People with good spouses are just lucky or

[Anonymous]

there a science behind it?

[Anonymous]

There's some luck to it, but luck does not account for emotional maturity, healthy self esteem and confidence, the wisdom to know what red flags to look out for, discern dysfunction and avoid pitfalls, and lots of hard work.

[Anonymous]

Are THEY good spouses? You are most likely to have a good spouse if YOU are a good spouse. Everyone on this forum pretends otherwise.

[Anonymous]

It takes a lot of work by both spouses including a good sex life.

[Anonymous]

I'm sure it's a mix. Plenty of people get involved with other people when they should absolutely know better. That's not bad luck.

But there are times when the warning signs are subtle or non-existent. Avoiding those is mostly luck.

And, of course, there are plenty of people who, through their own actions, turn good spouses into bad spouses.

[Anonymous]

It's half luck and half being smart in choices. Every single happy marriage I know of both spouses are each others best friend. They live life as a team. It's jokingly annoying to see because I wish I had that. But, I made poor choices and had bad luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's some luck to it, but luck does not account for emotional maturity, healthy self esteem and confidence, the wisdom to know what red flags to look out for, discern dysfunction and avoid pitfalls, and lots of hard work.

This. I have a good spouse (not perfect) but I am very confident and always have high standards. I was always very picky even with my dates. I didn’t date anyone that did not meet my minimum standard.

[Anonymous]

Make good choices.

[Anonymous]

I am 10 years into marriage (3 kids) with a spouse who is a really hands on partner with house and kid stuff, respects my career, and is just overall still my favorite person to spend time with.

However, I was in an abusive (physically and mentally) relationship in college and then spent my early 20s falling for guys who treated me like crap while I had low self esteem. And then one day in my mid-20s I just decided I would rather be alone than settle for being treated like crap. I decided to focus on me (fitness, self-care, friendships, exploring hobbies, career, etc.). And I think this is huge, but I cut way back on drinking and being in a party/going out scene.

DH and I met through a friend at a small meetup when I was 26. We just clicked and he was the one really serious about locking things down. And I’ll be honest it probably helped that I was a skinny blonde so it was still easy to attract guys and he was 6 years older, so ready for marriage and kids.

Green flags were that he wasn’t a big drinker, kept his apartment clean, was close with his family, liked to cook (and would do other nice things to take care of me), was nice to my friends, and just overall treated me with respect. There were no red flags like I’d ignored in past relationships.

Of course there is some element of luck I realize. I do believe some men turn into total scum bags once they have kids and try to make their wives take on the lion’s share of parental duties. You can’t always know that until it happens. But at least you can try to look for signs beforehand that you’re marrying someone who follows through with commitments and treats you as an equal, and hope for the best.

[Anonymous]

A certain % will die, become disabled, have mental illness, have a mid life crisis, become under employed, be terrible parent, unable to manage kids, unable to keep up with house

Most of that is unpredictable .

[Anonymous]

It is a combination of good luck and good choices.

Good Luck:
- Being born beautiful or at least not offensive in anyway. No drastic weight issues or physical deformity that would weed you out of the pool for eligible partners. I know looks are not everything but lets be honest, most high quality people do care somewhat about having a spouse that is physically attractive and fit.
- Being born into a happy functional family where you were loved correctly and learned to form and identify healthy relationship patterns. You seek out what you know.
- Being lucky in not inheriting debilitating mental health or emotional issues. You are a well rounded, happy balanced person.

Good Choices:
- You spot red flags quickly and cut your losses and move on. There is no years of your life wasted on the wrong partner desperately trying to "fix" them or make it work.
- You learn from your mistakes. If you attract an undesirable partner, you do the work to understand why, learn from your mistakes, and do better next time.
- Actively working on yourself to make yourself someone a good person would want to marry. Are you emotionally stable, financially stable, open minded and loyal? Well your chances of attracting a similar spouse went up considerably!

[Anonymous]

A big part of it is looking at everything honestly while dating. If a guy never cooks and his home is a wreck there's no reason to think he'll morph into a clean person who cooks for the family once married.

[Anonymous]

I can't think of any marriages I've observed where BOTH partners are good partners. So...I'm not sure what that says. Maybe that one common facet of being in a "happy" marriage is not having enough self-respect or confidence to demand better treatment?

[Anonymous]

There's definitely an element of luck. I am not the same person I was when we met 20 years ago and neither is she. Neither of us could have predicted how we'd change or how we'd adapt to those changes.

[Anonymous]

Date intentionally
Don't settle for poor partners

The only "luck" involved is not meeting/falling for a sociopath who does a 180 after you get married. But I think that's actually pretty rare. There are millions of tiny red flags that women especially ignore.

There are always so many posts on here about shitty partners, and one of the first questions I think are "so how was he when you were datin? Engaged? During conflict?". I don't want to sound rude, but many women seem like pick mes and desperate to land any man, to get any ring, to have any children. Even if all of this goes down with a not-great man.