You have to have 2 grown ups to make ANY relationship work

I often see people at all stages of life making demands of themselves and others which are completely unrealistic. However, here's the thing. I used to be like this too.

For example, I was very hard on my first wife because we were both young and didn't really understand everything about being married. She was 21 and I was 26 "What did we know". So, it wasn't surprising to my parents for example that we divorced and I was a single father of a 3 year old son by age 29 years of age. The problem was that I had never lived with anyone before (beyond about 2 or 3 weeks with various girlfriends) before I lived with my first wife a year before we got married. So, I had to learn the hard way that ALL WOMEN DO SOME THINGS THE SAME. So, no matter who are are with some things are going to be the same because "They are ALL WOMEN".

Because of this I was much nicer to my 2nd wife because by then I had learned this about ALL women when I remarried at age 32. But, what I didn't understand is "WHY was I the happiest in my whole life up to then with my 2nd wife for the first 7 years and then the next 7 years I was more unhappy than I had ever been in my life?"

This still puzzles me some. 

But, third time is the charm. I married again at 47 and she had already traveled all over the world and so was very worldly like me. So, I didn't have to explain anything to her because she was completely practical from never having been married and having 3 college degrees including a master's degree in Business. So, because we both are very practical and laugh a lot together and because our skillsets are the opposite which means we can together solve any problem a couple tends to face together we have been fine for 26 years so far.

What's the point here?

Unless you have two people who are already grown ups it's just never going to work out eventually. That's the real problem with relationships in life because some people NEVER grow up! 

So, if you are the grown up and your spouse isn't unless you are adopting her to be your daughter or something it just isn't going to work at all long term.