Learning #1: Married parents are more likely to stay together than cohabiting ones
Research in 2002 that drew on data from the Fertility and Family Surveys of 15 European countries and corresponding data from the USA revealed a sobering finding:
Approximately one-quarter of married parents split before their child is 12 years of age. For cohabiting parents, that number rises to two-thirds (1, 2).
Learning #2: The life-changing knowledge of the Region-Beta Paradox
Region-Beta Paradox: the phenomenon that people tend to recover more quickly from more distressing experiences compared to less distressing experiences (3).
The question is, why?
People tend to act only when a situation reaches a certain threshold of pain/discomfort/’badness’.
Once you see this you won’t be able to un-see it:
- The person who has pain in their stomach but refuses to see the doctor because the pain is not yet debilitating
- The person who waited to leave their job when they were burned out
- The person who remains in a non-ideal relationship with someone who is “just fine”, refusing to leave until a major conflict arises
The costs of this are huge: We delay the pursuit of a potentially amazing future, content to remain in comfortable complacency of the present because the present is not yet uncomfortable enough to prompt us to change.
The solution: Don’t wait. Act now.
