I think that this is different for each couple. All you have to do is read some of the tbd posts and you'll see the variety of reasons people stay together. We are celebrating our 25th anniversary this month, so this is truly in the foreground for us. We are a combination of love, trust, respect, and compatability - a winning combination for me, but I respect that this is different for others.

Long ago, I decided never to judge or to try to dissect or figure out someone else's marriage or other relationships. It is puzzling enough to understand my own where I know all (well, at least most) of the details..

we've been married for a long time...like forever. We became locked in at a dance forty years ago...we fought the attraction as being permenant for ten years...then fell together.

its a whole lot more than being married because we're familiar with each other.

I'm in a boat in the middle of the ocean without paddles, water , food or hope otherwise. I'd see my salvation nowhere on the horizon....

Alone in the middle of a crowd without her.

It would be frightening if I wasnt surrendered to it....you fight love....then surrender to it.

I agree with Talia that it is highly specific to the couple in question.

For happy/compatible couples (eg: Milt, Surf66) love is clearly a dominant factor.

For couples who are having a hard go of it and probably everyone to at least some degree: inertia, kids (that's huge), fear of the unknown, finances. In my case also the belief that I would just be trading one person for another and the same issues would come back (on the theory that we're all the same).

I think expectations also play a big role: if you expect little out of marriage, you aren't disappointed, so why leave, even if you are getting little out of it.

I think sometimes a combo of love and inertia. The years do tend to fly by (time flies when you're having fun!) Sometimes I wonder what keeps us going. And when the kids were small we were so busy working and raising them we were on auto-pilot!

What a great question to ponder... I sure hope it's because of love and compatibility... and friendship and comfort and because you've built a life together... all those things. What I admire about the long-time couples I know is a genuine feeling of LIKING each other. You know? Like they are best friends.

I'll comment on my own comment.

I think friendship, liking the person, comfort and familiarity, all good things, also contribute to tending to making people stay.