SOFA - Start Often Finish rArely

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.

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.

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.

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.