I fell down a rabbit hole online the other day. You know the kind—where you start with one video and suddenly it’s two hours later and you’re questioning everything. The topic? Marriage. And let me tell you, the conversation is a lot more complicated than fairy tales and rom-coms led us to believe.

It all kicked off with one woman who, honestly, just said what a lot of people are feeling in their bank accounts. She didn’t hold back:

“At this point, I’m not even dating for love. I’m looking to date somebody so we can sleep platonically next to each other¹ and I can halve the rent… Why am I paying $2,000 for 500 sq ft to sleep alone when I could be paying $1,000 to sleep next to somebody?”

And just like that, the floodgates opened. . . .

It’s a vibe right now, isn’t it? This feeling that the world—the bills, the groceries, the rent—isn’t built for one person to handle alone. It’s forcing a brutally honest look at what partnership really means in 2025.

Turns out this idea of marrying purely for love? It’s pretty new.

“I think most people are unaware that marriage was not initially for love… Marriage was always a business transaction. That’s why you sign a contract.”

For centuries, marriage was about strategy. It was for peace between warring countries, for consolidating wealth, for status.

Now, for everyone else who was not an aristocrat or a royal and also did not come from a wealthy family, they would have to get married because they were adults and it was time.

A man would have to find a wife and a woman would have to find a man to take care of her because she was now an adult and could no longer continue living in her father’s home. And she could also not wander off on her own because how would she support herself?

(Although I’m fully aware for the sake of this conversation, I won’t consider forced marriages or child marriages. I’m only going to focus on marriages between two consenting adults.)

For centuries, marriage for economic, diplomatic, political, and religious reasons was common and actually the norm. It’s not up until the last 100 – 150 years that people started getting married for love. A lot of us grow up on the Disney and Hollywood romcom idea of love and marriage. So you meet your prince charming or the perfect partner, you fall madly in love, then you get married and you live happily ever after. But a lot of people are starting to realize that this is not reality. It’s literally a fairy tale. And people are starting to realize that it is not easy to find the perfect person to enter into a lifetime partnership with. And those who are getting married, a lot are discovering that it is not happily ever after as Disney had us believe. 

For the first time in history, more and more people are deciding to either not get married or they’re getting married at a older age or they are ending their marriages. And for the first time in history, we have a lot of adults who are living alone in single income households. But this economy, this inflation, this recession, this capitalistic society is not built for single income households.And I’m not saying all of this to encourage loveless relationships or partnerships of convenience. I’m just sharing all of this because I’m often surprised by how many people who want to get married do not know the history of marriage. I’m also sharing all of this because often people ask how come older generations marriages lasted. It’s because it was not necessarily for love. Sure, some people did love each other, but not all couples loved each other or were at least in love with each other. It’s why a lot of older generations didn’t even sleep in the same bed or in the same room. You just had to stay married because women didn’t even have options. I mean, up until the ’90s, women in Switzerland were not even allowed to open their own bank accounts. Sure, as a society, we have evolved and progressed in a lot of ways, but in many ways, this society is still built on the fundamentals of a traditional marriage and family. And it’s one of the many reasons a lot of people are struggling because they do not subscribe to the traditional values of this society. But also our society is also not evolving to accommodate this new reality that a lot of adults are not married and are living in single income households

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So, How Do You Actually Make It Work? .

Okay, so if it’s not a fairy tale and has a history of being a business deal, how do people today build a partnership that doesn’t just survive, but actually thrives?

The biggest recurring theme wasn’t about changing your partner but about changing yourself. One woman, seven years in, put it perfectly:

“I am much happier in my marriage when I focus on myself instead of on my spouse… It’s not my job to make my husband better. The more I focus on bettering myself… the more I can show up and give grace to my husband and enjoy our relationship more.”

Another hard-hitting piece of advice was about keeping your relationship sacred. Basically: stop telling your friends every little negative thing your partner does.

“Keep folks out your business. The moment you tell them something negative, it will stick with them… You’ll be over it… and now you got this person that also has this information that you wish you never shared.”

Stop trying to make the person you are with be like you. You guys are two separate people. You are not the same. You guys did not grow up the same. You guys probably had different morals, different parenting, different lifestyles. Stop trying to make the person that you met somebody else than who they were. There’s nothing wrong with getting better and being the best version of yourself, but when it comes to changing a tire person’s trait, unfortunately, that’s who you marry.That’s who you got to stick with because the moment you try to change them, if that part if your partner does change, they will end up resenting you for it and that’ll probably end to a divorce.

No one is perfect. I have to be very careful what I say here because no one is perfect. If your partner and you truly love each other, you guys have great communication skills, you truly love each other to the core, and your partner makes a mistake and you know they are truly sorry for that mistake. It is okay to forgive. Let go. This is not when we were younger and we had boyfriend and girlfriends and as soon as they screwed up one time, we were like, “All right, we’re done. Out the door.” When you are married, you have to work through the stuff that you don’t like just as much as the stuff you do like. And I mean it will humble you.There are things that you probably did not accept that now you kind of have to work around. I’m not saying to continue to accept those. I’m telling you that no one is perfect and
is okay for people to make mistakes as long as they are doing the work to better themselves.

For every piece of advice on how to stay together, there’s a powerful warning about who to avoid in the first place.

The voices of women who have been through divorce? They hit different. They don’t talk about compromise; they talk about non-negotiables.

The number one rule?

You absolutely cannot marry someone for their “potential.”

“Ignore the potential. Just throw that shit away. Go ahead and take a look at where that person is right now… Do not, do not, do not commit to somebody’s potential because that… doesn’t exist.”

And maybe the most vital piece of wisdom for anyone in the confusing early stages of a relationship is this: listen. Just listen.

“Pay close attention to the tiny things in the beginning… that kind of rub you a little bit… those are the things that are going to compound over time… And if he tells you that he is not the man for you, believe him. Believe him the first time.”

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So, where does that leave us?

Floating between the practical need for a roommate and the deep-seated desire for a soulmate. We’re navigating a world full of conflicting advice, historical baggage and economic pressure.

I honestly wish schools/colleges would teach sensuality, seduction, authentic communication, femininity, even relationship skills.That should be the number one thing that’s taught in schools because for us as human beings, this is where we procreate from. This is where the world comes from from a unit between man and woman. So if we are not paying that much attention to relationships as an art, then I think we are doing ourselves a great disservice. That’s just what I think.

Maybe the point isn’t to find a single right answer. Maybe it’s about going in with our eyes wide open, armed with the wisdom and the warnings of those who’ve been there. It’s about being honest about what we want, what we need and what we absolutely will not settle for.

Because at the end of the day, no matter the reason you get into a relationship, one truth seems to cut through all the noise:

“You shouldn’t have to give a man who loves you an ultimatum. If he wanted to, he would.”