Marriage is a leap of faith and a journey, not a statistical strategy game

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/22/marriage-divorce-faith-journey

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I got married just shy of my 31st birthday; my husband-to-be had just turned 26. According to new research, this means we’re one of the lucky couples who got hitched at the exact right age range to avoid divorce: between the ages of 25 and 34. (Whew.)

According to sociology professor Nicholas H. Wolfinger, in research done for the Institute for Family Studies, it’s no longer true that getting married in your mid-30s is best for a lasting relationship. “My data analysis shows that prior to age 32 or so, each additional year of age at marriage reduces the odds of divorce by 11 percent. However, after that the odds of divorce increase by 5 percent per year,” he writes.

I understand the sociological value of research like this. It’s interesting to know why marriage and divorce trends happen at certain ages, and we all want to know all we can about love. After all, we live in an age where you can find out your Tinder date’s work history on LinkedIn and his likes on Facebook all while planning your future wedding on Pinterest. So why not think about the exact “right” age to get married, as well?

The problem is that marriage is not an equation to be solved – there’s no formula to get it right. It’s a relationship – a messy, wonderful, horrible one. As my friend Ada Calhoun wrote in the New York Times about the advice she’d like to give people about to get married, “I only wish I could tell them they will suffer occasionally in this marriage — and not only sitcom-grade squabbles, but possibly even dark-night-of-the-soul despair.” She continues,

That doesn’t mean they are doomed to divorce, just that it’s unlikely they will be each other’s best friend every single minute forever. And that while it’s good to aim high, it’s quite probable they will let each other down many times in ways both petty and profound that in this blissful moment they can’t even fathom.

But for all the reasons marriages fail – so many possible permutations of fights and mistakes, betrayals and boredom – there are just as many possibilities and roads to marital happiness. (Let’s shoot for happiness over success, yes? The metric for ‘marital success’ is simply the absence of divorce!)

At the end of the day, we need to be comfortable with the fact that marriage is a leap of faith. There are just some things that are unknowable about marriage, and about your partner, before you tie the knot. And that’s OK. No matter how much planning or forethought goes into a relationship, it may work out and it may not.

That’s not to say we have no control over the fates of our relationships. We can respect our partners, love them (even when we hate them) and work together for a mutually satisfying life. But let’s not look to studies too often: these are matters of love, communication, loyalty and friendship – not numbers.