Did You Just Get Lucky?

Last week a friend asked Cliff an intriguing question: do you think your marriage is working because you picked the right person, or because you just got lucky?

I gave up the romantic ideal of there being one right person for me (or anyone else) more than a decade ago. I just don't think God or fate operates that way. So if cosmic forces beyond our control didn't pick my partner, how did I happen to choose such a strong match for me?

The first possible argument is that my selection skills were honed to perfection after 10 years of dating the wrong guys. I knew what I was looking for, found the right combination of assets and personality, and pulled the trigger on marriage.

The challenge to that argument is the idea that at 25 I knew myself well enough, and was well enough able to predict who I'd grow to be, to identify in someone else the specific qualities I most needed or desired. When I look back at some of the wardrobe choices I made in that decade, I have to admit my taste was questionable: there's no reason to think my taste in men was any better.

The second possible argument is that Lady Luck had a hand in the selection process: this perspective leaves long term marital satisfaction to a role of the dice. Either you got it, or you don't.

I'm not comfortable with this argument either: I consciously selected Cliff as a partner, and darn it, I want some credit for picking wisely.

Role of the Dice

I thought of all this earlier this week as I read an editorial by Dr. Neil Clark Warren, founder of eHarmony. (For those of you who don't watch television and have therefore missed the much advertised eHarmony, it's a dating website that uses personality traits to select a match for you.) Warren would say the secret of a long and happy marriage is in picking the right person:

 "... The skill of choosing a marriage partner has often been treated as relatively unimportant in our society and a whole lot less complex than it actually is. And herein lies the secret of why marriage has often turned out so disappointingly for so many." - see full editorial here

I interviewed Warren 10 years ago for an article in Christianity Today, back when online dating was less well-known and less reputable than it is today.  Warren told me, "Finding the right person is such a complex challenge in this society that most people can't do it." To counteract the role of the dice, Warren's service uses a patented set of characteristics to match you with a perfect mate.

eHarmony doesn't provide divorce statistics for their 200+ marriages/day, so it's hard to determine if they succeed at eliminating the luck of the draw from picking a partner. So in lieu of legitimate research you'll have to settle for my opinion:You've got to pick the right person. And you've got to get lucky. And the work doesn't stop after you've said "I do."

There is no secret to a happy marriage, but your prospects can only be aided by starting each day by choosing your spouse again. That's not luck or a rigorous selection process; it's just good common sense. It's also the conclusion of a poem by Wendell Berry - a poem I recently saw hanging on a friend's refrigerator.

“The Wild Rose” – by Wendell Berry

Sometimes, hidden from me in daily custom and in ritual
I live by you unaware, as if by the beating of my heart.
Suddenly you flare again in my sight
A wild rose at the edge of the thicket where yesterday there was only
shade
And I am blessed and choose again,
That which I chose before.