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Why isn’t the most direct explanation—that many women are unhappy in their marriages and leave because of that—on the table?
I don’t really understand how one can objectively rule out that they were really unhappy in the marriage and are happier outside of it, even though they’re poorer or have fewer partners or whatever afterwards.
Tbh this kind of sounds like an MRA revenge fantasy. I’m sure that women (and men) probably overestimate their out-of-marriage prospects a bit, which would lead to “too many” divorces, but most people also have a really strong “make it work” determination that probably counterbalances this somewhat.
Sometimes they leave because they're just looking for the "next best thing." And when it turns out they were lied to, they find themselves right back at square one, feeling just as 'unhappy' as they gaslight themselves into feeling, thinking that the grass was greener on the other side. It isn't a new phenomenon that women jump from one relationship to another in their younger years, chasing something fresh and new. Why should anyone think that internal dynamic automatically dissolves, just because they got married? The same relationship fatigue set in for them, just as it did before.
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It can be.
But the financial burdens that a divorce triggers will cause a TON of unhappiness as well, so doing the objective calculation would probably make it a net negative for most women to initiate divorce... UNLESS she has a wealthy replacement husband lined up (most women wouldn't).
Given two options with negative utility, are the women actually picking the one that has slightly better utility for themselves, especially over the long run?
And besides, this just pushes the question back:
Why didn't these women pick better partners that they'd be happy with with long-term?
Why are they agreeing to these long-term commitments in the first place? Presumably they intend to maintain them.
If we work off the assumption that women have full agency, then a failed marriage can be avoided by picking a better husband up front, and a divorce is ultimately an admission that they didn't pick well.
Most women don't divorce. If 40% of marriages end in divorce and 80% of these are initiated by women that means 68% of women don't initiate divorce
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