In a monogamous, nuclear family setting, you have two big things that make partners anxious about each other.
The first is that you typically rely on your partner for most things. They're your first, and often only, contact or communication on just about everything. There's a pressure on each person to play every role for their partner, and when they can't, this causes tension and disappointment.
The second is that knowing you can only have one partner, pursuing one comes at the expense of pursuing any/all others. It's an opportunity cost: if they're not the Right One, then any investment you've made in them is something that could have been better allocated to finding or being with the Right One.
Feeling like you're stuck with a person who's your whole social life gives rise to the love/hate dynamics that make a plurality of marriages fail, and a large part of the "stable" ones end up loveless.
Our culture pushes us to both idealize and smother our partners until either it becomes untenable, or we end up living in deep persistent denial. And this happens between parents and children, too. It's been quipped that The Satanic Death Cult Is Real.
The solution is to have communities that are balanced and more evenly linked, rather than just a vaguely grouped collection of obligate pair-bonds. Take the all-or-nothing pressure off the individuals, and they'll appreciate their partners more.
In a monogamous, nuclear family setting, you have two big things that make partners anxious about each other.
The first is that you typically rely on your partner for most things. They're your first, and often only, contact or communication on just about everything. There's a pressure on each person to play every role for their partner, and when they can't, this causes tension and disappointment.
The second is that knowing you can only have one partner, pursuing one comes at the expense of pursuing any/all others. It's an opportunity cost: if they're not the Right One, then any investment you've made in them is something that could have been better allocated to finding or being with the Right One.
Feeling like you're stuck with a person who's your whole social life gives rise to the love/hate dynamics that make a plurality of marriages fail, and a large part of the "stable" ones end up loveless.
Our culture pushes us to both idealize and smother our partners until either it becomes untenable, or we end up living in deep persistent denial. And this happens between parents and children, too. It's been quipped that The Satanic Death Cult Is Real.
The solution is to have communities that are balanced and more evenly linked, rather than just a vaguely grouped collection of obligate pair-bonds. Take the all-or-nothing pressure off the individuals, and they'll appreciate their partners more.