Marriage shift may alter the concept of marriage forever

Busy with hospital liquidation here. Anybody in market for 1,000 bedpans? The building will soon be empty and need altered.

Shifted Lotus and cornered. Altered me forever. Avoiding alter and somebody else problems. I have some people that need to be eliminated. Don't we all? I'm in the Blue Oyster Cult. Made a career of evil.

It is after the romance fades and the reality sets in that marriage is more of a practical matter that people seem to be shell shocked. The romance becomes the work of the marriage and everything else is just routine. If you are a person who requires romance then you have to work for it.

Congratulations on twenty years, Glade. Marriage most definitely varies greatly among cultures, and what works in one doesn't in another.
That's one reason it bugs me so to hear fundies rail on about how the only real marriage is one man, one woman, in a church, blessed by a clergyman holding a Bible.

Lepidopteryx;
It seemed/seems unusual to me as well, it works for not only them, but for about a billion other people, it’s a culture thing. That’s all I was pointing out, that ‘marriage’ is not a single universal concept, it varies by culture, time and place. What works for one should not be presumed a workable template for all.
I’ve been married three times, all of them were ‘the one’ at some time, even after living in sin for a year or more, but not so much a few years later. I don’t think there is a magic formula, no way to be sure… My current wife (20+years) and I lived together for four or five years, always assumed it too would end miserably since we’d both been divorced multiple times. We got married primarily to make the finances/insurance easier.
I partially credit our lowered expectations, that lack of assuming, not buying into the fantasy that it would last forever and ever, for its eventual longevity. Without that presumption of permanence it was always a work in progress, never a comfortable sure-thing.

Glade, if it worked for your friend, I'm happy for her.
I just can't imagine my spouse being chosen by a hiring committee, which is what your description sounds like.
Quite frankly, I wouldn't marry anyone that I hadn't cohabited with for at least a year, and I advised my daughter to live with anyone she thought was The One before making it legal.

In the last six or seven years I have been fortunate to become familiar and friendly with a few dozen people from India, immigrting and living/working here in the U.S. in the tech industry. Whenever I see the words ‘romance’, ‘love’, etc. attached to the word marriage I think about my Indian friends and their concept of marriage.*
At first I was baffled and confused. A bright and talented young lady who had lived in the U.S. since she was eight or nine decided on a traditional Indian marriage. Many arrangements were made, and she and her parents traveled to India and for the next month they interviewed potential husbands. There was no ‘pre-arrangement’ but there were some families that got a sort of preferred status. Dozens of fine young men lined up to be interviewed, a few were chosen, essentially as finalists, and maybe some dinner dates, and after much discussion among all the family members a decision was made. A long date was set and the party planners blossomed.
When she returned to work, local ladies were shocked, some appalled that she had agreed to marry someone she’d barely met, wasn’t in love with, had never dated. She did have pictures of the handsome man, a bright, young medical student.
Eventually a big ‘Bollywood’ style wedding occurred in India, the two families became united and the couple returned to and set up a household in the states. It was his first visit to his new country.
Many of us were curious about this of course, but the more I saw and heard, the more sense it actually made. The lady’s expectations were never about ‘soul-mate’, ‘Mr. Right’ or a man who ‘swept her off her feet’ or made her heart dance. Marriage was a practical, almost utilitarian concept. They have now been together for several years, as successful a marriage as I’ve seen anywhere. They started as mere acquaintances with a few mutual interests, became friends, then life partners. This was the way of her own parents, and those of many generations before.
I’m not saying better/worse, etc. I’m just saying that marriage is/can be many things, but most successful ones seem to involve a high degree of expectation management.

*I do not presume to imply that many, most, or all Indian marriages fit this description, I only can speak of those I am familiar with.

As far as sexual monogamy is concerned, it's up to the spouses to decide if that is a requirement of the marriage.
For me, it is.
But I know people who have agreements with their spouses that it's fine for either spouse to have sex aprtners other than the spouse, and as long as they are in agreement that it is acceptable, then, IMO, that is NOT infidelity.

Marriage, ideally, according to the Gospel of Lepidopteryx, is when consenting adults voluntarily bind themselves to one another, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually (if they believe in the existence of a spirit) for the sake of their love for one another. Period. End of sentence.
It matters not whether the adults in question number 2 or 20, or how many sets of internal and external gonads they collectively possess.