I am still on my first wife. I married very young. I was 20 years old when I married my wife and we had already lived together for more than a year by this time. My wife was a year and a half older than me....so I married an older woman.
I don't know what magic makes a good lasting relationship because there is some mystique involved. My wife and I were two of the most unlikely people to marry and stay married all these years for a number of reasons which I won't go into here. The one thing both of us were on the same page about was commitment and being real about who we were. We didn't go into this longtime relationship with the idea we could change each other to suit our needs.
Over the years, we have seen many friends marry and divorce. It is sad. Divorced people are never the same as they once were. In the case of our friends and family who have divorced, there was nothing outrageous in their relationship, which is to say no one was beating the other one up or the like.
Maybe I got lucky. So many guys say they married the consummate bitch. My wife is an angel. I know the difference too because my mother was the woman no man should marry if they want any peace in their life after marriage.
I suspect physical attraction clouds folks judgment. A physically beautiful person is not necessarily the person you should commit the rest of your life too. A wife is not a "trophy" but a partner for life.