The Truth About Marriage: Why a 70% Failure Rate Hasn’t Stopped Anyone

According to New York divorce attorney James Sexton, marriage fails catastrophically at least 70% of the time. In his fourth interview with Soft White Underbelly’s Mark Laita, Sexton—who has spent 25 years representing clients through divorces—delivers a sobering assessment: Over 50% of marriages end in divorce, and another 20% persist miserably because people don’t want to split assets, upset children, or violate religious beliefs.

Yet despite these marriage failure statistics, millions of people continue walking down the aisle every year. Why? Sexton’s answer might surprise you.

The Math That Should Terrify Us (But Doesn’t)

“My dream is to engage in something that fails 70% of the time,” Sexton says sarcastically in the interview. “Sounds like a really stupid thing to say.”

When you examine marriage success rates objectively, the numbers are damning. If any other life decision carried a 70% failure rate, rational people would avoid it. Imagine if:

Your car’s brakes failed 70% of the time Your surgery had a 70% complication rate
Your business venture had a 70% bankruptcy rate

You wouldn’t proceed. Yet with marriage and divorce statistics, people consistently ignore the odds.

Why We Still Gamble on Marriage

So why do people continue pursuing an institution with such poor marriage survival rates? Sexton identifies several factors driving this irrational behavior.

Pure Pressure from Dead People

“It’s pure pressure exerted by dead people,” Sexton explains bluntly. “I really think it’s because we were told to. It’s just tradition. That’s all it is.”

This concept of societal pressure to marry runs deeper than most realize. For generations, marriage represented the only socially acceptable path to cohabitation, sexual relationships, and children. Though those constraints have largely disappeared, the cultural programming remains.

The Performance of Modern Life

Sexton argues that contemporary society has become intensely performative, particularly with social media. Instagram and marriage are now deeply intertwined in ways previous generations never experienced.

“I have never seen so much wedding-related content,” he observes. “I am genuinely of the mind that there are a large number of women out there in their 20s and 30s that want to get married so they can have Instagram content.”

The social media marriage phenomenon creates a cycle: engagement video content, wedding planning content, bachelorette party content, honeymoon content, pregnancy content. Each life milestone becomes fodder for the performance of the perfect life.

“Everyone’s life has now become like a 1990s TV drama,” Sexton notes. Modern marriage expectations now include not just a partnership but a compelling storyline for public consumption.

Fear of Loneliness

At its core, Sexton believes marriage addresses “the basic problem of human loneliness and a sense of validation.”

He offers a provocative definition: “What we mean when we say we love someone is that we prefer the senseless pain that we inflict on each other to the senseless pain we would feel if we were alone.”

This fear of being single drives people toward marriage even when they recognize its risks. The unknown pain of loneliness seems worse than the statistically probable pain of divorce.

The Illusion of “The One”

Despite 8 billion people on the planet, most people convince themselves they’ve found their singular soulmate—usually someone who lives or works nearby.

“You’re scared because you haven’t accepted the fact that there are 8 billion other people that you could be with,” Sexton tells clients considering marriage out of fear of loss.

The belief in soulmates and marriage creates artificial scarcity. People think: “This is my person. I just happened to meet them two blocks from where I live. Out of the 8 billion choices, this is the only one that I could ever love.”

Sexton finds this statistical impossibility fascinating: “If that’s true, that is the most amazing coincidence in the world.”

What Makes Marriage So Likely to Fail?

Beyond the basic incompatibility of two people living together long-term, Sexton identifies specific factors that doom modern marriages.

Nobody Knows What They’re Supposed to Do

“One of the fundamental problems in relationships in modern society is that no one has any idea what they’re supposed to do anymore,” Sexton observes.

The elimination of traditional gender roles in marriage hasn’t been replaced with a clear alternative framework. Previous generations had defined (if often unfair) roles. Today’s couples must negotiate everything from scratch—who earns money, who handles domestic tasks, who makes major decisions.

This ambiguity creates constant friction. “Whatever you do, there is a chorus of people that will tell you you’re doing it wrong,” Sexton notes about modern parenting and partnership decisions.

Information as Garbage

“Information has become a form of garbage,” according to Sexton. The internet provides contradictory advice on every aspect of relationship management: “You need to be more disciplined with your children. Well, you need to be more empathetic with your children.”

This information overload paralyzes decision-making and creates second-guessing. Couples constantly wonder if they’re doing marriage “right” based on conflicting expert opinions.

The Courtroom Advantage

Sexton also highlights a fundamental unfairness in the marriage contract: “Any contract where one side is enforceable and the other side is not enforceable, we call that a contract of adhesion. It’s not a fair contract.”

In marriage, financial obligations can be enforced by the state after divorce. Emotional obligations (affection, intimacy, compassion) cannot. “The state can continue to enforce your obligation to pay my bills,” Sexton explains, “but the state cannot force you to have sex with me or be nice to me.”

This imbalance particularly disadvantages the higher-earning spouse in divorce settlements, creating a rational economic argument against marriage for successful people.

The Novelty Problem

Perhaps most fundamentally, humans struggle with sustained novelty in long-term relationships. “No one’s a hero to their butler,” Sexton quotes. “If you live with someone long enough, you’re eventually going to have heard all their stories, all their jokes.”

This relationship boredom is inevitable. The intense early attraction—where you “look different to yourself” through your partner’s eyes—fades. Sexton compares it to buying a new car: exciting initially, but eventually “just your car.”

What’s curious is that this doesn’t happen with all relationships. “I have elderly dogs and I’ve never looked at my elderly dogs and thought I got to get a puppy,” Sexton notes. “I love them more and more.”

Why do we tire of spouses but not pets? Sexton doesn’t have a definitive answer, but he observes it’s part of human psychology around romantic relationships.

The Two Marriages That Actually Work

In all his years of practice, Sexton has identified only two couples he considers genuinely, sustainably happy in marriage. What makes them different?

Clear Expectations

These couples “are very clear in their expectations of each other” and “very clear in what their roles are.”

One husband told Sexton his requirements were simple: “Clean kitchen counters and a lot of sex. Everything else is negotiable.”

After 30 years, the wife has delivered. She had her own list (reliability, fidelity, emotional presence), and he’s met those expectations.

This clarity about marriage expectations eliminates the guesswork and resentment that plague most relationships.

Maintained Romance

These successful couples think of each other as boyfriend and girlfriend, not just spouses. They make regular time away together. They pursue each other actively rather than taking the relationship for granted.

“She still refers to him as her boyfriend,” Sexton marvels. “After 30 years, two kids, she’ll put on Instagram, ‘Can’t wait for my boyfriend to get home.'”

Honest About What They Want

Most importantly, these couples don’t pretend their needs are more noble than they are. They acknowledge wanting practical things from marriage without shame.

The Greek Chorus Effect

Social media has created what Sexton calls the “Greek chorus effect”—whatever you believe, you can find thousands of people online who will validate that belief.

“Everybody can now find a room that’s going to tell them whatever they want,” he observes. Women join Facebook groups about narcissistic abuse that convince them every relationship problem stems from narcissism. Men find online communities that blame all their problems on women.

This echo chamber effect makes failing marriages worse. Instead of working through problems, partners get validation from their digital tribes that they’re right and their spouse is wrong.

Why Successful People Increasingly Avoid Marriage

Sexton notes a growing trend: successful men opting out of marriage. “I know a lot of young men that are just saying, ‘Yeah, I’m not getting married. Why would I get married? Why would I expose myself in that way?'”

The common response—dismissing these men as “redpilled” or “blackpilled”—ignores the legitimate concerns underlying their decision.

“They’re treating dandruff with decapitation maybe,” Sexton acknowledges, “but maybe what we need to do is start having a serious conversation about what are the risks of getting married and what are the benefits of getting married.”

With modern society, you don’t need marriage to:

• Have children
• Cohabitate with a partner
• Build a life together
• Have legal protections (domestic partnerships offer many of the same benefits)

So what exactly is modern marriage providing that justifies its risks?

The Brutally Honest Assessment

Sexton’s most cutting observation: “Divorce is so expensive. People cannot afford to get divorced anymore.”

The cost of divorce—both financial and emotional—keeps many couples trapped in unhappy marriages. This creates the “20% who are pretty miserable but stay together” category.

Meanwhile, the cultural narrative around marriage remains relentlessly positive despite contradicting evidence. “We don’t really value marriage anymore,” Sexton argues. “We don’t tell it as a story to be proud of anymore. And maybe because it isn’t.”

What This Means for Your Relationship

If you’re considering marriage or struggling in one, Sexton’s insights offer several takeaways:

Acknowledge the risks honestly. Don’t pretend you’re exempt from marriage statistics. Understand what you’re signing up for.

Define expectations explicitly. Before marrying, have explicit conversations about roles, responsibilities, and what you each expect from the partnership.

Recognize marriage and love are different. “I don’t think love and marriage have a whole lot to do with each other,” Sexton says. You can have deep, meaningful love without the legal institution.

Question whether you need marriage. Just because it’s traditional doesn’t mean it’s right for you. Consider whether cohabitation or domestic partnership might better serve your needs.

If you marry, maintain the romance. The successful couples Sexton knows actively work to keep their relationship fresh rather than settling into complacent cohabitation.

The Uncomfortable Conclusion

Marriage, as currently structured, “fails over 50% of the time catastrophically in divorce,” plus another 20% who persist miserably. That’s a 70% failure rate for one of life’s most important decisions.

Yet millions pursue it anyway—driven by tradition, social pressure, fear of loneliness, and Instagram content opportunities rather than rational assessment of risks versus benefits.

Sexton’s 25 years witnessing marriage dissolution have made him neither a romantic nor a cynic. He’s a realist who believes love is “the best thing in life” while recognizing that the legal institution of marriage often undermines rather than supports that love.

“We made this shit up,” he emphasizes. “Marriage is something we made up. It’s a state institution. That’s it.”

His advice? Be honest about what you want, communicate expectations clearly, and don’t assume marriage is necessary just because everyone else is doing it. Given the marriage failure rates, maybe it’s time to question whether we’re all making a rational choice—or just following pressure from dead people.

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Credit: James Sexton interview on Soft White Underbelly YouTube channel. James Sexton is a New York divorce attorney and author of “How To Stay In Love” and “If You’re In My Office It’s Already Too Late,” available on Amazon.