Thank you for sharing. I’m sorry it worked out so poorly for you!
It sounds like your situation was not at all Pareto efficient? If so, this Vow of Concord would not preclude you from divorce? Notice that the Vow does not say that both spouses must locally prefer divorce for divorce to happen. It only says that divorce must be part of the bargaining-optimal policy.
For example, consider the following scenario:
If we wouldn’t get married, our payoffs would be 0.
With probability 13 we will have a mutually beneficial marriage in which each has payoff +1.
With probability 13 the marriage will be detrimental to me (payoff −1) and beneficial to my spouse (payoff +12).
With probability 13 the marriage will be beneficial to me (payoff +12) and detrimental (w.r.t counterfactual) to my spouse (payoff −1).
(Here “beneficial” and “detrimental” are to be understood relatively to the counterfactual in which this marriage didn’t happen.)
Then, the policy “never get divorced” has payoff vector (16,16) whereas the policy “stay married iff the marriage is mutually beneficial” has payoff vector (13,13). The latter is Pareto dominant therefore the Vow of Concord will select the latter.
Now let’s change the payoffs:
If we wouldn’t get married, our payoffs would be 0.
With probability 13 we will have a mutually beneficial marriage in which each has payoff +1.
With probability 13 the marriage will be detrimental to me (payoff −12) and beneficial to my spouse (payoff +1).
With probability 13 the marriage will be beneficial to me (payoff +1) and detrimental to my spouse (payoff −12).
Now “never get divorced” has payoff vector (12,12) while “stay married iff the marriage is mutually beneficial” still has payoff vector (13,13). The Vow of Concord requires us to stay married. Without the Vow (or decision-theoretic ability to simulate the Vow), both of us would be worse off in expectation!
In practice, I think that miserable marriages are virtually guaranteed to land in the “get divorced” territory, since they tend to make both spouses miserable.
I have a hard time trusting any mere humans to think straight on the decision theory of divorce; the stakes are so high that emotions come to the fore.
There must be conditions, even conditions short of abuse, where unilateral exit is allowed regardless of whether the other thinks that is a mistake. The conditions are a safety valve for motivated thinking. They can be things like “if you’re miserable, having more fights than intimacy, have tried couples therapy for at least 6 months, stayed apart for a month and felt better alone, then you can divorce if you want”.
Obviously that would be clunky in the vows, so there may be a lower-entropy way of saying that this marriage has some unlikely conditions for exit as well as voice.
(If you don’t have this, you risk “one spouse trying to convince the other, unwilling, spouse to accept a divorce”, which is pretty damn bad.)
I had an extremely painful and emotional divorce myself, so I am aware. Although, I tend to reject the idea that emotions prevent you from thinking straight. I think that’s a form of strategic self-deception.
Strictly speaking, the vows don’t say all decisions must be unanimous (although if they aren’t it becomes kinda tricky to define the bargaining solution). However, arguably, if both of us follow the vows and we have common knowledge about this, we should arrive at unanimous decisions[1]. This is the desirable state. On the other hand, it’s also possible that one of us breaks the vows, or erroneously beliefs that the other broke the vows[2], in which case unilateral action might be consistent with the vows. So, there’s no implication that unilateral divorce is completely forbidden.
By Aumann agreement, but even if we have different priors so Aumann agreement doesn’t apply, we should still be able to state those priors and compute the bargaining solution on that basis.
Further levels of recursion are ruled out if we assume that one is not allowed to dismiss the vows on account of an unconscionable violation by the other party without declaring this to the other party, which is probably a good clause to add.
Thank you for sharing. I’m sorry it worked out so poorly for you!
It sounds like your situation was not at all Pareto efficient? If so, this Vow of Concord would not preclude you from divorce? Notice that the Vow does not say that both spouses must locally prefer divorce for divorce to happen. It only says that divorce must be part of the bargaining-optimal policy.
For example, consider the following scenario:
If we wouldn’t get married, our payoffs would be 0.
With probability 13 we will have a mutually beneficial marriage in which each has payoff +1.
With probability 13 the marriage will be detrimental to me (payoff −1) and beneficial to my spouse (payoff +12).
With probability 13 the marriage will be beneficial to me (payoff +12) and detrimental (w.r.t counterfactual) to my spouse (payoff −1).
(Here “beneficial” and “detrimental” are to be understood relatively to the counterfactual in which this marriage didn’t happen.)
Then, the policy “never get divorced” has payoff vector (16,16) whereas the policy “stay married iff the marriage is mutually beneficial” has payoff vector (13,13). The latter is Pareto dominant therefore the Vow of Concord will select the latter.
Now let’s change the payoffs:
If we wouldn’t get married, our payoffs would be 0.
With probability 13 we will have a mutually beneficial marriage in which each has payoff +1.
With probability 13 the marriage will be detrimental to me (payoff −12) and beneficial to my spouse (payoff +1).
With probability 13 the marriage will be beneficial to me (payoff +1) and detrimental to my spouse (payoff −12).
Now “never get divorced” has payoff vector (12,12) while “stay married iff the marriage is mutually beneficial” still has payoff vector (13,13). The Vow of Concord requires us to stay married. Without the Vow (or decision-theoretic ability to simulate the Vow), both of us would be worse off in expectation!
In practice, I think that miserable marriages are virtually guaranteed to land in the “get divorced” territory, since they tend to make both spouses miserable.
I have a hard time trusting any mere humans to think straight on the decision theory of divorce; the stakes are so high that emotions come to the fore.
There must be conditions, even conditions short of abuse, where unilateral exit is allowed regardless of whether the other thinks that is a mistake. The conditions are a safety valve for motivated thinking. They can be things like “if you’re miserable, having more fights than intimacy, have tried couples therapy for at least 6 months, stayed apart for a month and felt better alone, then you can divorce if you want”.
Obviously that would be clunky in the vows, so there may be a lower-entropy way of saying that this marriage has some unlikely conditions for exit as well as voice.
(If you don’t have this, you risk “one spouse trying to convince the other, unwilling, spouse to accept a divorce”, which is pretty damn bad.)
I had an extremely painful and emotional divorce myself, so I am aware. Although, I tend to reject the idea that emotions prevent you from thinking straight. I think that’s a form of strategic self-deception.
Strictly speaking, the vows don’t say all decisions must be unanimous (although if they aren’t it becomes kinda tricky to define the bargaining solution). However, arguably, if both of us follow the vows and we have common knowledge about this, we should arrive at unanimous decisions[1]. This is the desirable state. On the other hand, it’s also possible that one of us breaks the vows, or erroneously beliefs that the other broke the vows[2], in which case unilateral action might be consistent with the vows. So, there’s no implication that unilateral divorce is completely forbidden.
By Aumann agreement, but even if we have different priors so Aumann agreement doesn’t apply, we should still be able to state those priors and compute the bargaining solution on that basis.
Further levels of recursion are ruled out if we assume that one is not allowed to dismiss the vows on account of an unconscionable violation by the other party without declaring this to the other party, which is probably a good clause to add.