15-04-2025
Marriage is a game. Economics can teach us how to play it.
(Editor's note: Reprinted with permission from "Hate the Game: Economic Cheat Codes for Life, Love, and Work" by Daryl Fairweather, published by the University of Chicago Press. © 2025 by Daryl Rose Fairweather. All rights reserved.)
Marriage is a negotiation game. A marriage involves compromises that need to be negotiated. For example, decisions about money, work, chores, children, and aging parents must be agreed upon. If the inside terms of the negotiation are worse than the outside options for either spouse, the negotiation will fall apart, along with the marriage.
Marriage is a commitment game. Every day we play commitment games with our future selves. For example, when I buy an elliptical machine for my home, I commit to using it. If I don't follow through on that commitment, the purchase becomes a costly mistake. However, it is much easier to sell an elliptical machine than to get a divorce. If you or your partner cannot predict what you each want one, five, or ten years into the marriage, you may wake up one morning and ask for a divorce.
In economics, time inconsistency refers to a situation in which a person's preferences shift over time to the point where they cannot make optimal choices if the consequences come in the future. When I purchase an elliptical machine today, I do so with the intention that my future self will want to exercise on it. Similarly, when people get married today, they do so with the intention that their future selves will also want to be married. However, sometimes our intentions differ from reality. When it comes time to use the elliptical machine, I may not feel motivated to exercise. When intentions don't align with actions, it's easy to make regrettable choices. That applies to the choices of whether to buy the elliptical machine and whether to say 'I do.'
It's hard to anticipate what your future self will be like because it is common for a person's objectives to change over time. Believing that your future preferences will be the same as your current preferences is a form of projection bias. Projection bias is the tendency for individuals to overestimate the extent to which their current preferences, attitudes, or beliefs will remain consistent over time. People underappreciate how their choices, experiences, and environment can change themselves. For example, projection bias can cause a hungry shopper to buy too many groceries. When someone is hungry, they tend to underappreciate how their taste might change after going home and having a meal. Likewise, an engaged couple may similarly underappreciate how their relationship objectives might change after the honeymoon phase.
To combat projection bias when deciding to get married, make an educated guess about your future self and try to imagine multiple scenarios. This is the same exercise I recommend for deciding to buy a home. But when it comes to marriage — which comes with even more emotions than purchasing a home — it's essential to take a step back and view the relationship objectively. (It may help to pretend your relationship isn't your own but that of a close friend.) Think through the best-case scenarios and the worst-case scenarios for the relationship. Weigh each scenario by its likelihood, and make a decision that makes you the best off in the most likely scenarios while still making plans for less likely scenarios. If the default divorce laws in your state or country don't adequately protect you against the worst-case scenarios, then a prenuptial agreement may be in order.
To make matters more complicated, the negotiation and commitment games within a marriage can affect each other. For example, when a couple constantly engages in brinkmanship to win every marital negotiation, that is a sign the couple is not committed to the relationship. The movie "Two Can Play That Game" warns of the dangers of brinkmanship. In the end, Vivica A. Fox's character learns that her constant threats to leave her boyfriend have weakened her chances of having a healthy, committed relationship.
In game theory, brinkmanship is when players engage in a high-stakes game of chicken. Players attempt to gain the upper hand by taking increasingly risky actions to force the opposition to retreat. This strategy is often used when players are locked in a dispute and neither side is willing to compromise. For example, during a cold war, a country may threaten to use nuclear weapons to force the other side to agree to their demands. In a relationship, a partner may threaten to go nuclear: threatening a breakup to force the other partner to give in. However, for this tactic to be effective, the threats must be credible. No cheap talk.
But who would want to be in a relationship when they are constantly treated like the enemy? Winning a short-term game of brinkmanship can degrade a partner's expectations about the value of the relationship moving forward and increase the likelihood that, eventually, the relationship will end.
Making a binding and externally forced commitment, like getting legally married, can help end relationship brinkmanship. That's according to research published in the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization. In the researchers' economic model, commitments with consequences end any brinkmanship. Brinkmanship is an irrational strategy when both sides know they would be worse off breaking the commitment.
So getting married can make a relationship more stable, but it doesn't make life easy. It's easier to worry only about personal goals. Being married is like participating in an endless group project. When things are going well, it's easy to recognize your partner's hard work, but when things are going badly, it's tempting to assign blame to your spouse. At 3 a.m., when the baby is crying, there's poop on the crib sheets, and the laundry is sitting wet in the washing machine, it's hard to stay rational. It's hard to remember you're both on the same team. You can't get mad at the baby, so you get mad at each other; you blame each other or yourselves.
I've learned that the only way to win a fight like that is to take a deep breath and repeat the mantra 'You're doing the best you can; we both are.' Because that kind of a fight isn't about negotiating terms, it's about accepting adversity as a fact of life.
"Two Can Play That Game" has a happy ending: both Fox and Chestnut verbally commit to stop playing games and instead work on creating the type of relationship they want to commit to, in good times and bad. It would be interesting to see a sequel that addresses whether that verbal agreement was a strong enough commitment to keep them together.
Half of first marriages end in divorce, and the share is even higher for second and third marriages. Therefore, it is safe to assume that most couples consider divorce at some point.
Getting married is like locking yourself in a gated garden and throwing away the key; divorce is like picking the lock. Divorce is costly, but when the outside option of ending the marriage is more valuable than remaining married, the cost can be worth the gain.
Some people will never choose to pick the lock. They value the idea of marriage too much; it's too important, for personal, religious, or social reasons. Others see divorce as a viable outside option, especially when the garden is dead, dying, or unhealthy.
Even without divorce, all marriages end at some point. If a marriage doesn't end in divorce, it will end in death, so either way, one person is going to have to go on independently for a short or long rest of their life — a reminder to not take options for granted, because options can go away.
Daryl Fairweather is the author of "Hate the Game: Economic Cheat Codes for Life, Love, and Work" and the chief economist of Redfin.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: 'Hate the Game': What economics tells us about marriage | Opinion
