When I think of my married peers I'm not certain I can find any with marriages that have been mutually satisfying and fulfilling over the long haul. In every case, my married peers started out with apparently good, strong marriages but now experience varying degrees of dissatisfaction and unhappiness all the time. Several are caught between a rock and a hard place: they have no remaining emotional attachment to their spouse, but cannot divorce due to their faith, social stigma, personal finances, or some other constraint.

My advice to my children: don't get married. Why? Because the odds of finding the one "right person" today are small, and because we all change over time, the odds of that "right person" remaining in sync with them are very, very low.

Instead, I encourage my children to concentrate on enjoying being with the person they are with right now, to understand that one day their goals, satisfiers, values, etc will change, that the change does not make either party "bad," and that it may be appropriate to split up. It is possible to part ways with someone without experiencing an emotional or financial catastrophe.

I encourage my children to form strong and meaningful relationships, but I discourage them from marriage.