Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast, where we provide one lesson every single day to help you with your most important job, being parent.

I'm Ryan Holiday, and I draw these lessons from ancient philosophy, modern psychology,

practical wisdom, and insights from parents just like you all over the world. Thank you for

listening, and we hope this helps. You don't get to just leave.

Marriage is hard.

Perhaps yours is especially hard.

You both work very hard,

or maybe only one of you works very hard,

and that's the problem.

Perhaps one of you has worked very hard on this relationship, and the other hasn't.

Perhaps it's been a very long time.

Perhaps you've drifted very far apart.

Maybe you're bored. Maybe you're just tired. And you don't just leave your husband, Martha, Ingrid says in Meg Mason's beautiful novel sorrow and bliss. Not unless there's a proper, proper reason or you don't give a fuck about anybody except yourself, she says. But what if you're unhappy, Martha asks? It doesn't matter if you're unhappy comes to reply. It's not a good enough reason.

If you're bored and it's all a bit hard and you don't feel like you love them anymore, who cares?

You made a deal. You made the deal with your spouse at the altar or at the courthouse and that counts, but more

you made the deal with your kids when you brought them into this world. You made a deal to provide

them stability and consistency in that you would put them first. Are there exceptions to that? Of course,

there are proper reasons to end a marriage. And those reasons are serious and not to be insulted

by a whim or a fantasy or a desire and not to be insulted by a whim or a

fantasy or a desire for things to be nice and easy again. Greener pastures is not a proper reason. Being

mildly unhappy or stymied or not fulfilled is probably not one either. Rough patches are not.

There's plenty to do, plenty to change, plenty to accept and adjust and accommodate, in some cases simply to endure.

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