Romantic love is highly overrated. Romantic love is not as strong as a new friendship based on telling the truth. Romantic love is still fun, though not as romantic, without the tragic overtones of soap opera that come from withholding and being secretive. Those guys didn't make it. They parted, having learned another increment of information about relationships, but not a sufficient one to allow them to make that one work.
Desperation is a terrible basis for union.
If the couple I just talked about had gotten married when they got scared they were about to lose each other, and stayed married on that basis, it would have been a desperate union. That kind of marriage sucks. Loving the holy human prototype is more important than loving the personality. The holy human prototype is the person you see when you look into someone else's eyes without prejudgment. The holy human prototype is like a child.