I greatly admire those who enjoy happy marriages and often find myself curious about the marital status of people I follow. Money and love tend to reveal a person's subconscious beliefs more clearly than anything else. Perhaps due to the nature of my social circle, I’ve observed that among my relatives and friends, less than 10% of marriages remain happy when stretched over a span of 10 years or more. Even investment legends like Buffett, Munger, and Mohnish, as well as myself, have experienced separation or divorce. I believe none of us have any moral failings; we all entered marriage with goodwill and affection, and we all experienced moments of happiness. Yet, they all emphasize that one of the most important decisions in life is choosing the right partner.

I’ve been in a few relationships and gone through a divorce. When it comes to choosing a life partner, I’ve failed repeatedly. However, this doesn’t mean that my ex-wife or former partners had moral shortcomings or unbearable habits. In fact, I made plenty of foolish mistakes that ruined those relationships. After years of reflection, I’ve come to believe that the key to a successful marriage isn’t shared interests, mutual care, or cooperation—it lies in whether both partners can truly understand and accept each other's essence.

The Importance of Understanding and Accepting Each Other's Essence

"Deeply understanding and accepting your partner’s essence" is often overlooked during times of shared struggles. When two people work toward a common goal, endurance or sacrifice is often seen as an acceptable price. However, relationships are dynamic and evolve over time. Whether external pressures increase and catalyze conflict, or decrease and shift focus elsewhere, there will inevitably come a time when the core issues between partners must be faced. If you haven’t gained a clear understanding of your partner during those early days of shared efforts, it may be too late when one partner becomes dissatisfied with the status quo.

Many people mistake familiarity for understanding. Familiarity merely means spending enough time together to predict outward behaviors and habits—it doesn’t equate to truly comprehending someone’s beliefs, values, mental state, or emotional mechanisms. Without understanding, all you can do is endure, not accept. True acceptance doesn’t require you to become the same as your partner; rather, it means continuing to nurture the relationship with honesty. This understanding and acceptance must be mutual. If neither partner truly understands the other, they may still tolerate each other. But if only one partner wakes up to the reality of the relationship, it becomes nearly impossible to continue pretending.

The Challenges and Wisdom of Marriage

Understanding someone deeply is extremely difficult. Without love as fuel, this long journey is almost impossible to complete. Most marriages are either drained by external factors (finances, illness, raising children) or fall into the easiest mode of coexistence (ignoring problems, avoiding confrontation). My heroes understand the difficulty of this journey, which is why they approach choosing a spouse with the same "quality over quantity" mindset they use in investment opportunities. They emphasize caution and deliberation when choosing a partner. However, for most of us, we lack the wisdom in our youth to make such a monumental decision.

Buffett once said that even though he started investing at age 11 and fully understood the power of compounding over time, he still felt he had started too late. Similarly, it’s unfortunate that modern education doesn’t teach students how to understand the two most critical systems: the modern economy and their own psychology. In my view, entering society and marriage without adequate preparation in these two areas is one of the primary sources of modern suffering.

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” — ANNA KARENINA