Why do married couples often seem to argue endlessly?

There was once a legendary post on Tianya. The author was a veteran judge who, over more than a decade, had handled at least eight hundred divorce cases—if not a thousand. He opened the post with a single sentence, and it received thousands of replies.

He said:

Most marriages in this world may look like they fall apart because of emotional problems, but at their core, they fail because of human nature. And human nature can be summed up in three words: deceit, stupidity, and laziness.

First, let’s talk about deceit.

Don’t assume deceit only means dramatic betrayals such as infidelity or domestic violence. The kind that truly cuts deep is calculation—being shrewd as a fox while still pretending to be deeply in love.

Around here, when people are dating, they say things like:

“You’re the only person I’ll ever marry.”

“I’ll never leave you, through poverty or illness.”

They deliver syrupy lines more smoothly than the characters in a romance drama. But the moment marriage enters the conversation, another face emerges:

• The bride price must be ¥288,000; one yuan less means you are not sincere.
• The home must be bought outright, and their name must be added to the deed.
• Your salary card must be handed over after marriage.
• Do the other person’s parents have pensions and health insurance?
• Will they be able to look after the children as unpaid babysitters?

Every account is calculated down to the last detail. You can practically hear the abacus beads flying into your face.

Then, the very next day, they can stand on a stage and recite their wedding vows without the slightest trace of embarrassment.

To put it bluntly, anyone with even a mild aversion to hypocrisy could feel sick listening to it.

But do you think the most hurtful part of this deceit is the calculation over money?

No.

The most chilling part is indifference within the bounds of what is legally permissible.

When someone mistreats you, your partner refuses to stand up for you and merely says, “Just endure it—it’ll pass.”

When you are hospitalized and need someone to make important decisions, they hide in the background and remain silent.

Whenever something happens in the family, whether major or minor, they pretend not to hear or see it. They live as nothing more than a partner in name only.

If someone cheats, you can at least call them scum. But when someone simply refuses to act, you cannot even find the right words to condemn them.

The one who suffers is always the person with the stronger conscience—the one trying harder to hold the family together.

Next comes stupidity.

Stupidity is even more widespread and destructive than deceit because it is contagious.

Many people have no idea how to manage a marriage. They cannot even follow the most basic principle: address one issue at a time.

As one writer aptly put it:

One issue can be dragged into ten other issues, and one argument can produce ten different accusations.

Picture this scene:

At ten o’clock at night, the wife looks at the dishes that have been soaking in the sink for three days. Holding back her anger, she asks:

“Why didn’t you wash the dishes again today?”

Without even looking up, the husband replies:

“You have the nerve to criticize me? Last month, on my mother’s birthday, who were you making that sour face at?”

The wife immediately raises her voice:

“You still have the nerve to bring up something from three years ago? If my family hadn’t stepped in back then…”

And there it goes.

A disagreement about some dishes turns into an old grievance from three years ago, which turns into conflict between the wife and her in-laws, which then becomes:

“You’ve never cared about me.”

“You don’t care about this family at all.”

In the end, both people feel unbearably wronged. Both believe they are the victim. They cry their hearts out—but the original problem remains exactly where it was.

The dishes are still soaking in the sink.

That is stupidity.

It does not mean being intellectually slow. It means handling conflict in a way that is practically uncivilized—as though the ability to speak is the only thing separating you from an animal.

When one thing goes wrong, you insist on making up for it through something else. Grievances accumulate layer upon layer until they form a mountain—an impossible tangle of emotional debt that can no longer be settled.

Even worse, this kind of stupidity is contagious.

You may start out as a perfectly reasonable person, but if the other person constantly drags you into reliving old grievances, even the most composed individual will eventually be pulled into the mud.

After rolling around in it long enough, you start bringing up old grievances too.

Eventually, neither of you can remember what the original argument was about. All you remember is:

“They wronged me.”

Finally, there is laziness.

The older you become, the more you understand why previous generations placed such a high value on hard work.

Diligence truly is a lubricant for relationships.

If even one person in a household is hardworking, meals get cooked, floors get cleaned, and someone picks up the child when they cry. Many conflicts never get the chance to begin.

The trivial burdens of everyday life are not allowed to wear away at the relationship, so the couple naturally gets along more peacefully.

But what about today?

Many people grew up as only children, pampered to the point that they would not pick up an oil bottle even if it toppled over in front of them. Diligence has become a rare quality.

When both partners are lazy, dishes soak in the sink until they begin to smell, clothes pile up into mountains, and the child cries like an air-raid siren.

Meanwhile, both adults lie on the sofa scrolling through their phones, neither willing to move first.

At a time like that, what love?

What vows?

It is all bullshit.

As friction accumulates, the person with more patience and a stronger sense of responsibility will eventually be drained dry.

In the end, merely looking at their partner feels exhausting. They find themselves wondering:

“How did our life end up like this?”

Put simply:

• Deceit destroys trust.
• Stupidity shuts down communication.
• Laziness creates friction.

Any one of these traits is difficult enough to endure on its own. If all three exist in one person—or if they come together in a married couple—then marriage stops being two people joining forces against life.

Instead, it becomes two selfish people bleeding each other dry under the same roof.

There is never that much affection to begin with. Every wound drains a little more of it away.

Once it has all been drained, nothing remains but mutual disgust. Eventually, they cannot even be bothered to argue anymore.

Many people believe marriages end because the couple “fell out of love.”

That is not really it.

The truth is that whatever love they had was simply unable to withstand the relentless damage caused by deceit, stupidity, and laziness.

Many of the old, perceptive posts from the early internet have been buried, abridged, or lost as their forums shut down.

The original post by the veteran judge mentioned above was much harsher than this version. It was erased completely, along with tens of thousands of replies.

Some say Tianya has long since faded into history. But the folk wisdom and hidden knowledge that once flourished there will never truly disappear.

Today, it simply circulates within smaller, private circles.