By succeed I meant unending.
But if it is miserable, staying together 'for the kids', abusive, unfaithful etc but still together, is it still a success? Do you see what i mean?
I have a relative who was married (and she's not one to take these things lightly and she wasn't a kid when she was married). It failed after some years. She later found another man, "shacked up" had kids and later got married and have been together around 30 years. Now has grandchildren.
Had she stayed in the other, bad marriage, then things might never have worked out the same, better way.
The failure of marriages can I believe be directly linked to the lack of religion in todays society. No stigma. No consequences.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but surely one of the reasons people shack up is to see if they are compatible. Another point is that there have always been those who have had multiple marriages/divorces and those who had affairs etc, but stayed together. Often it was the richer in society who were able to divorce because their money put them above socieities morality.