I know that there are people who have been happily in a relationship for many years, but it seems like most romantic relationships are full of turmoil and / or short lived.
It doesn't seem worth it to me.
My own parents seemed to get along well. Among my brothers and sisters, there are two who have been (I assume happily) married for life. The rest of the 5 of us have remained single. We all still get along okay. I grew up in a 1960s household. I'm the youngest of 5 kids born between 1938 and 1954.
During my childhood I remember, from conversations, having the impression that we were a dysfunctional family. After growing up and seeing the conflicts and problems in other people's upbringing, it seems like every family is dysfunctional. Ours wasn't too bad compared to the others.
I remember that there seemed to always be a simmering bit of conflict in the family. This was thought of as being dysfunctional as it was never resolved. Most of the time, things were good, but there were conflicts that would come up and there would usually not be much resolution.
As I think about things, it seems like this is almost unavoidable. Life is never totally ideal and people just persevered. Persevering, like that, was probably more common decades ago.
These days, it seems like there are higher expectations that usually end up being unfulfilled anyway. Our tolerance for just persevering is diminished.
At the same time, it seems like that tolerance is one of the things that kept families together, back then and it created the space for the many good things that we (my family) had and still have.
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