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A comment on How we end up marrying the wrong person. Parent comment

Re:How we end up marrying the wrong person by aianus on Friday July 04, 2014 @10:31PM (#7990845)
> Empirically, people don't "hold out" during 1/e of their window because, unlike with the Secretary Problem, the payoff in choosing the 2nd or 3rd-best theoretical match is quite high (maybe 0.8 to 0.99) compared to the payoff (0.0 by definition) of never meeting someone as good as the best during your hold-out period.

The 2nd or 3rd-best theoretical match could also have a negative payoff (divorces you, takes half your money + child support + alimony). You can lose a lot more marrying the wrong person than never marrying at all.

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Re:How we end up marrying the wrong person by landryraccoon on Saturday July 05, 2014 @06:42PM (#7993203)
Wow if that's true then marriage is just a horrible bet. Let's say you would date 10 potential marriage partners - you're saying that only one of them would have an outcome better than divorcing you and taking half your money and your kids? I wouldn't even consider marriage as a possibility if the odds were that bad.
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