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For many, probably most of us, marriage is the most fundamental goal we have. Lifelong partnership is said to be the foundation of a good life, and whenever it fails, it’s often regarded as more the exception than the rule. We say “it just didn’t work out,” or “they grew apart,” things that subtextually hold lifelong marriage as the default.

Have you ever wondered what divorce lawyers think about this, however? They are, of course, on the front lines of how marriages break up, and know more than probably most of us about what causes them to founder. Do THEY see these ruptures as unfortunate one-offs? Not by a long shot, at least according to one divorce lawyer out there.

A woman shared the hot take on marriage she heard from a divorce lawyer.

I’m going to admit my biases here and say that I think marriage as we tend to culturally regard it is a fundamentally unstable institution built to fail, and the reason for that is very simple: Virtually nobody who enters into marriage has actually taken the time to figure out who they actually are before hitching their wagon to someone else. And it’s all because they have convinced themselves that finding “the one” makes this often difficult, frightening work unnecessary.

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Carl Jung famously said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” This, in my opinion, is why most marriages fail. That work of figuring yourself out WILL get done for you if you don’t do it yourself, and once it happens, your marriage is often toast. And it’s important to note that “fail” has more meanings than “divorce.” A miserable intact marriage is as over as a divorced one. It just hasn’t done the paperwork.

Anyway, this may all sound cynical and pedantic (and, admittedly, I am), but according to a divorce lawyer that TikToker Luba Kaplanskaya recently met, I have been vindicated! She said she crossed paths with a divorce lawyer at a party, and couldn’t help but pick his brain. “I’m constantly saying, ‘Why is everyone and their mother getting divorced?'” So, she asked him. His answers were surprising (unless you’re a hardened cynic like me, that is.)

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The divorce lawyer said the divorce rate is actually probably around 70%.

The divorce rate is notoriously hard to accurately measure because there are too many variables at play and too much passage of time involved to get a hard and fast answer. As we all know, the generally accepted rate is somewhere around 50%, but many think it’s actually much lower, while others think it’s much higher.

The lawyer Kaplanskaya met is firmly in the latter camp. “He said that the divorce rate is 70%,” she said, and given that math, he said it’s hard to believe anyone actually takes the institution of marriage seriously anymore. Kaplanskaya said he compared it to plane crash rates, which, depending on whose statistics you’re using, is either 1 in 11 million or even 1 in 816 million — about the same odds as winning the lottery.

Yet many of us are so terrified of flying that we can’t do it without being sedated. Many of us won’t even do it at all! But people get married all the time, despite it having, at best, a 3 in 10 chance of failing. “If the chance of the plane crashing was 70%, like the divorce rate, would you still be getting on that plane?” Kaplanskaya said. “And that was his question: Why are people still getting on that plane?” The answer, it seems, lies in what I was bloviating about above.

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The divorce lawyer said most of his clients knew their marriage was doomed from the start, but didn’t listen.

The short answer most people give about why they got divorced was “it’s complicated,” but according to this divorce lawyer, the opposite is true. “He said that 90-95% of (his clients) are with the wrong person from the beginning and they don’t wanna admit it,” Kaplanskaya said. “They get too deep and too far” and refuse to turn back.

Most of us have witnessed this if we haven’t been through it ourselves. One of my colleagues spoke of having been in a wedding where the bride admitted she didn’t want to do it, but when told she could back out, she responded, “But everything’s already paid for!” That’s a pretty astonishing response to something with such potential to upend your life if it fails. And not for nothing, but as a gay person who’s only had the right to marry for a decade, I find this absolutely mystifying. People are more cautious about buying a car, for God’s sake! Anyway, you’ll be shocked to know my colleague’s friend’s marriage lasted a year.

Given how often this apparently happens, the lawyer Kaplanskaya spoke to was unsurprisingly not at all romantic about marriage. He told her he “doesn’t see the point” of entering into an agreement like this, especially given the way divorce tends to wreak havoc on people’s finances, regardless of how much money they have. And he’s far from alone in that sentiment.

Another divorce lawyer, James Sextonwho is also a popular media commentator on marital issues, takes an even bolder stance on marriage: It fails so often, he said, that it “literally fits the legal definition of negligence.” He stops short of this divorce lawyer’s full-on pessimism, however — Sexton has also said that he still believes in love.

But he followed that with a vitally important caveat: A viable marriage involves a willingness to be uncomfortable. Like Jung said, the uncomfortable things you’re not willing to face will eventually show up in your life, whether you want them to or not. Better to do it before walking down the aisle.

: Divorce Lawyer Shares Why He Still Believes Trying To Find True Love Is Worthwhile

John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.