What is more important when choosing a life partner? [I Marriage]

Love or friendship?
If a person chooses love, it may wane, in fact, many marriages are consummated with lust.
What is left when the love/lust withers?
To be friends with ones life partner has more positives than a love/lust union?
This is a question asked by Gusman, single forever

This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »

HootyTheNightOwl

The problem with this question is that you haven't really expressed any negatives on what can go wrong with the friendship aspect of the union - and, yes, there are things that have the potential to go wrong in this area, too.

People can grow apart over time, or discover that they didn't have as much in common as they first thought. There's also the danger of getting too comfortable with the partner and taking each other for granted.

Gusman · 61-69, M

@HootyTheNightOwl In marrying a friend, I assume the friendship has been long term with plenty of shared interests.
Then the question asked - why marry? why not continue as friends living together?
I watched so many of my peers marry early and end up detesting each other.

HootyTheNightOwl

@Gusman That's just it, though. Presumptions seldom work out like you might think in the real world. People change over time.

As far as why people marry goes... it's no secret that the law will look after the widow better in the event of the man's death than it does if they never married at all. Unless they have a watertight will, which lays everything out in the open - and presuming that no one is successfully able to challenge it, marriage is the best security that a man can give the one that he loves.