When you finish reading a great book, closing it up for the final time, is your first thought, “Wow, what a failure”?

Or when you take the last bite of a meal, do you consider it a fiasco just because it ended? Or walk out of a party, thank the host for a great time, and then immediately think, “That was some disaster”?

Of course not. You viewed those experiences for what they were — a period of time you spent doing something that eventually came to an end. You may have loved it, or hated it, or something in between, but it certainly wasn’t a failure.

So why is that when a marriage ends, it’s seen by society, and often the formerly married parties, as a failure?