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When I look around at a lot of couples, I see examples of people who I think have a wrong headed attitude to what a relationship is and should be. Two crackheads can stay together forever, but that isn't the kind of thing that makes up a good relationship. Even mutual interests isn't sufficient for the things that matter. At some point, the honeymoon phase is over. You know all their stories. You're with them at their best and you're also going to slog through things with them at their worst. Just because people are in relationships doesn't at all mean they're happy or functional and fulfilled. And frankly when it comes to your obligations to your wife/husband/children, your happiness can kiss my ass and go right out the window as far as I'm concerned. If the choice is between your family or your happiness, there's only 1 correct answer to that question; and only in healthy relationships are those 2 the same thing.
Most guys I know don't want what it is you're describing. They are intelligent, industrious and very hard working people who want a fairly simple life and were raised in and for a social model that's been out of vogue for almost a century now. We no longer live in a family society. We live in an individual society that isn't conducive to the former. Either economically or socially.
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