I know that I’ve seen just about all the crazy things out there on the web that might be seen. So this morning as I’m going through my morning mail and scanning my news feeds to see what’s going on in the world out there I came across a glib one-liner about a great website that all engaged couples should visit in order to weigh their odds against the future success of their upcoming marriage.
The site is called WeddingBetter.com. The site invites visitors to bet on how quickly a couple will divorce based on a photograph and a paragraph blurb about how the couple met, courted and became engaged. Several of the couples are already married and have been for a few years. According to most of the statistics on the site, there wasn’t one couple that had a chance of lasting longer than 5 years.
In fact, there is an option to bet on happily ever after, but highest success rate I saw was only about 17%. Now, I know that this site hardly represents real statistics, but rather the cynical viewpoint of sarcastic visitors who are just figuring that most marriages are only happy for about 5 years and after that – they are not going to be happy beyond that.
Power of Cynical Thinking
Think about the marriages you know and your own marriage. If you were to weigh in on this particular voting on those marriages – what would you be more likely to select?
- 5 years?
- 10 years?
- 20 years?
- Happily ever after?
Me, I wouldn’t pick any of those options, maybe I’m a bigger cynic than the rest, but I wanted an option to vote on marriage lasting a lifetime, but requiring a lot of work and effort on the part of the couple. That’s the option I want to choose, but the site doesn’t give that option. Now, I get it that the site is supposed to be entertaining – but if the majority of those people voting don’t believe that the marriages will last and that their own won’t last – then chances are, their own marriages won’t last.
You have to want your marriage to last. You have to want to invest in your marriage. You have to believe in marriage. If you want to believe that no marriage can last, not even your own – then you will likely be a sad and lonely person who’s marriage will fail – not because marriages don’t last, but because you don’t want to put in the effort to make it last.
Happy marriages don’t just happen, they are the product of the couple’s involvement. What would you bet on your own marriage?
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