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.

> 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.

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