Anyone who tells you that marriage is a fifty fifty proposition doesn't know what he's talking about!
Exactly. It is 100/100 most of the time, with that ranging up to 110 on occasion (or more).
I was talking with my daughter who recently went through a divorce. Like her mom, she and I can have frank discussions and it finally came out that she wanted a guy who was ''outlaw' enough to be exciting, and stable enough to be secure with (like her mom got).
There it is.
That marker moves up and down a sliding scale for different people, with the balance point differing, but that is part of the equation. Another part is the ability to talk with each other, to calmly convey needs, desires, wants and don't wants, while being able to count their blessings, too. For an awful lot of people that is most easily achieved in the absence of mood altering substances (including alcohol), others do what they do and it works, of not.
After that, shared interests and passions pull things together, including family/progeny.
I don't think it is much different for us guys, and the ladies we look for.
But in a day and age where so many people hide behind screens of one sort or another, those connections and skills are hard to come by.