Amato found that these adult children had a low tolerance for problems in a relationship. They grew up believing that if the flame was going out, the solution wasn’t to rekindle it, but to find another spark.

The good enough marriages were good enough for the kids, because kids don’t care if their parents are being self-actualized. They had stability and ready access to both parents, and they were happy. The fact that their parents were having an existential crisis didn’t matter to them.” In adulthood, though, these kids from good enough marriage

First find a good match, then fall in love. Above all, don’t think you’ve “fallen in love” only to learn too late that it’s a bad match.

it’s not whether you argue—its how you get through the arguments. And the more practice you have getting through those arguments gracefully, she told me, the less you’ll argue

Marriage isn’t a constant passion-fest; it’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane nonprofit business. And that, they say, can be really, really nice. Having a solid, like-minded teammate in life is pleasurable in its own way, and for most people, it’s certainly better than not having one at all.

All the experts I spoke to said that shared

To attract the kind of person you have in your mind, you have to be that kind of person. It’s not that all the guys you dated weren’t good enough for you. People need to realize that they bring their own selves into the equation.”

I thought of all the conversations I’d had with single friends over the years about how there just weren’t enough good men out there. But now I was starting to discover something else. Maybe there were plenty of good men, but we were turning them off with our over-the-top expectations.

“We realize there are going to have to be adjustments and you’ll have to be flexible, but not on the basic things—career, children, where you want to live. It’s seeing the bigger picture.