In the USA, divorce rates are 2.9/1000, meaning that 50% of all marriages end in divorce, averaging about 8 years before they crash. And USA is not even as bad as Russia, Maldives and Canada.

But does this mean that the Red Pill narrative about how marriage is a bad idea for men is accurate?

In India, divorce rates are 0.01/1000, meaning there are almost no divorces. Countries like Italy also do well. So what’s really going on here?

In this podcast, we’ll carefully examine the real data – scientific evidence – about divorce rates, causes of marriage breakdowns, why every country has a different divorce rate, the truth about concepts like “hypergamy” and lack of commitment.

And more importantly, we’ll do what Red Pillers almost never do – look at the 50% of marriages that last a lifetime, and see what those couples are doing differently and what they believe that keeps their relationships solid.

Full transcript (unedited)

Welcome back to the brojo online podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about divorce. You know, for some reason, the algorithms seem to think that I’m really interested in red pill stuff than I why. But what I see on these kind of red pill type podcasts and clips and interviews, a lot of talk about divorce, and in particular, this narrative about divorce, whereby men are very hard done by this narrative that men are basically getting fucked over by divorces, and their marriage is about institution for me. What I wanted to do is try and take a really objective view of this today look at the science behind it to look at it globally, rather than just in one country. And try to get a sense, not just a broad question like is marriage good or bad for men? But what would be needed for a marriage to be good? And what are the signs that a marriage is not? See the thing with this narrative, there’s a couple of issues with it. One is that it’s very rarely based on any solid scientific data. That also often from what I can see, at least in the podcasts, and that is people just pulling stats from random magazine articles or posts they saw online from their own friends, and not really checking the data thoroughly and trying to understand what it’s saying. And also, secondly, that it’s all skewed towards the United States. So quite often, these red pill guys will make broad sweeping statements. It’s called the broad brush fallacy about men and woman based on the statistics of marriages in the United States. And don’t account for the fact that those statistics are different in different countries around the world, vastly different. And so culture and people that you’re surrounded by a nationality all make a difference. So this isn’t actually an issue about men and woman, as much as it’s an issue about where you live and how that affects you. So today, I’m going to talk about some of the data I’m going to talk about the US data because everyone cares about that the most for some reason. And then I’m going to compare that to data from around the world. And I’ve been digging through the internet to find some good reliable source material. And I’ll share that in the links below. And then I’m going to try and unpack this data with you based on my own experience in coaching and managing relationships, and also from other research and more scientific sources I’ve seen about what makes a good relationship lasts long, and what’s a death sentence for a relationship and so on. Because the red pill narrative is essentially this. Women will just ditch a guy, as soon as they get a fleeting feeling where they’ve had enough, and they don’t stick with them, they’re not loyal, they’re not respectful. And then the guy will get dragged through the courts and butchered. And this creates this idea that marriage is just as really high risk activity for men and a woman can’t be trusted to maintain a marriage. And so often, that kind of classic 5050 statistic is thrown about 50% or more of marriages end in divorce. And yet these people almost never talk about the 40 to 50% them make it they constantly go on about marriage as if it’s this really high risk thing. But if we’re able to look at the data, and see that those 50% of visitors and D 50 are falling apart for very specific reasons and behavioral reasons by the people in those relationships that do not need to happen. lessons that can be learned within, there’s no reason to believe they’re whatever people are doing right and the marriages that make it. And I’m sure not all of those are happy marriages, but the ones that are they we can learn from them, maybe we can copy and paste their strategies to make this thing work. So we’re going to have a look at some of the actual stats. And I was lucky enough after lots of digging around to find a Forbes article that had really good citations and really good resources. And it summed up divorce statistics for 2023. In the United States. So this isn’t just any old article, there’s an article where all of their data is coming from, you know, the CDC or other science, communities and resources. So it’s probably about as accurate as it can get on the internet. So we’re going to use this and I’ve checked these sources. And then I’ve got a couple of other websites that we’re going to go to, to have a look at this, but let’s just review some of the stats about divorce in the United States. And I’m going to give some commentary on what these statistics may mean. So here we are that article and the marriage rate in the United States is six per 1000 people. Okay, so for every 1000 People there are their six marriages per year. So that’s what we mean when we say a marriage rate and a divorce rate. We’ll be a similar number, it’ll be a number of people per 1000. So you get a sense of the difference. And far more people get married per year, then get divorced. But of course, this is new marriages and marriages lasts for many years. So the divorce rate doesn’t accurately represent the marriage rate. Of course, now, it’s about right, that half of marriages in America are eventually dissolved. However, that’s first marriages. And second, and third marriages fail at a much higher rate. So people getting married, for the first time had the best chance. And then when you get married for the second and third time, which often occurs, then you’re much more likely to get divorced. Okay, not 100%, likely, but more likely. Now, the important thing to consider is when you hear people saying that like 60% of marriages end in divorce, they might have the correct statistic, but they’re counting the skew of people who are getting divorced for the second and third time, which is a lot of people. It’s not just a rare few, most people get remarried, after being married the first time. I’ve got the stat here somewhere of how many view is 64% of men and 52% of women get remarried after the first marriage has ended. So there’s a lot of new divorces on top of the first one. And that significantly skews the data. It’s like most divorces are being committed by people who are doing multiple divorces. So if you were to take multiple divorces out of the picture, and you’re looking at about 50%, right, which is still, you know, a scary rate, you know, 5050 shot, what does it build versus a 50% chance of losing half my shit? You know, sign me up for that, right. But bear in mind, a couple of things before you go forward. One is this is in the United States, it’s not everywhere, right. So most countries around the world are doing a lot better than this, if staying married is better. And also, we don’t know why that 50% is happening. And the red pill narrative, that’s because women aren’t loyal, and so on. There’s some nuance to that claim that we’re going to look into today.

So one thing to keep in mind is that most, the average length of a marriage prior to divorce is eight years. So take a moment, keep that in, because that’s the average, which means there are a lot of divorces that happen well, after that, and divorces that happened before that. But if the average is eight years, then it’s really not accurate to say that people are just arbitrarily trying marriage for a little bit and giving up on it. So that does happen. What we’re seeing is most of them are trying to make this work for many, many years. You know, there’s the famous seven year itch that people talk about. People are staying in marriages for quite some time before giving up on them quite some time indeed. So the idea that people are just arbitrarily getting divorced quickly after they get married, because you know, wasn’t perfect straightaway. That’s not quite accurate, though, that does happen in a small number of cases. We also have to acknowledge the idea that marriage costs a lot of money. And this is actually from what I’ve seen in the data, a significant factor in how likely a divorce is to happen. Generally speaking, the more divorces cost, the less likely they are to happen. But in the United States, it doesn’t stop people, with the average cost being about $7,000. I think that’s per person. So the idea that this is easy on the woman financially, that’s not correct, either, right? Because even if she gets some sort of settlement, or some sort of payment or alimony or something afterwards, which does not always happen, I mean, especially not if she’s the breadwinner, you know, this is still going to cost her to go through the court, and it can take usually about a year for a divorce to be processed. And that’s a year of hell, anybody who’s been divorced knows that fucking year. Right? A really, really interesting stat, which I saw somewhere below is much less than 6% of people who get divorced get remarried to the same partner. So one thing that tells us is divorce probably should have happened, right? You only going to remarry your partner if the divorce was a mistake. And so the idea that divorces are bad or wrong, I think a more accurate view of that is that divorces usually only happen in a marriage that should not be alright, that is very rare that a good marriage would end in divorce. Or that people who are right for each other will get divorced. So that’s a key warning sign already because I know this from my own work. These guys that complain about being divorced and complained that the woman was this, that and the other. You chose her. And the stats say that you probably chose the wrong partner to be with that you probably should not have committed for life to this person. And then what I know from my experience as a coach that there were probably red flags right at the very beginning that you chose to overlook, because you didn’t want to acknowledge them because you were needy for sex or a relationship or something. So the idea that good people are getting divorced because marriage itself is a flawed concept is inaccurate. Marriage seems to work out all right for people who are right for each other. At least that’s the case I’ll probably be making today. I’m not actually saying that everyone should get married. I don’t believe that there’s a should for everyone about anything. But I really want you know, for the people who do like the idea of marriages, I’d like the idea of sort of raising a family and having this sort of structured commitment that keeps you in for the long term through the rough times. I want to show you that those statistics that scare you off doing that might not represent you and your situation, you might be in the exceptional group that can do well in marriage. And this, hopefully, this podcast will help you figure out if you’re in that group, the divorce rates been decreasing since the year 2000. In the United States, we’re still talking here. So last 20 years, it’s gone down from four per 1000 to 2.5. Per 1000. However, marriage rates have gone down as well. Okay, and then pretty much correlate, they’re both gone down about two per 1000. So my reading of that is the divorce rate is staying the same. But overall, people are getting married less. Third marriages have the highest divorce rate. So 73%. And I think that makes sense. If you’ve already been divorced twice, you’re probably not very good at this thing. And unless you make some significant self development changes, the next one is going to go down the same path. Now, it’s not quite the same with second marriages for a number of reasons. One is 40% of new marriages include a partner who’s remarrying, which means that one of the people is having their first marriage, while one of them has already been divorced. So that first marriage strength has been bought into this. And of course, there’s that idea that is just intuitive as if you’ve already had a divorce. And maybe you’ve done some self development work after that and figure out why that was fucked up, you’re probably going to make much better decisions the next time, while you’re going to be one of two people, either you’re going to repeat the same mistake, because you just don’t learn. Or you’ll have learned and you won’t repeat the same mistake. So that’s a second. Second marriages, probably going to be either really strong or really weak, and you’re just going to carry on down that path. So if you’ve already been divorced, it’s not like your case is hopeless. But the question need to ask yourself is, have I changed? Or am I the same guy who made their first mistake. And if you are that same guy, then you probably should not be getting married again, because you haven’t figured out why you fucked up the first time. If you really figured that out and solve that problem, whether it’s how you choose your partners, whether it’s your self confidence, whether it’s your behavior, and relationships, your honesty, stuff we’ll talk about soon. Then the second marriage maybe as safe as a first one, because you’re essentially a new person getting married. You there, there’s only 6% of divorce, couples re marry each other. So this has a lot, I think, more fish in the sea, right? divorces are more likely to die earlier than married people. I’ve seen this before that married people tend to live the longest. But I didn’t know divorce people are more likely to die, though. Of course, that makes sense. Because divorce itself is so stressful. And if you’re the kind of person who has struggled connecting with people that may be reflected by divorce, then, you know, loneliness and inability to create meaningful relationships is also a factor in earlier death. So that makes sense. Here’s a weird state couples, couples who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce. It’s a bizarre one. I don’t understand that. I mean, the stats said and the stats say it. But what I would say is what they’ve said here is that some people will have certain beliefs that stopped them living together before marriage, like religious beliefs, and religious beliefs, or should I say,

religious beliefs that are the same between the partners are a huge factor in a marriage lasting. I’m not advocating for religion here, but the stats don’t lie. People who are religious and get married are far more likely to stay married than people who either have differing views or one or both of them as atheist. So it makes sense if you pair all that together, that religious people you know, the no sex before marriage type wouldn’t live together beforehand. And then of course, when they got together, they’ve got the hideout must be together for God kind of mentality. And so it will give the impression that living together as bad for marriage or living together before marriage is bad for you. But it may be something else that just makes it look like that. Because this one goes against my intuition, doesn’t mean I’m right. But my intuition is you should really be sure that you live together well before you get married. That just makes sense to me. Rather than kind of like jumping in the deep end, I hope I don’t hate this person when I live next to them. So it may not be really clearly just explains by living together that might not actually be the factor or maybe the type of people you are the kind of commitment level you bring in. Interesting one is if you’re around people who are divorced if you have friends who are divorced you You’re more likely to. And that makes sense. Because socially people get together with others who have a similar mental health level, you know, and people tend to be like their friends. So if you’re surrounded by people who get divorced, or should I say, if you’re surrounded by people who do not have healthy long term relationships and cannot maintain them well and have lots of drama and stuff, then there’s a really good chance that you have health problems psychologically speaking, right? It’s reflected in your friend circle. If you’re surrounded by super healthy people who can connect deeply with others and maintain long term relationships, you’re probably doing quite well mentally, you’re probably quite confident, because these kinds of people wouldn’t want to be your friend, if you weren’t, well makes us goes into reasons for divorce. But I think we’re going to cover that on a more global level soon. So we’ll just get past that for now. Because we’re coming back to that. One thing I will note is that the percentages show that people are listing multiple reasons for why a divorce would happen to 75% say lack of commitment. And I think this is where the red pill narrative comes. Their, their interpretation of this is that a woman won’t stick with a man. Okay. But the stats actually show that both partners have problems with commitment. And then we’ve got 60% for infidelity, or extramarital affairs. And so he can’t have 75 and 60. So both of these things are happening, right? Too much arguing and conflict, all three of these things are happening. So if you’re having infidelity, arguing a lot, you got married too young, and you have, you know, a lack of desire to put up with that it’s gonna look like lack of commitment. But if the average marriage is eight years, I’d say, if all this kind of crap is going on, you probably had a horrible marriage for many years before you finally gave up on it. So I don’t know if lack of commitment really makes sense. What it sounds like this data comes from self report to people, this is why I got divorced or answering their question. What I think is that the hurt party in the divorce is saying the other person lacks commitment. And not admitting, actually, we had lots and lots of problems, they tried to solve it for many, many years, and then finally gave up. That would be my interpretation of this data. Because that 75% lack of commitment would give the impression like people go off, I can’t be bothered being married. And you’re doing see there’s a kind of comorbidity with all these other problems, financial problems, married too early, lots of conflict and arguing, Psych. If a lack of if there was a lack of commitment, you wouldn’t put up with all this other shit, but ends a lot quicker than allowing time for an extramarital affair to take place, or to really like go through long term financial problems and substance abuse together. So what I think is lack of commitment is somebody saying they didn’t try hard enough, even though I was difficult to live with for a very, very long time. So what are the main things I saw here, basic incompatibility, and money issues are among the top reasons for divorce. So when you take away the kind of lack of commitment, kind of top front runner and you look at all the others, we see lots of arguing about money, we see people getting married too young, whatever that means. I don’t think that’s strictly an age thing, probably much more an emotional maturity thing, which would correlate with age. But some people are too young at 30, if you know what I mean. And then financial problems. It’s amazing how many people especially when you’re raised in certain cultures, like in the United States, they don’t know how to talk about money, they don’t know how to share money, they have lots of hang ups and a desire to like hoard their own money, and so on. So it’s a nightmare for a marriage, I mean, marriage do you have to share resources, put it that way, like if there wasn’t money, you’d be sharing a cave, and sharing a pile of berries and fur coats and all that. And money just represents that. So if you don’t have the ability to share, if you’re raised in a culture that says like, what’s yours is yours, and what’s mine is mine, then of course, money is going to be a problem in the relationship unless you are one of the exceptional people who learn to work through that. We often see divorce reasons like infidelity, domestic violence, substance abuse, come right at the end. So the marriage has already deteriorated significantly. And these sorts of reactions happen. They start cheating, people start hitting each other people start using drugs. So again, it calls into question this commitment thing, like if you’re staying in the marriage, while all of this is happening up until the point where you’re arguing conflict all the time, you can’t get along with money, you feel like you’re missing out on life. And then somebody starts having an affair and using violence and abusing drugs. Like you’ve actually committed quite hard, you go through hell, and then finally given up, you know, that’s running like three quarters of a marathon, that’s still a commitment. So really, I just don’t buy the idea that people aren’t committed if they’re lasting an average of eight years and a shitty marriage. I think commitments the problem. However, we will talk about when divorce is available as an option. It’s more likely to be taken because we’re going to have a look at some countries where it’s not so available, we’ll see that they stay together longer. There we go. 66% of men and 74% of woman think their partners should have worked harder to save the marriage. I can only speak from my experience as a relationship coach. But from what I see, the woman comes to me usually feeling like she’s been working really hard to bring the marriage back. And there’s fighting against the lack of commitment and participation from the man. And the man’s generally seems to be of the mind there, things were fine the way they were, and I don’t need to change. But of course, there’s a small sample size that I’m working with here is really anecdotal evidence, a few 100 People at best, and not all from the United States by any means. The other side of the story is what you’ll say is that woman think that they’re working hard to save the marriage, but they’re doing it in such an indirect passive aggressive way that the guy doesn’t even know what she’s asking for, and can’t win. This argument can go both ways. But look at this, only over 70% of couples report not understanding the realities or stages of marriage. Can you imagine the difference of people were somehow trained and educated about marriage prior to being allowed to do it, which is what you get in Catholicism, in some other religions. They have like a process before you get married, you’re gonna have lots of meetings with the priest and all this kind of stuff, where he talks to you about what to expect with marriage, what you’re going to have to handle and how you’re going to handle that they have these meetings, hours and hours and hours of discussion about this, what marriage is really going to be like, Are you sure about this. And I wouldn’t be surprised to find that those marriages lasts longer. You know, when we say people stay together longer when they both believe in the same God, it may come down to they stay together longer, because their belief in God left led them to a preparation process that others don’t have, you know, preparation like, like the seventh year, it’s like how your sex life dies after you have occurred, like how you’re going to have to figure out how to share your finances. There are so many people getting married without their training, without their preparation without even a discussion about it. What difference would it make to the divorce rates? Have everybody had a year’s worth? If so, transgender thing you know, when it’s done properly, you’re supposed to go through this years and years of like, Are you sure you know, go dress like a girl for a while. And let’s see if you’re really into this before we start cutting stuff off. I’m not mean say anything controversial. In some countries, that’s getting really fucked up. But insane countries, you put through a process just to make sure you’re very, very sure. We’re gonna have that in the United States when it comes to marriage. You know, if you wanted to get married in the States, you just fly to Vegas that weekend. Nobody’s going to get in your way. Nobody’s going to ask you any questions. That’s insane. There’s more training for driving a car than getting married, and you’re driving a car, you could probably win it. Getting married, you gotta be kidding me. You can’t win getting married. Just because you like each other now doesn’t mean a marriage is gonna work. So for those of you who have been divorced, or you’re scared of marriage, ask yourself, have I undergone marriage training? Have I met with a priest or a wise mentor or a relationship coach? And talk through the realities I’m going to be facing about getting married? Because odds are you probably haven’t. And I want you to ask well, what difference would it make if you had, right? So we’re done with the US debts for now. Now, I’m gonna have a look at the world stats. Now, first thing that come up as 2023 April that this was written number of divorces worldwide is on a downward trend. So while we hear a lot of noise about the divorce rate in the United States, and how horrific that is,

that is not the case for a large majority. So United States, the UK, people in Europe, they like to think of themselves as the whole world. But the fact is, they’re not even a majority. When you include Asia, Latin America, the divorce rates go way down. And there’s more people, right, quantity wise, like just because they don’t look like you doesn’t mean they’re not real people. And if marriage is still the same for them as it is for you, in a general sense. So in some countries, they’re crushing it. They’ve got marriage sorted, or some dark factors, keeping them together. But nonetheless, their divorce rates are much lower than United States. And then there are other countries where the divorce rates are similar or worse, the United States and we’re going to have a look at what these countries have in common with each other. So Western countries, generally speaking, have higher divorce rates than Asian and Latin countries. And there’s some exceptions all around the world. The average divorce rate around the entire world is 1.8 per 1000. significantly different to the average America is far above the average. Of course, it must be ones that are far below the average. We’re going to have a look at those. We’re going to go why Look at the bottom 10 and the top 10. And say what do we see here in terms of trends and patterns? Alright, so we’re gonna have a look at the countries now at the lowest divorce rates. Right now there are certain things that affect it, there have to be taken into account that aren’t just about love and responsibility and relationship management abilities. There are certain religions that make it very, very shameful to get divorced, or make it basically, you’re going to hell, there are certain divorce laws and certain countries that make it near impossible to get divorced or highly risky are very expensive. And of course, they can be something to do with educational levels. Basically, people with a high school or university education stay together longer than people who don’t. We don’t know why. But that’s the truth. One example here, Sub Saharan African countries, you can’t get divorced, because families will have to return the bride price, which is just, you know, a significant amount of money that they just can’t afford to do. So you stay married, because it’s too expensive to get divorced. So India, holds the record for lowest divorce rate was 0.01. And this is a really interesting country to study because you can you can get divorced there. It’s hard, but not impossible. But they have a cultural idea around divorce for starts, there’s arranged marriages, I’m not sure if everybody in India has arranged marriage, but it’s certainly a cultural norm. And you’re raised from birth, to understand that at some point, you’re going to be paired up with another person for the rest of your life. And that’s just the way things are. And I had a look, I couldn’t find where I got this, but I had to look at some other research as to why Indian marriages, so successful when they’re basically forced, and it came down to this mentality where the woman especially we’re going to go, I’m going to make myself love this guy, because I have to be with them. And it kind of works. I don’t know how genuine it is, but I guess they really seem to think that it is because they could get divorced. It’s not against the rules necessarily. And as the world becomes more global, and these people can travel, and they really could do it. Now there’s a lot of social stigma, probably about getting divorced. You know, there’s a caste system in India, there’s a ranking hierarchy system in India. And I think divorced woman is quite low on that totem pole. So I imagine that’s not an appealing position to be in. But still, no one’s going to stop you necessarily, as far as I understand. It’s something more about the mentality about what it means to be married, and what commitment means that seems to work. So it’s probably a mixture of kind of healthy and unhealthy reasons here. See some of the other bottom countries Mozambique, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Vietnam, South Africa, there’ll be a mixture of reasons going on here again, sometimes there are religious things where, you know, there’s this, what is it Dutch Baptist? And I’m not sure what the main religion and like white southern African cultures are, but it’s a very much, you know, till death, do you part view of marriage, in places like Qatar and Libya, and legend is very, very difficult for a woman to get married without suffering severe consequences. And so on. But look at Ireland, Ireland, point seven. Why? Religion? Probably. Right? Then, you know, divorce means how. But does that mean that the marriages are a sham? Or does it just take divorce off the table as a problem solving option? See, one of the things that I really want to emphasize here is when I’ve looked at research and data and interviewed people who have really good long term marriages, is one thing they keep saying over and over again, divorce is not an option. Now, they might sometimes qualify that as a religious reason. But like myself, there are people who have no religious reason to say that they just understand the mentality of allowing it to be an option of divorce is an option, your brain will consider it and the brain is always looking for the easiest way out. It’s always looking for the path of least resistance. But if you don’t have that option, the brain tries to find another one. Now, in bad cases, if you’re married to someone who shouldn’t be within the first place, then it’s going to keep you on a ship marriage. And we’ve all seen what that looks like. We’ve all seen people where you’re like, oh my god, he should be divorced, why they are doing get together. And they’re only staying together because divorce is not an option. But there are others who are actually good for each other. And the divorce is not an option mentality gets them through the rough patches, the valleys, would you know about if he had the kind of training and preparation for marriage that I think People need. See, I had a great conversation with a mentor once, who told me you know that sometimes him and his wife don’t love each other. Sometimes this lasts for weeks. But his idea is like we’ll get through this. It’s just a storm. And it always does, it passes the storms, because they write for each other and the kind of grander sense of things. They just you can’t live with someone for decades and decades without having off moment. But if you’ve got divorces and options, and you’re having like your first real off moment, you’re going to be looking at, they’re going fuck, maybe we’re not right for each other. Maybe we should take that option. Because if you don’t have that option, like a bit of make this work. Now, making it work will work with someone who’s right for you, and won’t work with someone who’s not. So it’s actually still the right approach, even if you’re with someone who’s not right for you, because trying to make it work will just end in disaster. And then you can be sure that a divorce is a good idea. But if you tried to make a work with someone who’s right for you, and you see that they put in the work as well, and you find each other again in the fog, then you’d be very clear that you didn’t look at the divorce option. So that’s something I want to plant in your mind. Because in my experience, people only get divorced when they shouldn’t be together. So the common reasons for the divorce in the top 10 countries is pretty similar to the ones we talked about America, lack of commitment, infidelity, irreconcilable differences, like differences of religion, or beliefs about having children, that kind of thing, marrying to young financial hardship. So again, a lot of common patterns coming up of ideas of like, what would need to happen for you to not go down this path? Or start it is a general rule I’d throw out to people is don’t get married before you’re 30. Just chuck that out there right now, no matter how much you’re in love with your partner. 30 is obviously a movable barrier. But Who the fuck are you before you’re 30. You know what I mean? Even if you’re doing the good work, like self development and stuff from what I’ve seen after just so many 1000s of cases, is that people don’t have a fucking clue who they are in their 20s it only start to figure it out when they’re 30. Or around that age. And some people are much later and a very few earlier. And so to make a big lifelong decision in your 20s is ludicrous. Don’t choose a career that you’re never gonna give up on in your 20s you know, don’t choose where you’re going to live forever in your 20s. Don’t choose the one partner you can have forever in your 20s you’re just not wise enough to make that kind of call yet, you don’t have enough experience. Like all these red pill guys would love to marry a virgin on like, here, you’re an idiot, she doesn’t have enough experience to make the decision. She doesn’t know if she likes you or not, she doesn’t know what she likes. You know, people these days are really concerned about someone having a high body count, you know, having a lot of sexual partners and they think high body counts like eight, when Jesus Christ eight minimum for you to even figure out what you like in a person. You know what I mean? Like I want someone who’s at least got double digits so that they know what they want and what they don’t know, if someone’s got triple digits, there might be a problem. But the idea like I want someone to know what they really want before they commit to me, I don’t want me to be the first thing they’ve ever liked. Because that’s really a risk.

Again, we see financial hardship, which I guess could be both poverty, but also probably more so not managing the finances as well together because finances can be managed well at any level, from poverty through to wealth, and they can be managed poorly at any level as well. That’s why wealthy people also get divorced. But if you manage them well together becomes like a project, you guys managing your resources together that can actually create the investment. Like I can feel it when me and my wife having conversations about our money. It’s like we’re working on this long term project that is our life and the money just kind of represents their you know what kind of traveling we’re going to do in the future, how we’re going to provide for our child, you know, we can easily have this conversation about berries and for cloaks and which cave we’re going to live in. And it gives you a sense of longevity, like we’re working on this together, we’re gonna stay we’re gonna make sure that this budget works for many, many years ahead. That kind of conversation actually helps seal the bond. If you don’t have that kind of conversation at least once a month then you’re missing out. Countries with highest divorce rates think I saw us in the top 10 hours and on the top teen fuck it’s not Oh, look at that. It’s not even in the top 10 Maldives was the top one. But there was an interesting one with Maldives, which is you can’t have sex without being married. But getting divorced is really really easy. So basically what they’re doing is getting married to have sex and then getting divorced quite amicably, and moving on again, so they can have multiple partners. So I think we can roll that one out. Next one, we’ve got Kazakhstan, we’ve got Russia, Belarus. Generally what the stats show is that it’s very easy to get divorced, and not so expensive to get divorced and basically shameless to get divorce that that creates an environment where it’s more likely to happen. And it’s very simple. What a lot but not all of these countries haven’t Common, women are free. Okay, these are except for we got a couple of questionable ones Nigeria’s in the Cooper’s and they’re not so sure about Russia. But most of these countries like women have equal rights. And therefore, unlike in past history woman isn’t just a man’s shatel, you know, which he just has to be as property. And we can see that maybe if women were allowed to choose back in the day, the divorce rates might have always been 50%. Right. So he’s just now that they’re able to have a shot. So my take on that as basically a formula of free choice, then divorce rates go up. But this doesn’t mean that women are bad at marriage, it means that men will always better marriage, but woman put up with it, and now they don’t have to put up with it. And so we’re getting an accurate measure of how bad at marriage people aren’t. And it’s about 50% of people, right. And like I say, it’s probably less because there’s a somewhere between 10 and 20% of marriages that last probably shouldn’t, because the people are just staying together out of like, sheer grit, and they don’t actually love each other. But even so I really do believe that there is a formula for a good long lasting marriage that almost anyone could apply if they did the work, and it would be right for them. But we first have to go through a kind of learning period of what happens when we let people make the choice. And we’ll see that a lot of people don’t want to stay married to the people that they chose to marry, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean that marriage wouldn’t be good for them. We can see in western industrialized countries have more divorces than highly religious, Asian and African countries, and those with gender inequality and social stigma about divorce. So basically, if you’re free to get divorced, it’s more likely to happen that isn’t exactly a massive brain leap to figure that out. But I want you to notice some things. You know, Australian divorce rates, pretty low divorce rate in the UK is much lower than in the US. Also, it’s really high in Canada. So all these free countries where women have equal rights, we’re still seeing a lot of range in divorce rates. So we’re not seeing the whole picture here. We’ve had a big look at the steps of divorce, right? We’ve got some general things coming up. And I want you to start thinking about your own specific situation, because what we’re getting here is a guidebook, a recipe of how to do it wrong. And therefore, indications of how to do it right. There’s clearly some factors that if they don’t exist in your relationship, your likelihood of staying together goes up. And that’s all it is. We’re just talking about likelihoods here, you get the likelihood, way up, you’ve got a good shot, right? I mean, that’s the whole point of the likelihood. So what the data shows us is that a relationship that is absent financial strife, and financial disagreement, absent substance abuse and absent infidelity, absent a lack of commitment. Absent, like, really contrasting religious beliefs, and a few other things, the rate of divorce comes way down. We also see that people who get divorced ones tend to get divorced, two or three times. Not all of them, but large percentages, which skews the data. Some people clearly just not right for marriage, or maybe they aren’t doing the work that would make them right, they’re just making the same mistakes over and over. Some of you listening might be these people. You know, one thing to ask yourself, whether it’s divorce or just long term relationships, if you have a pattern of your relationships, crashing and burning. Before you get into the next one, ask yourself Have I done the work to make sure I don’t repeat the mistake? Or am I am I basically the same person? Because this is patterns. You know what, what we see in the red pill narratives that like woman is shit, am i Dude, you’re the one who’s in all these relationships that goes to the different woman every time. And you’re every relationship you’re in sucks, right? You might be the worst relationship they’ve ever had, and every other relationship they ever guys find. You’re the common denominator. It’s one of the hardest truths I haven’t ever had to accept about myself before I got my shit sorted. Was that all my failed relationships had the same person in it every time me? How can I say this is about a woman? It’s very easy narrative. I’m always with a woman say Yeah, but what about the somewhere between 30 to 50% of woman who are easily maintaining a happy long term relationship? How come I’m not finding those ones? They exist. The data shows that they exist even with a conservative estimate of how happy those marriages are, they’re still talking under the millions a woman out there who are able to sustain a loyal loving relationship with a man How come I’m not finding those woman? How come I’m only finding the other ones? Well, that’s a me problem. Not a woman. problem. We can also see there’s differences between countries, which means there’s differences between cultures. The idea that this is a problem with men or woman doesn’t paint the whole picture. While there are some generalities globally, like the causes of divorce are general, so that’s a human nature thing. You know, lack of commitment, violence, arguing over the finances, there’s no culture and no human that does well in that situation, basically. But we’re also seeing that, you know, the narrative in the US that woman just initiate divorce because they can’t be bothered stay married was like, no, not if they live somewhere else they don’t. Right? In some places, that’d be worse, like Canada. But other places, they’re way better, like Italy. So what’s the difference? I mean, they’re equally able to get divorced. And many cases, we can find countries where the stigma is equally less than if they’re staying married. So what’s the difference? Maybe instead of looking at divorce rates, we need to be looking at successful relationships. So now that you have the idea of why why divorce has happened, and where they happen and what might be causing them. Let’s have a look at the ones that stay together. And there’s one particular piece of research that I found a sample of 300 couples that had really long term relationships that were successful and reported as being happy. And they were basically given a big interview about why does this work, and their answers were correlated. And here’s what they basically found, they trust and consult each other. They are honest. They believe in God. They make decisions together. They are committed to each other, and they have a friendly relationship. Let me ask you this. Do you think a couple exhibiting all of these traits wouldn’t make it even better, the good, a trust and consult each other, they’re honest with each other. They both believe in the same God. They make decisions together, they’re committed to each other. And they’re friendly with each other. Because what this and other research I’ve looked at see is as if you’ve got all this going on, and you don’t have the other stuff, we talked about going on the divorce stuff. There’s no end in sight for your relationship. Let’s kind of go the distance.

And what I Guaran fucking tee you, as those of you have been divorced, where you’re worried about divorces, and you’re looking at divorce rates and getting all panicky, what you’ll find in every single one of those relationships that got divorced is that these factors from successful relationships were missing. Probably all of them, or at least some of them. Right? I can tell you from experience, the being honest, one is one of the biggest ones missing from relationships that end in divorce. You know, I mean, infidelity can’t happen without dishonesty. Neither can substance abuse, really. So if you’ve been cheating on your partner, I mean, if you’re honest, you will have said I want to cheat on you before it even happened. And you would have had that discussion. Right? You can’t have infidelity kind of go all the way through to actually cheating without being very dishonest about many, many, many thoughts and feelings prior to their urges, desires, frustrations, you know, feeling unloved and neglected. You know, you have to keep all that to yourself, to eventually build up the courage and the frustration and loneliness to cheat. So cheating is just a symptom of long term dishonesty issues, and more. Right? Couples that trust and consult each other. Let’s talk about finances here, right? A lot of squishy stuff in America is around finances is recommending that each partner has their own finances. I don’t recommend that at all. Because how are you supposed to come trust and consult with each other if you don’t share the resources? Now, I don’t mind you pulling your spending money into different accounts. But I do believe that the income should come to a joint place before it gets funneled out and that what happens to it should be a shared consultation that you should both be equal Sayers, and what happens to the resources? You a lot of men argue against this. I’m the breadwinner. She just stays home with the kids. I should decide what happens with the money where you can take the view if you want to get divorced. Or you can be like, Look, I provide money, she provides something else. We’re both doing our part. Money is the symbol of our resources. We need to manage these resources together and I’ll tell you one thing for free. Generally speaking, women are better with money than men. I Okay, when it comes to budgeting, planning long term, the whole myth that women just go shopping all the time, not if they’re in a committed relationship where they want to manage the budget to support the family’s long term health, then they get their shit together real quick, right. Whereas guys just like to have a blinkered view of their finances, like the condom decline or just keep spending, that’s a generality, but I found to be quite true. In my relationship, I can say for certain that bringing in my wife to help me manage the finances is infinitely improved our financial situation. And nowadays, she knows more about the finances than I do, even though I’m the breadwinner. Now, believing in God’s an interesting one, as an atheist, of course, I dig my heels a little bit and feel resistance. But I look at this in the bigger picture, because for a start, what you’ll find is bleeding in the same God as what’s happening. And that’s a significant thing to say. So if I have a Muslim and a Christian getting married to each other, they’re not actually going to be more successful than two atheists. But if I have two Christians who go to the same church married to each other, they’ve got a much better chance of lasting, or two Muslims that go to the same mosque, right? So it’s about the sameness. And what I’d say is, when people talk about God, they’re often talking about the moral beliefs, they’re talking about the values. Now an atheist, this would be called values, not religion. But religious people, generally speaking, tend to get the morality from their church and their books. And so two people from the same church with the same level of enthusiasm about their religion are probably going to have almost identical moral codes that they follow. That’s compatibility. So I don’t really believe that this is about believing in a god, being religious makes you more likely to get married, being religious makes you more likely to marry someone who’s of the same religion, in the same factor that you as you are. And that sameness is the key element here. See, my wife and I are different. I’m atheist, and she’s Catholic. But she’s not hardcore Catholic, she couldn’t quote the Bible to you, I don’t think she could list all 10 of the commandments and all seven of the sins. She’s more of a just, you know, she went to church as a kid, it’s just part of her life. It’s part of the local culture. But we really see eye to iron values, honesty, respect, how we should raise our child, what the right thing to do is, in most situations, you know, what’s good, and what’s bad, what’s a good person was a bad person, we see really eye to eye on that despite quite different upbringings. And that is what I believe, is the real factor here. Believing in the same moral code, people don’t have the same moral code, I don’t know how a marriage is going to survive that unless you’re both incredibly mature people. But even then, I’d wonder why are you so attracted to each other, if you’ve got such different moral codes, I’d say your attraction is suspect. If you’re really into someone who’s got different values to you, you’re probably just overwhelmed by how attractive they are physically, or how desperate you are for a partner or something like that. And you’re actually compromising yourself to be with them. If you have to compromise your moral code for someone else to be in your life. That’s a huge red flag. And I give you less than 10 years before you’re divorced, okay. But if you both believe in the same basic ideals of right and wrong, for example, you both believe in the same way of raising a child, you both want to do it basically the same way, but very little differences. And I think you’ve got a very good chance, making decisions together. This about sharing the life as a project, you know, people who say divorce is not an option. They view the marriage as more than just a person I’m with until they don’t feel like it. They view this person as their partner, they use that word. Like, I’m not an individual anymore. Now I’m part of a team forever. And a team has to work well together. In fact, I think great families, eventually, when the kids get older, the kids get included in decision making as well. Like, where should we go for our family holiday this year, you know, as team approach, you know, my wife and I do that all the time, we’ll discuss everything all the time, from what we’re having for lunch to where the next hotel should be that we stay at or whatever, like we very rarely make big decisions or even little decisions without some sort of consultation without a chat, at least, you know. And that means we never really stray far apart on what we want and what we think the plan is. But I find that couples who are very individualistic, like there’s golf and do their own thing, don’t tell each other about it. Don’t consider the other person. I can’t see how you think that’s gonna go well for you. Now, some advices you got to have your own individual life if you want a marriage to last. And there’s some elements of truth to that. I think like you’ve got to have something that’s your Is that gives you a break from the marriage itself so that you don’t get sick of it. So you can miss a person and kind of Esther Parral type advice where, you know, absence makes the heart grow fonder kind of thing, but actually have two separate lives and he just happened to like sleep in the same room, I don’t think that’s going to go well for you. I think you should be doing things together as a project, there was Chris Rock who’s been divorced as advisors, like, you gotta keep fucking, and you got to do stuff together. Right. And I don’t know, if there’s ever been more concise, solid marriage support than that. One of those two things down, then you’re fucked, and on the good way. committed to each other. I don’t think marriage vows are taken very seriously, these days, by certain people. Because it’s no longer a religious thing. It’s no longer you know, the old school marrying the families together to create an alliance, you know, it’s just people like each other. And they want to stay together for a while. So the vows don’t really mean all that much to them. The commitment is not there. And I’m not saying the Vows are actually where the commitment takes place, the commitment should be there beforehand. Or this way, I think you should get married. When you’re older. Even if you’ve already got a long term partner, and you’re sure the other one you want to marry. You still want to make sure that you’ve been through shit together. Right? You’ve been through one of the been depressed, you’ve been through a miscarriage, you’ve been through somebody’s immigration status getting canceled, you’ve been through somebody getting fired from their favorite job. You’ve been through someone almost cheating and having to talk through that you’ve been through hell together. And you still love the person all the way through, then still wanted to be with them all the way through that. That gives you that sense of certainty, like no matter what happens to us, I’m still going to want to be with them on the other side of it. That’s when you can get married when you feel like they’re when you think like I want us to raise a family together. And doesn’t matter if we have a few bad weeks or bad months here in the months and weeks don’t matter when I’m thinking in decades. If you’re not thinking in decades with your partner, and you’re not accustomed yourself already too late, there’s going to be rough patches, of course, there was from moody morning because she’s on the rags, through like a few bad months through to like, you know, when

Lucy had depression, it was like a year and a half, very dark times. I mean, it wasn’t so much our relationship was in trouble. But she was, which of course is half of our relationship. And I was just like, Well, I’m gonna see this through to the end, there’s still no one else I’d prefer to be with. I mean, I’d like her to be happier, for both our sakes. But this is a storm that we’re gonna get through together, I want to be part of this with you. And knowing that she would do the same for me. If you haven’t been tested in their way you don’t get married, right? At least try going long distance for a while seeing if you can hack there, try something, go through some sort of traumatic experience together. And see if you want to stay together when times are rough. Because if you don’t, then you shouldn’t be getting married. And having a friendly relationship. It seems like such a basic one. But did you see really high in the stats there. Lots of arguing and conflict. Now a lot of people just think this is what relationships are like, because they’ve got like attachment issues. And they’ve never known anything healthier than this. But I’d say if you’re having heated arguments, more than once a fortnight there’s work to be done. But you you guys don’t have a friendly relationship. Now, I might make some exceptions. For someone who’s got a newborn baby that doesn’t sleep, I have a bit of empathy for that one sympathy really are but the idea that do you just treat each other well, and I don’t mean fake niceness. I don’t mean people pleasing, because the honesty is the key element. So you have to be honest and treat each other well. If honesty means you treat each other poorly, then you’re probably not meant to be together. If you’re honest with each other, but most of the time, you care about how the other person’s feeling. You want to know what happened with the day. You want to do fun activities with them. It occurs to you to include them in your life, you know, you’re not trying to get away with from them, you want to include them more. You’re like having cuddles and watching stuff on the TV and you have a laugh together. And you know, you might occasionally that your emotions get out of control and have a bit of a scrap. But it’s only because you love them so much that you get that heated. And it only happens occasionally, you know, once a month kind of average. Like I see it if you don’t have that your relationships are more trouble than you think it is. You know, some people are used to arguing every day with their partner. They just think that’s normal. I think that’s what partners do. And it’s normal in the sense that there happens a lot but divorce has happened a lot too. So should we call the normal habit instead of normal? Let’s decide whether or not it’s healthy. I think advisement already have relationships 50% Plus, and not healthy. Because very few people have worked through their trauma and their confidence issues before getting into a relationship. So what you’ve got really Here is a recipe for a divorce proof relationship. Okay? You trust and consult each other and make decisions together, you share the finances. All right? When you disagree, you do so as rationally and calmly and compassionately and generously as you possibly can. You’re as honest with each other as humanly possible, you keep no secrets, you hide no feelings, you’re willing to get through rough times, if that’s what the honesty is going to create. All right, you have the same moral code, you don’t have any big differences that are gonna make you incompatible. Whether it’s a belief and honesty and respect or desire to have children, there’s no big deal breakers that you haven’t dealt with you both on the same page, rather core things that matter the principles of life, and relationships. You make decisions together, there’s no lie. Why are you doing that? I didn’t know she was gonna go do that. Right? There’s a kind of, there’s a couple I know at the moment where he asked either of them, like, what’s the other person doing that was like, I have no idea. There’s never in touch with each other. They don’t track they don’t plan together. Don’t sit down in the morning yet. What are you up to today, I’m up to this the basic kind of boring conversations that are actually really critical to keeping a relationship going mitad to each other, you decide like, no matter how rough this gets on the net for the long haul, I’ll put up with the bad weeks and the bad months, I won’t run away and cheat and take drugs and do whatever I can to escape this. I’ll get through with them. Because we’ve been through so much that I’m sure that they’re right for me, not just because they’re hot. But because we have a deep connection and treat each other well treat this person like they’re your best friend. treat them with respect, have a laugh with them, save your best energy for them. Instead of giving it to strangers and workmates and coming home or grumpy. Right. be grumpy with the strangers. Be nice to your partner. Not nice isn’t a nice guy, people pleaser. But your friendliest attitude should be saved for when you get home not wasted on the rest of the people who aren’t even your partner with your kids. And if you combine this with not doing all the things we talked about, which I think these will be preventative measures anyway, you know, don’t use violence. Right? Don’t give up on your partner just because times are tough. Don’t hold the finances and get into big fights about money. Don’t turn everything into a huge argument. Don’t shout and scream and insult your partner ever. Never raise your voice. Right. Never use nasty language. You can disagree and get heated but never been mean, cruel, never tried to hurt them. derailing marriage is impossible and a dangerous risk to take. If somebody’s following that recipe. I don’t think so. The evidence doesn’t think so. The data points out clearly what works and what doesn’t. For all people around the world, the final question I want to cover today is it too late. So some of you listening to this are already married. And their marriage is already on the rocks. Or you’re in a long term relationship. If we get married, we’re just talking about long term relationships. And a lot of the things that cause divorce are happening between the two of you, maybe even big ticket items, one of us having an affair. One of us you know stealing money from the other one, something big and bad is happening. Or it’s you know, you’re going down that path, even lots of fights, you don’t see eye to eye on certain moral issues and so on. He I think he shared as well as a couple of things to keep in mind. One is peace of research I didn’t share contempt is the number one factor you have to watch out for. A contempt is a kind of consolidation of all those other problems. But contempt is when you look down on your partner with resentment, where you see them as worse than you or less a person than you, someone you loathe and resent it is statistically basically impossible to come back from that. So if you’ve got contempt on one side of the other, the person resents you so much that they see you as a lesser being in general, consistently. Then I’d say there’s no point in working on this, really. But if that’s not the case, if you both look at each other with compassion, still, even when you’re angry, even when you’re feeling that distant connection, they both look at each other, like I still love you, I still want to be with I want you to have a good life, you still got that feeling of like desire for them to be happy, then you’ve got a chance, but you need to use what we’ve talked about today as a kind of guidelines for like, where are we in the red and where are we in the greed? You know? What are the bad things are we doing according to the data? And what are the good things that we’re not doing according to the data and how do we fill those gaps? IPs, you know, how do you have a discussion about your moral code to make sure that you’re on board or at least accepting of the other person’s views? You know, how do you be more honest with each other? How do you have arguments without shouting and name calling? Right? Do you need to get some therapy? Do you need to get a coach? Do you start sharing money? What does the data tell you that you’re doing? Because if you’re already on the downward slope, it can’t hurt to go with facts and evidence. Much better than your mother in law’s advice, or what you saw in a Cosmo magazine, or what the red pill podcast guys are bitching about, go with the science on this one, in elite, or at least start there. Or talk to someone like myself, bring your relationship like as a summary from both of you of what you think is happening, what you both think is going right what you both think is going wrong. And get someone who knows what they’re talking about to give you a diagnosis. To say, here’s the problem area, that things actually okay, this is very dangerous, and so on. And give you solutions. If you guys had a conversation like this every morning, if you made sure to touch each other, this amount, and so on. You know, maybe you can climb out of this hole if you think this person really is right for you. And the only reason that you guys aren’t working out is because you bring like insecurity and trauma, both of you are coming with baggage. You know, the sort of the wounded children underneath their baggage really do like each other. It’s just the baggage is getting in the way of what could be a wonderful relationship, then yes, you do the work on it. If nothing else, working on it with this partner, will be the work you need to do for future relationships. Even if it doesn’t work out with this one. It’s best practices with a real life person. So get in touch. If I can help you with that dan@brojo.org. Go have a look at the research or have the citations linked below wherever this is posted. Instead of trying to guess and just going with what you feel, and listening to read the podcast from guys who don’t know how to maintain a long term relationship. Try going with the data putting some changes in place talking this through with your partner, maybe sharing this podcast with them and doing the work. Because here’s the one thing most married people weren’t told at the start. Or they were told but they didn’t understand the full depth of it.

You have to work in a marriage. Now if you have to work really really hard all the time, then you shouldn’t be married. But it isn’t just fucking love and roses the whole way you go through downward patches, you had barriers you didn’t see coming. You had difficult situations that don’t look like they can be resolved. That’s the reality of marriage. You have bad weeks. You have bad months sometimes. But if you can think in decades, think this is always an opportunity for me to develop myself. If nothing else, I can use this marriage problem as a way for me to become a better person for my own good. Then, if everyone followed that maybe these divorce rates won’t be so fucking high. Thank you for listening. See you all next time.