MEN DON'T MAKE marriage vows planning to break them. That’s what makes it all the more tragic. We stand there at the altar, full of certainty and good intentions, genuinely believing we can keep these promises.

It’s not that we’re lying—we’re just gloriously, catastrophically overconfident about our ability to override our own nature.

It’s like promising to become a different person, someone better, more patient, more understanding. Someone who’ll always put her first, who’ll never take her for granted, who’ll be the man she deserves. We make these promises believing love will transform us, that commitment will grant us powers we’ve never possessed.

The problem isn’t that we’re insincere. It’s that we’re promising things that require a lifetime of consistent choices, daily acts of selflessness, and a level of emotional maturity that most of us haven’t achieved. We’re essentially promising to be someone we hope to become, rather than who we actually are.

Think about it: When a man vows to love, honor, and cherish “till death do us part,” he’s not just promising fidelity and commitment. He’s promising decades of emotional availability, consistent thoughtfulness, and unlimited patience. He’s promising to be the same devoted partner during both life’s highlights and its mundane Tuesdays. He’s promising to overcome every character flaw, resist every temptation, and maintain unwavering dedication—forever.

The agonizing truth? In that moment of promising, we truly believe we can do it.

The intoxication of love, combined with the spotlight of the ceremony, creates a kind of temporary insanity where anything seems possible.

It’s only later, when the daily reality of marriage sets in, that we realize the enormity of what we’ve promised.

Please understand, I am neither defending nor condoning broken vows. It's an explanation, not an excuse. This is about understanding why even good men, with the best intentions, often find themselves unable to keep their promises.

For many men, the bravest thing isn’t making grand promises—it’s being honest about our limitations before we make promises we can’t keep.

Or, perhaps the real courage isn’t in making these promises at all. Perhaps it’s in being honest enough to recognize that while love may make all things seem possible, marriage requires all things to actually be possible.

The truth is, some of us aren’t built for those daily acts of selflessness, that consistent emotional availability, that lifetime of compromise.

And that’s okay.

There’s more honor in admitting our limitations than in making promises we suspect we can’t keep.

Sometimes the truest act of love isn’t standing at an altar making vows—it’s having the wisdom and strength to walk away before we do.

Because while love might be an ideal thing, marriage is very much a real thing. And that reality demands more than just good intentions.