Study life - quick!

Cramming for exams is not as bad as it seems. You can take in weeks worth of knowledge and within days, you know it all! Life on the other hand doesn't work like that. I'll get to what that means later on. First, let me preface this post with a habit of mine- I love to hear stories about how couples meet and how guys propose. Lately though, I've bumped into a couple of nurses, as well as older friends who have opened up about how their marriages failed. I've found myself to be more and more curious about what led to these divorces. Mainly - what changes between pre-marriage and post-marriage. From what I've heard so far, none of the people I've talked to said that they had any inklings or clues that their partner wasn't a good choice. It seems like all of them said that things changed after marriage. This is pretty scary! Does this mean that most people are fake initially and that someone's true personality comes out after marriage? Does it mean that people aren't good at reading others? I know that it takes time to get to know someone well - unlike studying, you can't cram knowing someone. You can't take decades of choices and life experiences that someone went through and assume you've figured it all out. Of course there are exceptions - I know of one set of parents who got engaged after two months and are still happily together. However, I'm generally left confused about why there are so many couples who end up in divorce. One of the Doctors that I worked with said the main reason people divorce is because they are greedy. They don't take the time to give to each other and make things work. But I think there's more to it than that. It makes me wonder - do people read in between the lines? Do they watch how their partner behaves when they're down, when they're happy, when they're angry, and when you're at your lowest point? Do they observe what their family's like? Do they watch if they put similar effort into the relationship? Do they keep mental note (I call them mental post it notes) of what their partner's like over time? If everyone does these things, and still go through divorces, then it's not an encouraging thought at all. But on the other hand, I doubt everyone reads between the lines or observes people's habits as much as I do - I remember how one of my friends didn't like that I keep mental post it notes regarding some of the things he did, whereas I thought it was absolutely normal, whatever normal means. In the long run though, I think this habit's useful to have, but as time passes by, I'm going to keep listening to life's stories. Afterall, if watching my bro get in trouble when we were kids helped me avoid making the same mistakes, then I certainly hope that my love for hearing other people's stories will help me to keep going in the right direction!