Supposedly, the divorce rate in the U.S. is 50 percent.  I have no idea if this is true.  I just hear it all the time.  I could Google it but, quite frankly, I’m not that curious.  And trust me, given the things I’ve Googled over the years, that should let you know how inconsequential this factoid is.
Anyway, the number is of interest to me because, once again, I saw it used somewhere to lament the shakiness of marriages today vis-a-vis the June and Ward days (or, given that era, should I show Ward proper respect and list his name first ?).  Now, I normally shake my head at that statistic because I rarely see a citation with it.  The exiled academic in me calls BS when everyone says something, but no one has actually seen proof of its truth.
This time, I looked at it differently.  For giggles, let’s just say it’s true, that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce.
You know what?  That’s pretty damn impressive.
Seriously, think about it for a second.  We’re talking about a process in which two people, with dreams and needs and desires that are rarely static, basically decide in a few years that they’ll be together for decades.  Noooooo matter what.
And people manage to get that right half the time?
Clearly, keeping things together is difficult.  Were it not, people wouldn’t actually pay money to get relationship advice from Steve Fucking Harvey.  Seriously, my man may have all the game in the world.  I’m sure there are youngbloods in his old neighborhood that love to chop it up with him.  But I’ll be good and gotdamned if I’m actually $20 for his two cents.  Really, think about that.  If you like that, I’m selling nickels for the low low price of ten cents.
Anyway, like I was saying, making something work is no small feat.  I think I’ve lived enough to say that from first-hand experience.
But simply think about the likelihood of two people’s wants, needs, insecurities, flaws and demeanors remaining complementary until one of them leaves the Earth.  How many friends of any type have you managed such things continuously for even ten years?  And you don’t have to share a bathroom with any of them (nor are those people the only ones you’re allowed to sleep with, a really big deal in all of this).
Those odds are slim, jack.  It’s not rolling straight 7’s and 11’s until the end of time.  But you’ve gotta roll enough to beat the house, and the house wouldn’t be open if that happened very often.
Just a thought.  We might not be as jacked up as we sometimes like to think.