguments you listed all assume a one-size-fits-all solution, which I suppose is why they are circular and absurd.

Interesting, that's a great point. Last I checked the negative effects of fatherlessness were well studied, but I don't know if it's been compared with the alternative, i.e. being raised by someone who rather would have left!

IIRC a low quality father is still better than none (barring abuse, though emotional neglect is now finally coming to be recognized as developmentally impactful), but I really don't know...

Yes, I'm afraid of rejection, but not of being rejected, but rather of spending my time rejecting people instead of doing something pleasant or useful.

Nah, man, the people saying we all have too limited of a perspective and draw conclusions too readily are right. Every possible course of action involves risk and uncertain outcomes. My parents married at 18 and 20, a few weeks after my mom graduated high school. They're still together in their mid-60s, have a disturbingly great and loud sex life, are the epitome of lifelong friends. I tried to marry at 21 and my first wife descended into a drug habit, destroyed our apartment and got the lease terminated, was committed to a psych ward and left me temporarily homeless. That didn't work out, though arguably, maybe it could have. She'd be in her 50s now and I don't know if she's even still alive, but last I had contact with her a decade ago, she seemed to be doing well. I finally married someone that stuck later on and we're past a decade, inside of two still, and she's been in the ICU seemingly inches from death twice in that time due to alcoholism, but I guess it's just different being older, more experienced, somehow able to deal with that and not have your entire life necessarily spiral into complete chaos.

My actual first girlfriend from high school isn't a person I kept in touch with, but from what I saw of the 20 year reunion a while back, she got really fat, became a bizarrely hardcore religious fundamentalist, and was extremely into Trump. I can't imagine a world in which a marriage with her would have worked. I don't see how you can possibly hope to imagine what a person might become decades later when you're 16.

I agree entirely with you about growing together through challenges and creating deep bonds through shared experiences. I'm just not sure why you think those don't continue happening past childhood. My 30s were by far the toughest decade due to unexpected physical challenges from spinal degeneration, and having someone there for it made all the difference in the world. I will love and cherish her forever for that, no matter what else happens. I didn't need to know her in high school for that to be possible.

And all the breakups of the past didn't take a toll on me. They taught me that loss isn't really that big of a deal. Life doesn't have to be constant and predictable. People come and go. Jobs come and go. The world turns, life goes on, and I'll be fine. Some other opportunity always comes along. More often than not, each one turns out to be better than the last one. I certainly don't want my wife to die and have no intention of ever divorcing her, but if something does happen, I have no doubt I'll be fine. Grieve, sure. Be crushed for maybe a year or two. But life is long as fuck and a year or two fades into nothing decades later when you're happy again.

There is such a thing as coparenting while divorced; one need not assume that separation implies that the father ceases to parent.

I think you mean pre-1970ish position. No-fault divorce wasn't introduced anywhere in the US until 1969 in California. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fault_divorce

It's debatable to what degree they are as most of the studies have massive confounders. Couples that stay together tend to be more affluent than divorced couples because of only needing to pay for and maintain one place of living instead of two. And poverty is a massive confounder in the studies, kids in poverty do a fair bit worse than kids in middle class lifestyles.

We want to spend more public money? It's weird if you also say that this could be avoided.

Just like everything else in life - luck.

Priority number one must be seeing into the future.

People change as they go through life. People who grow never stop learning how to be more themselves, less of what they were taught or expected to be, or finding new paths.

Even the positive side of change can introduce profound instability and unhappiness into a relationship.

The idea that if people would just do everything right, no relationship would need to break up is an unhealthy, and completely unrealistic, judgement.

And it inadvertently prioritizes relationships over the people actually in them.

> Long-term stability comes from building trust over time and avoiding the emotional toll of repeated breakups.

I see the idea, but I turbo-fucked those relationships because I didn't understand how to communicate. It took me 2-3 LTRs to get a handle both on what I wanted, how to explain my needs/flaws/etc, and how to make space for somebody elses yada yada.

I admire people who managed to get through that stuff first time, but i feel like they've got to be the exception?

> I think there’s another shakeup period (statistically) in your mid to late 40’s. That seems related to when kids start being old enough that they don’t act as a forcing function as much

Also menopause.

Only counting marriages that I have very close understanding of: Between my wife's immediate family and mine I've had personal insight into 11 different marriages, a mix of both types. Still a small sample size relative to the population as a whole, but not nothing.

In that set, the only healthy marriages are first timers.

It's certainly not enough to draw any conclusions, but that's why all I actually argued is that OP's claimed success pattern doesn't seem to be true in my experience.

> Marriage? That’s a whole different ball game, especially when children are involved.

While, yes, it's more serious than writing a README, there is certainly often a point where it's better for all concerned to just pack it in.

I know at least one person who says they would have rather stuck it out in retrospect.

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Sheesh

I’m not disagreeing with your other points, but I really dislike the last one. I’m uncomfortable with the idea that we’d try to implement social pressure/coercion to restrict people’s freedom to date who and when they like on the basis of some abstract, top-down perception of trying to maintain the “stock” of humans or whatever. Also, far as I’m aware, the main issue with birthrates isn’t desire or timing but that people feel unable to support kids, which is mostly an economic and policy problem.

I never mentioned coercion - my point was just that the existing way we date doesn't work. As for feeling unable to support kids, a key part of that is having somebody to share the parenting with. Few policies or economic subsidies would be an adequate substitute for that.

> And it inadvertently prioritizes relationships over the people actually in them.

An oath is an oath. You are an individualist, but social stability often matters more than the whims of individuals.

> The idea that if people would just do everything right, no relationship would need to break up is an unhealthy, and completely unrealistic, judgement.

When people are focused on their 'perfect wedding', you already know priorities are already way off. Marriages need to built on decent foundations, not just feelings. So, I can agree with you that a feelings-focused marriage in an impulse-driven society is unrealistic.

That's what parenting is for. 'Just follow your feelings' is not good parenting.

No-fault divorce would be more aptly described as providers-fault divorce if you look at how the family courts tend to work.

It also helps prevent a descent into hedonism.

> When people are focused on their 'perfect wedding'

Perfect wedding? Who said anything about that?

> Marriages need to built on decent foundations

Well, yes. Did someone argue against that?

> not just feelings

"Feelings"? Which parent commenter said anything about that?

> So, I can agree with you that a feelings-focused marriage in an impulse-driven society is unrealistic.

Who are you talking to?

You have no idea who I am. How seriously I take commitments. How constructive I have remained in trying times. The end of my previous relationships involved serious circumstances, real people experiencing trauma and tragedy, and a great deal of lasting pain and loss.

Another person's misfortunes, which you have no knowledge of, are not a blank canvas you should be painting your careless assumptions and selective "values" on.

> Who are you talking to?

Just to be clear, I am not talking about you directly. I had no intention of judging you personally or upsetting you; I'm sorry if you took it that way.

> The idea that if people would just do everything right, no relationship would need to break up is an unhealthy, and completely unrealistic, judgement.

Let me try again: I think that what you're saying is true because of the social context. Would you agree that current society is not as conducive to long-term relationships?

I don’t think that’s actually true. I think the largest issue with single parenthood is that children are expensive, so it’s hard to support them on only one income and be left with time to raise them. While single parents will always be at a disadvantage in that sense under our economic model we could, for example, just give them some money for their child’s necessities. Matter of fact I think we oughta do that for any parents and see how that affects the birthrate in 20 years.

Sure family courts are biased, but the idea of divorce not being allowed unless one demonstrates fault to a court is absolutely and utterly absurd in a country where we allow people to freely associate, so I hope you’re not gonna try and argue against no-fault divorce itself on the basis of court bias.

Thanks for helping tone things down.

> Would you agree that current society is not as conducive to long-term relationships?

There can be great value in long term relationships, but equally, there is great value in people's freedom to associate (or not), including the freedom to move in and out of personal relationships.

Those ideals could be framed as appositional, but they are synergistic.

Emphasizing only long term commitments, and stigmatizing break ups, has a long history of trapping countless people in abusive, unhappy, practically harmful relationships. And covering up that harm. Anti-breakup effectively becomes anti-transparency and pro-abuse.

Promoting the freedom to break up (not promoting break ups), helps people get out of bad relationships, and gives them another chance to find one.

So win-win.

So yes, I would say that a more free society is tautologically less conducive to long term relationships than one where they are highly prescribed.

But more conducive to people taking the health of their existing relationships seriously, and for finding a healthy relationship, however long that takes. And more conducive to people who are simply happier without a relationship (after suffering a bad one, or not), to do so without stigma.

Have you spoken to any single parents? Money does not easily substitute for e.g. the ability to cook food while somebody else changes the nappy, or to leave the house on your own for five minutes.

> Anti-breakup effectively becomes anti-transparency and pro-abuse.

If there is no communal support or watchfulness, then I guess those things are more likely, yes. Communities should help prevent abusive people from isolating their partners. I guess you would argue that the reality will always fall short of that and that communities can never be good enough.

> So win-win.

I'm not so sure it's necessarily a win for the kids.

I guess the main problem that you're not addressing is the possible lack of sustainability. Women do have a time limit if they want children, and of course there is personal freedom and all that, but if a culture that pushes personal freedom doesn't reproduce enough to replace itself then it may eventually be outbred by cultures that are less interested in personal freedom (e.g. their women might be forced to have more kids).

My mother was a single parent. Of course it’s better to have two parents in the house, but if you can’t get that you can still get a lot of improvement out of having some money.